Oh, no, not another of those creepy coincidence-thingies that seem to plague my life! I have just read - or re-read but I can't actually remember reading it in the first place - John le Carré's book Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Having seen the TV series with Alec Guinness a couple of times plus watching the film version (superb!) I know the story backwards but given that it was first published over 40 years ago I can be forgiven for not recalling exactly if and when I first read it. Anyway, reading it last week was like starting all over again and I was surprised not to enjoy it more than I did. Le Carré's style is, it seems to me, unnecessarily oblique. Also, his constant search for obscure surnames for his characters - Smiley, Guillam, Alleline, Lacon - was a minor irritant. Even so, the plot, loosely based on the activities of the late and deeply unlamented Kim Philby, is superb.
Anyway, no sooner had I finished that, and carefully hidden away my cloak and dagger, when last night I watched Elizabeth I's Secret Agents on BBC2. This was simply terrific and if you have the ability - way above my pay grade, I'm afraid to say! - to work out that 'play back' system then I urge you to watch it. There are another two episodes to come. This one told the story of that great Elizabethan 'Smiley', William Cecil, and how he and his spy network kept Protestant Elizabeth safe on the throne - and we Brits safe from Catholic Europe ('SoD' please note: Plus ça change mais plus c'est la même chose!) With enormous guile and extraordinary skill, Cecil and his agents quietly 'stitched up' Mary Queen of Scots leaving the Queen no alternative but to allow her execution.
Anyway, I must dash, pausing only to fix my false beard and moustache as I sidle round to the paper shop to pick up The Daily Mail and decipher their hidden messages!
ADDITIONAL: One good outcome from my watching the history of William Cecil is that it has given me a boot up the backside to keep going on with Andrew Roberts' massive biography of Lord Salisbury who was a 19th century descendant in the family line. After this slight pause, of course, I will need to do some exercises to ready myself for the task of actually lifting the bloody book up!
Lordy, hidden messages in the DM, that'd be a first.
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 09:45
Guillam Wasn't that the name of Bill the Bastard of 1066 infamy?
Mind you while Bill was running amok "down South" my lot were indulging in the family business "up North". Things just aren't the same since there are no more monasteries to pillage.
Posted by: AussieD | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 10:45
Well, AussieD, I have it on good authority that nunneries are much more fun than monasteries!
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 11:41
Just before attacking the nunnery, the Viking commander addressed his wrecking crew:
Posted by: TheBigHenry | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 17:23
Good to read we have always been ahead of the pack at espionage aka being complete bastards. Although it has to be said that the jeans in Poland Ukraine and Russia outdid us in in bastardry, as did the naps in China and latterly the ragheafs in most places... so maybe we're just useless bastards!
Posted by: Cuffleyburgers | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 18:35
So that's Germans japs and ragheads (talking about useless bastards)
Posted by: Cuffleyburgers | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 18:37
David, hire yourself a page turner/book holder!
Posted by: Whitewall | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 19:02
Thanks for the recommendation, David. I am always reluctant to watch anything on the Biased BBC, but I took your words to heart and watched this on Catch Up and was impressed. Fascinating stuff, without indulging for once in the horrors of torture and execution etc., and apart from the rather feministy historian on Elizabeth I, pretty well balanced. I thought.
Posted by: mike fowle | Tuesday, 24 October 2017 at 19:17
On this date in 1415, The Battle of Agincourt took place. By all accounts it was a rousing victory! Well done to all who might have been there or maybe remember it.
Posted by: Whitewall | Wednesday, 25 October 2017 at 13:12
Well, of course, I was there with my trusty bow and arrow, or at least, I feel old enough these days to imagine that I might have been there! Actually, I did visit the site once and it has not changed drastically. Back then it had woods on either side, one of which has now disappeared, and they acted rather like a funnel so that as the French cavalry advanced they were squeezed into a smaller and thus over-crowded area. This provided the very best of targets for the archers whose arrows, where-ever they landed, were bound to hit an enemy. Bit like shooting fish in a barrel!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 25 October 2017 at 13:37
Bit like shooting fish in a barrel!
I am told you can get a lot more fish by rolling something splody over the stern. Never done it myself - only hearsay.
Posted by: AussieD | Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 06:25