Dangdngdnng dang dngdngdng, bahnaaahnenenaaahhh! (That’s the James Bond theme tune for any of you non-musical ear’d folks…) Your dreams of being Jimmy/a Bond Babe may finally be realised. Well, you’ll have an accessory at least to help you along your way. The London family business that has supplied umbrellas to the royal family for decades (free ones nicked from stands in restaurants apparently don’t cut it for them) has disclosed efforts to design “bulletproof” and “parachute” versions of their brollies.
Chief executive of Fulton Umbrellas in Park Royal, Nigel Fulton, revealed company boffins made a prototype with a Kevlar canopy that successfully blocked bullets in tests. However, unfortunately…it was so heavy it would have been totally impractical for everyday use. WELL, not if you had guns like Craig’s (aka muscles, not machinery…we don’t want to be that Bond), but that’s a story for another time. As well as that, the parachute version designed as a possible escape mechanism for people trapped in tall buildings also had to be rejected after analysis showed the canopy would need to be 20 metres wide to stop an adult plummeting to the ground. So all in all…rather unsuccessful we think. Still, we’re closer to our dreams and that’s what matters. Anyhow, we wouldn’t need to use the bulletproof brolly every day…only when on missions, duh!