New Delhi, Aug. 28 -- James Bond is dead. Not only on screen-although the last of the Daniel Craig outings, No Time To Die, was indeed a weepie that killed him-but the character himself is now a perfectly lacquered fossil: aesthetically pleasing in a showcase, but dead as disco, and flagged with cautionary labels for young, impressionable visitors. 007, for all his glory, is incapable of actually evolving, and to drag James into 2025 appears not merely futile, but a little uncouth. Placing a trigger-warning on a man licensed to kill is like driving an Aston Martin to a vegan food-truck.

Thus I urge Amazon, the new owners of the franchise, to not cast a new Bond. The best one-liners have long since detonated, the martinis have been shaken...