Live and Let’s Bow Tie
This year's International Jim Fanning Friday took place on Friday 16th February. In 24 hours, the Licence to Queer community raised hundreds of pounds for PAPYRUS - Prevention of Young Suicide.
Jim/Samedi art by Pat Carbajal, logos by Reuben Wakeman
‘Jim Fanning Friday’ is now a firm fixture in the Bond fan calendar. It’s always been an opportunity to bring people together and this year was no exception. Dozens of people took part by submitting photos of themselves (or their pets!) wearing bow ties in honour of a fan favourite character: MI6’s antiquities expert Jim Fanning (as depicted in 1983’s Octopussy).
This year, we also tied in Jim Fanning Friday with our chosen charity for the year, Papyrus - Prevention of Young Suicide. For every person who posted a picture, I donated an additional £1.
Along with generous donations throughout the course of the Friday, this brought the total raised to £1,176. Not bad for a fundraiser launched only the month before!
You can read more about our 2024 fundraising here:
https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/time-to-donate
In addition to people posting pictures of themselves and their pets, we also had original artworks from Pat Cabajal, Dave Brown and Adam Stone.
Adam (aka Low Bell Studio) captured the essence of Jim Fanning Friday beautifully, both pictorially and verbally:
“Taking something so seemingly inconsequential and elevating it to a place of joy is at the heart of Jim Fanning Friday, which is all about finding space for positivity amidst struggles and giving yourself permission to feel good.”
Adam’s gorgeous art is below:
This year's community-wide International Jim Fanning Friday was called 'Live and Let's Bow Tie'.
All you needed to do to take part was don a bow tie, take a selfie and use the hashtag #JimFanningFriday. You could also add the logos designed by Reuben Wakeman.
Coverage of previous Jim Fanning Fridays here:
2021: Bow Tie To Die For
2022: Bow Tie Another Day
2023: Bow Ties Are Forever
For this year’s subtitle ‘Live and Let’s Bow Tie’, I decided to go for something with some joie de vivre, inspired by Live and Let Die-based suggestions from several people, including @dressedtothrill007 (Instagram), @timothystylesactor (Instagram), @noir_or_never (on X) and @film_quiz (X).
Some were inspired to channel Live and Let Die with their pictures.
Sal Jones (@senojlas on Instagram)
Chris Eeles (007bookshelf on Instagram)
Reuben Wakeman (Toys of Bond)
Still from video created by Charles Marsh (@Charloid0926 on Instagram)
Thank you to everyone who came up with suggestions for names for this year’s event. There were so many good ones! They should keep us in fun names for years to come.
If you missed this year’s Jim Fanning Friday, you only have to wait until next February for the next one!
Art created by Dave Brown (The Blades Club)
