Bond shaken and stirred by revengeful Chilean mayor

He's averted global destruction, defused bombs, seen off sharks and done all this with sophistication and sangfroid. Finally though, James Bond has met his match. Balding, bespectacled and fatter than Oddjob, Carlos Lopez is a Chilean mayor who confronted Daniel Craig and Olga Kurylenko while they were shooting in a desert town on Wednesday. "When he saw me, James Bond ran away," Lopez bragged.

Quantum of Solace, the 22nd Bond film, has been on location in the Atacama desert, the driest place on earth and one of the least inhabited, since March 24. Lopez is the mayor of the Sierra Gorda area (population 2,356) which includes the ghost town of Baquedano where scenes were being shot.

Lopez, who has opposed filming from the start, ignored a cordon and drove his Honda Accord in between cameras and the action. He was arrested and is due to appear in court on Friday for trespassing.

Lopez's motivations for interrupting filming are varied. Ostensibly, he was protesting at the producers' deception in shooting scenes in Chile which will be set in Bolivia in the film. The two countries have been on bad terns ever since Chile won huge swathes of Bolivian territory - including Sierra Gorda - in the 1879-1883 war.

Lopez also had issues with the police who, he claimed, had been kowtowing to the film producers. He complained that kindergarten children were not allowed out while filming was taking place, and that people had been fined for listening to music too loudly.

But perhaps his prime motivation was nothing nobler than political ambition. Lopez has mentioned he wants to stand for office amid the bright lights of Antofagasta, a city with a population of some 300,000, and the publicity he has created in taking on 007 will certainly have raised his profile ahead of upcoming elections.

Quantum of Solace, named after an Ian Fleming short story, is due to be released in Britain on October 31.