Tuesday 28 October 2014

"Nice belt, **7" - The Secret Agent Belt by Magnificent Bastard


Magnificent Bastard
I've been following the posts over on Magnificent Bastard.com for a couple of years now;



I mean, how can you not like a logo like that?------------------->
 Anyway, The name of this blog comes from a line out of Patton (Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970), so it's not just there for shock value, just in case it may offend your delicate sensibilities.

MB is a magazine-style blog about a variety of men's interests and it's very nicely put together. I like the overall smart-assy tone of the editorials and it is a little corner of the internet that exudes an air of dark wood panelling, leather armchairs, Single Malt scotch and a perfectly-knotted tie. To me, anyway. It features short little articles on various topics as diverse as correct shirt buttoning and Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, for example, as well as a regular "Ask the MB" Q&A section, which is quite funny.

I check this blog out every couple of weeks and it was about two months ago that I had a quick look and saw something that I just had to have. 
It was a nylon belt. 
A belt?, I hear you ask?
Yes. A belt. But what a belt!
For the sake of avoiding any copyright-related legal wranglings, it is referred to by MB and therefore myself as the Secret Agent Belt.
I went over to the shopping page and, after a couple of e-mails back and forth, placed an order for one. At approx. $30 USD ($30.07, to be precise. Yet another nod to that English Secret Agent who shan't be named), it hardly broke the bank. 

It arrived about ten days later, securely packaged. And when I opened the box, there was another box inside it;


Once I took the tissue-paper off, I saw the silhouette of the Walther PPK and inside was a nifty little card;


The belt itself is very well made. Nice thick nylon that's not about to wear out anytime soon. And the hardware perfectly mimics the NATO watch strap that it's based on, as does the colouring. It closely matches the strap worn by S*** C****** on his R**** S********* in G********* (Dir: G** H*******, 196*). The stitching is solid, too. This thing should last a long time.


Now, I am in no way affiliated with Magnificent Bastard. I just thought I'd do a post on this belt because it's so well made and I find it amusing in its take on the NATO watch strap. I plan to get a lot of wear out of this belt over the next few months as we enter the warmer Summer weather.
Although, in saying that, if I were still having to wear a suit to work everyday, I'd probably put this belt on every now and then just to take the seriousness out of wearing a suit. Certainly beats those dreaded Superman-logo and Wile E. Coyote ties that a lot of guys were sporting back in the Nineties.


Yessiree, Bob, it works very well indeed. Now all I need is a bad-guy intent on world domination, and a girl in a white bikini with a dive knife strapped around her waist and I'm all set.

You can buy one of these cool belts here;

Shop - Magnificent Bastard.com

Thanks for reading!

6 comments:

  1. (raised eyebrow) Quite a match! I agree, a lot more classy than such novelty ties.

    By the way... Have you caught the trailers for 'Flemming - the man who would be bond' that is airing on ABC this Sunday? I find it highly questionable to have Flemming typing on an Optima - as depicted briefly in the trailer.

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    1. I bought that miniseries on DVD in Bangkok a few months ago. If you remove the name 'Ian Fleming' and replace it with 'Harold Wallace' or Edward Huntington-Smythe', it becomes a run-of-the-mill wartime spy story where not much really happens. The only major draw card appears to be that it's based on Fleming's wartime exploits. Fails quite miserably. It would have been a far, far more interesting story if they had covered his literary success, the subsequent Bond films and how their success affected him, and the legal wranglings over "Thunderball" that led to his ill-health in his final years. Now THAT would have been worth watching.
      Still, the production values and acting are typically top notch for a British production. At least there's that.
      And you won't see much of Fleming tapping away at a typewriter, either.
      Such a missed opportunity.

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    2. That's a shame really. I didn't sit up and watch it last night as I had company to talk to, and Scotch to drink. Which sounds like I made the better choice.

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    3. Yes, Scott, yes you did.

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  2. Smart-looking belt! where the tear gas canister fit? :D

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  3. Ah, Ted, when you have a licence to kill, you don't use tear gas. You wanna do more than just make the enemy cry. ;-)

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