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Kreises of conscience

Saturday, August 21, 2021

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner Canongate, £16.99, pp576 . In 1928, modest young blue-collar English lecturer Mildred Fish arrives in Berlin to begin her PhD in American Literature. In the febrile, polyglot atmosphere at the […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, America, Berlin, biography, Canongate, capitalism, Communism, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, France, Goethe, Great Britain, history, Hjalmar Schacht, Jews, John Dos Passos, Joseph Goebbels, literature, Lufthansa, Mildred Harnack, non-fiction, Operation Barbarossa, Operation Walkyrie, Plötzensee Prison, propaganda, Rebecca Donner, Rebecca West, Stalin, the Soviet Union, The Spectator, Theodore Dreiser, trench coats, Winsconsin, WW2 | Comments (0)

Beneath the mountains

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Review of Alexandria: the Quest for the Lost City, by Edmund Richardson. — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Afghanistan, Alexander (‘the Great’), Alexander Burnes, army, Bagram, Bamiyan, Bengal, Bombay, books, Buddhism, Charles Masson, China, Edmund Richardson, Harappa, India, Josiah Harlan, Kabul, Kharosthi, London, Macedonia, non-fiction, Pakistan, the British Museum, the East India Company, the Great Game, the Hindu Kush, The Spectator, tigers, war, William Loveday | Comments (0)

My daughter conjugates the verb ‘to spy’

Saturday, December 12, 2020

i.m. John le Carré (1931-2020) . I spy You spew He/she/Pierre Spies We (Graf) Spee You Spanx® They spunk .

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged daughters, John le Carré, Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee, Pierre Spies, sex, underwear, verbs, vomit | Comments (0)

Intelligence review

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

‘For centuries before the Second World War, educated British people knew far more about intelligence operations recorded in the Bible than they did about the role of intelligence at any moment in their own history.’ Nowadays, one might think, few would even know that. But that’s where Christopher Andrew – Emeritus Professor of Modern and […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Afghanistan, Allen Lane, America, Ancient Egypt, army, Bletchley Park, Cardinal Richelieu, China, Christianity, Christopher Andrew, Christopher Marlowe, CIA, Clausewitz, Elizabeth I, Francis Walsingham, history, Holland, India, Islam, Israel, Ivan the Terrible, Julius Caesar, MI5, MI6, Napoleon, non-fiction, Pearl Harbour, Russia, Stalin, Sun Tzu, the Bible, the Cold War, the KGB, the Medway, The Oldie, the Spanish Armada, University of Cambridge, Vasili Mitrokhin, Venice, war, Waterloo, WWII, Xenophon | Comments (0)

Spies like us?

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

A less-than-Smiley response to John le Carré. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged books, George Smiley, John le Carré, lexicons, London, maps, memoir, MI5, MI6, Penguin, The Oldie, walking | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, December 18, 2017

. Band instruments in use by the Salvation Army are worth £86,000. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 17 1908 . A transgender man has had a baby five years after having one as a woman. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, is known as ‘Fazza’. ‘Ein Volk, ein […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, advertising, Alastair Cook, Aristotle, babies, Boris Starling, cricket, crime, death, domestic affairs, Dubai, food, German, health, Hergé, homeopathy, magic, marriage, men, money, music, Nelson Evening Mail, novels, philosophy, religion, royalty, Salvation Army, science, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, shopping, The Waltons, Tintin, United Arab Emirates, walking, West Malling, Western Australian Cricket Association, women, writers, writing | Comments (0)

An unsigned note

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Oldie readers will need no reminding that the heart of John le Carré’s ‘Circus’ – indeed, of his entire ouevre – is one George Smiley OBE. From Call for the Dead (in ’61) to the classic ‘Karla trilogy’, and on til (almost) the collapse of Communism, he battled foe and, sometimes, friend, quite often in […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Communism, George Smiley, illustration, John le Carré, London, maps, Mike Hall, Penguin, publishing, The Oldie, Waterstone's | Comments (0)

theASHtray, vol.10

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Featuring news and views on the espionage du jour, Peter Taylor, Homeland, Spooks, Rubicon, Tinker Tailor…, Ben Macintyre, Americans, Russians, the Chinese, Rwandans, Charlie Dutton Gallery, TASCHEN, FUSE magazine, typographics, computers, Garamond, rubber bands, Marshal McLuhan, Akira The Don, Pink Floyd, ABBA, YouTube, and lollies. — For theartsdesk

Filed in column, Journalism | Also tagged ABBA, Akira The Don, Americans, art, Ben Macintyre, books, Charlie Dutton Gallery, Chinese, computers, FUSE, Garamond, graphic design, Homeland, lollies, Marshal McLuhan, music, Peter Taylor, Pink Floyd, rubber bands, Rubicon, Russians, Rwandans, Spooks, TASCHEN, theartsdesk, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, TV, YouTube | Comments (0)

The Debt

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Big name spy-thriller remake does most of the right things, but somehow fails to land punch. — For theartsdesk

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Ciarán Hinds, film, Helen Mirren, Israel, Nazis, Sam Worthington, theartsdesk, Tom Wilkinson | Comments (0)

Spooks

Monday, September 19, 2011

The beginning of the end, reviewed. — For theartsdesk

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Spooks, theartsdesk, TV | Comments (0)