Bond is not the perfect spy: MI5

New guidelines for MI5 - the domestic intelligence service - stipulated that people applying to be field agents should be no taller than 5ft 11in so they did not stand out, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

That would rule out all the actors to have starred as the suave, unflappable Bond who worked for MI5's sister foreign spy agency - MI6 - in the 007 movies.

Bond stars Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan were all 6ft (1.83m) or taller, the paper said.

'You should be able to blend into the background. Applicants would ideally be no taller than 5ft 11in for men and 5ft 8in for women,' the application form reads.

The government is recruiting 1,000 new spies over the next few years to MI5 to bring the service's numbers up to 3,000.

But there was some good news for Bond - the paper said his employers, MI6, had not yet imposed a height restriction.

Source: Reuters