Episode two of Ian Fleming's 'Thrilling Cities' available to listen online

Programme: 'Thrilling Cities' by Ian Fleming - Tokyo (Episode 2)
Channel: BBC Radio 4
First Broadcast: Friday 17th October at 15:45

Read by Simon Williams
Abridged by Mark Burgess

Click here to listen online with BBC iPlayer.

In 1959, Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was commissioned by the Sunday Times to explore some of the world's most exotic cities. Travelling to the Far East and then to America, he left the bright main streets for the back alleys, abandoning tourist sites in favour of underground haunts, and mingling with celebrities, gangsters and geishas. The result is a series of vivid snapshots of a mysterious, vanished world.

Fleming wrote, 'On November 2nd, armed with a sheaf of visas...one suitcase...and my typewriter, I left humdrum London for the thrilling cities of the world. All my life I have been interested in adventure and abroad. I have enjoyed the frisson of leaving the wide, well-lit streets and venturing up back alleys in search of the hidden, authentic pulse of towns. It was perhaps this habit that turned me into a writer of thrillers.'

In today's episode, Fleming flies to Tokyo where he witnesses an astonishing ju-jitsu demonstration, has his fortune told and is attended in a bath-house by one of the prettiest girls he has ever seen.

Discuss this news here...