Although the Bond movies are mainly viewed as a regular and meanwhile slightly repetitive piece of entertainment, I always saw them as a source of learning particular aspects of life. Here are some useful lessons I took from the 20+ sequels of Bond movies:

• For a man, some scratches or scarves on the skin shall be weared with pride. They are a mans real jewelry.
• For a cool man, it is absolute acceptable to disappear occasionally, so nobody, in particular bosses or admin people dont know where you are (Moneypenny: “James, where have you been. The prime minister desperately wants to talk to you !!!”
• You shall leave no doubt of how little you appreciate any hierarchy, and how little you seek climbing up the career.
• At the end, it is the lonely cowboy who will seduce the most beautiful girls and experience highest pleasure with them. The higher ranks behind their office desks get thin hair and back pain instead.
• It is not considered a treason if you start a romance with a beauty from the opposing force. She will soon turn from an enemy combattant to a curring pussycat (and beside the pleasures she will give, she might even become your most loyal ally).

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Recently I was invited by a friend in Munich to a reading of poetry by an Iranian writer, who died much too young in 1967, only reaching 32 years of age. Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) was exceptional among woman in modern Persian literature, since only an extremely small number of Iranian women in general have achieved anything outside of the home without dependence upon a relationship with a man or male patronage.

From the poems of Forough Farrokhzad, which Kianoosh presented this evening I remember the verses from “Another Birth”

… Life may be that cloistered moment
When my gaze comes to ruin in your pupils
Wherein there lies a feeling
Which I shall blend …

During her short life, Forough not only wrote some of the most influential, beautiful and ever-lasting poetries of modern Persian literature, but she also became a proponent of childrens right, in particular for those from the poor families. Her engagement for the children being isolated and hospitalized for leprosis laid in her honest sympathy with those who are suffering. Unlike modern celebrities, who too often present themself in public with an alibi “social” project, Foroughs activites to help the children with leprosis came from her very personal desire to make the world a little bit better.

From the movie “Moon, Sun, Flower, Play” by the German director Claus Strigel one can listen to Foroughs voice, hear how colleagues and friends remember this extraordinary woman and watch scenes from the street-battle preceding the Shahs dismissal and from the childrens leprosis hospital.