In case your sympathies weren't totally engaged by my complaints about the cold weather in the Bahamas, let me enlist the considerably more glamourous support of Ivana Milicevic.

She plays the enigmatic Valenka, part bodyguard/part girlfriend of our villain, Le Chiffre. So, in the best traditions of the Bond girls, her costumes haven't really required huge amounts of material and correspondingly, wouldn't be your first choice for this chillier weather. Her main job in the Bahamas has been in and out of the water - diving off Le Chiffre's yacht.

As I have mentioned before, the Bahamas have given us several locations for CASINO ROYALE but its underwater attractions are just as useful to the unit as its land based ones.

The crashed Vulcan bomber from THUNDERBALL, for example, remains a popular dive site and the clear waters off the islands have once again aided us in our shooting.

Unfortunately, as Ivana made clear to me, this hasn't been quite as comfortable as my reading of her scenes had suggested.

"That whole experience was freezing cold because I had a lot of underwater stuff swimming in my Bond girl bathing suit and I'm basically free diving. Mind you, I'm in my bathing suit, the rest of the crew that's underwater is in really thick wet suits so it was a freezing experience, especially as I had to go into the water at six a.m."

At least she has earned the admiration of Tony Waye, executive producer and director of this underwater unit.

"She was a great trouper. Fortunately the giant Sunseeker yacht that we had, had a hot water tap on the back and they were having to hose her down with that." We'll hear more from Ivana a bit later in the production but for now, let's head back to dry land to join Daniel Craig and Judi Dench on their location here in the Bahamas.

Until next time.
YARBOROUGH