All shaken up (and stirred too)

It's been Bond season, and I've been wrapped up in a whirlwind of Fleming and Bond-related parties - including my own, to launch the final volume of The Moneypenny Diaries, written as Kate Westbrook. I've spent the last four years 'being' Miss Moneypenny, trying to get inside her head and experience life as it was in the early 60s, living in the shadow of the Cold War.

I've always thought that part of Fleming's appeal - the reason why a world fell in thrall with James Bond - was that he represented a re-blossoming of style and glamour after the privations of post-war austerity. Here was a man who flew to New York to buy his shampoo (Pinaud's Elixir), who drank the finest champagne and enjoyed the rarest of foods (avocados!). He was a sign that we could breathe a collective sigh of relief after the horrors and plunge back into hedonism.

And we've been there, more or less, ever since, catapulting our way to personal fulfillment through the consumption of more, more, more. We've come to believe that having stuff makes us happy and that only by exceeding what our parents - and neighbours - had and have can we find lasting satisfaction.

I guess I did it unthinkingly along with the herd. I wanted a bigger house, faster cars, more exotic holidays. There was a time when I dreamed of couture clothes, of flying to Paris or New York to pick up the new season's hot looks. (I never did, of course, but it was an aspiration.)

Now I think; why? I started Not Shopping almost as an exercise - because I thought it would be good for the planet, but also to see if I could. But over the past six months, it's made me rethink not only the way that I act - whether I need new stuff - but the whole idea of happiness. I used to think that a new dress made me happy. But I've had no new dresses for months and I'm happy now. I used to believe - more or less subconsciously - that people judged me by what I looked like. I know I'm guilty of that. But I'm not sure it matters too much - or that it's going to continue to be the case.

Just because I'm not shopping, I'm not going start growing my underarm hair or wearing dirndl (whatever that is). But would it really matter if I did? I won't brush my hair less often than I did (very rarely). I'm not going to be a different person just because I'm not wearing skinny jeans or we don't have a plasma screen TV. I honestly feel so much better about myself because I'm not shopping. As long as I don't become smug or worthy or judgmental, I hope people will see me for what I am, rather than a symbol of fashionability/smartness.

I think things are changing now: if Bond represented the tipping point of a seesaw from restraint to abandon, I think we're on the fulcrum of tipping back. The economic crisis - which, surely, must only get worse - will force us to take stock of our spending habits. We're already having to tighten our metaphorical girdles. But what I hope is that we'll learn to do it with a sense of joy, and find ways to get pleasure from the unmaterial - particularly time.

The richest people I know are not the happiest. They employ gardeners to tend their beds and get their food delivered by Ocado. They do not know the joy of eating a pea that they grew. We all have room for at least a couple of peas in our life - even James Bond.