I don't know about you, but I have fantasies.

From a purely male stance, I may just have a few fantasies when I see a gorgeous, blonde woman, about 36-24-34 (somehow, the metric equivalent of 91-61-86, or whatever it is, doesn't quite sound the same), reasonably close to my age, walk past.

But that isn't the sort of fantasy I'm talking about.

Fantasies are a way for us to escape from the daily routine of our lives but indulging ourselves a little. If we're honest with ourselves, we all have fantasies.

And if we're going to be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that our fantasies are just dreams really. Some of my friends indulge in the "when I win the lottery" fantasy, and then proceed to tell me how they would spend all the money. (Personally, it's not one of my favourite fantasies - mainly because I never buy lottery tickets, so I'd never win, so I'd never have the money to spend.)

One of my favourite fantasies is the computer fantasy. It goes something like this: one day, I'll be rich enough to be able to go out and buy the fastest, meanest, prettiest, sexiest, latest desktop and laptop computers with ALL the accessories ... and then, 12 months later, I'll go out and trade them in for the latest products on the market ... and then, 12 months later, I'll go out and ... you get the picture.

My current desktop computer still has its old SX-16 case. Gradually, over many years, I've changed just about everything but the case. I started off with a 40M hard disk - now I've got 3G. Strange as it may seem, originally there was an SX-16 chip inside the case - now there's a 486-100. Originally, there was just a couple of meg of memory, now there's 64 meg. And so on.

Once upon a time, I used to have other fantasies - I was going to be the driver of a racing car, naturally an F1 car. Despite the fact that there are a few drivers around today who are getting towards my age, that fantasy has gone. Much as I'd like to do a few laps in an F1 car, I now know that it's really too late for me to start now. So the fantasy has had to move on a bit.

Probably, most of the people who are associated with F1 in any real way, whether they be team owners, mechanics, fans, or whatever, have had their own fantasy about being an F1 driver. Down in the garages, they may not tell you that quite so openly, but don't kid yourself. In just about every young mechanic, there's a frustrated F1 driver trying to get out.

But I have another F1 fantasy.

Many, many years ago, a man sat down and wrote a story about a suave, debonair, gambling, drinking, smoking man who had no compulsions about killing other people. In the end, the author wrote many books featuring this other man.

And then, many years ago, someone else decided that the books about this fictional character would probably make some good movies. And, from there, the world was introduced to the world of secret agent 007, Commander Bond, James Bond.

While I have read many of Ian Fleming's James Bond books, I must admit that I didn't really enjoy them anywhere near as much as I enjoy a James Bond movie. For pure, unadulterated - but restrained in

the best British tradition - silliness and escapism, nothing quite beats a Bond movie for me.

We are told that the reality of Cold War espionage was quite different, and that the reality of today's commercial espionage is also quite different to what we see in a Bond film. And I don't think a civilian James Bond would fit into the F1 world.

Mind you, couldn't you see him strolling through the prime corporate boxes on race day? Meandering through the pits and paddock, greeted by all, never stopping in one garage for long, but seeing and hearing everything?

And since he always seems to know everything about everything, he'd have no troubles understanding the fine mechanical and technical titbits he picked up along the way.

Some of the movie titles already lend themselves to F1. "From Russia With Love" - did you hear the rumour about the Russians wanting to get a team into F1? "Thunderball" - how many engines can you think of that seemed to have a nasty habit of exploding on frequent occasions? "You Only Live Twice" - the Karl Wendlinger story. "Diamonds Are Forever" - now where could an F1 team use something that lasts forever?

Espionage is one of those areas which you'd think would be commonplace in F1. All you have to do really, is to sit in the grandstand opposite the pits with a decent camera and set of lenses, and take heaps of photos of every car. A decent techo will be able to get a multitude of ideas from those photos.

Then again, you could just send one of your mechanics down to another team's garage to see one of his mates - and pick up a few tips while he's about it. But a loitering mechanic in the wrong uniform is just too obvious.

Prime candidates for spies could well be the journalists whose job it is to go from garage to garage picking up all the rumours. The only problem with that is that these journalists live and breath for the exclusive, the "scoop", and there'd be no possible way that they'd give that away, and not be able to write about it.

So, what does it really come down to in the end?

Well, it would have to be a mix. Photos of other teams' cars, certainly ones like the infamous McLaren cockpit pedal shot of 1997, are a tool. Mechanics going for a wander down to see an old friend or an old team are also part of the game. As are the journos, hanger-ons, friends and so on.

But also part of the reality is that, within today's F1 rules, there are only a few areas that can produce real, serious, dramatic margins over the other cars, and so, of course, that's where the teams focus their attention. Since there are so few areas for such attention, is it really any wonder that no one team can get the upper hand in that area for very long?

More to the point is that the recent protest by a number of teams against the McLaren braking system is really a case of jealousy because the protesters either didn't think of it first (and get it operating), or thought of it and either dismissed it as unworkable or couldn't get it to work?

But that's just me.