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blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year

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To be confronted with a blank page is not very nice. But Hemingway, a great American writer, taught me the finest trick when you are doing a long book, which is, he simply said in his own words, “When you are going good, stop writing.” And that means that if everything’s going well and you know exactly where the end of the chapter’s going to go and you know just what the people are going to do, you don’t go on writing and writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next? And you get up and you walk away and you don’t want to come back because you don’t know where you want to go. But if you stop when you are going good, as Hemingway said…then you know what you are going to say next. You make yourself stop, put your pencil down and everything, and you walk away. And you can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next and that’s lovely and you have to try and do that. Every time, every day all the way through the year. If you stop when you are stuck, then you are in trouble!”

- Roald Dahl

No one can uncover the circumstances behind why this picture of Roald Dahl and Ernest Hemingway was taken, other than it was in London during the Second World War. Hemingway found himself in Europe from June-December 1944 in his capacity as a war journalist.

Roald Dahl was commissioned into the Royal Air Force and was a frontline fighter pilot showing tremendous courage and bravery and who eventually rose to the rank of wing commander. His flying days came to a premature end after a crash landing that nearly cost him his life. Between 1939-1941 Dahl was the assistant air attache in Washington DC and moved around in those diplomatic and political circles hoping to get some inside information and intelligence on America’s intentions and plans with regarding the war in Europe. Bored by his work he fell into the murky world of intelligence and became part of a Brirish spy ring called ‘The Irregulars’ which included the future James Bond author Ian Fleming. His spy work chiefly consisted of mobilising American opinion. This was at a time when Britain stood alone against the expected Nazi invasion and Britain was hoping to the USA would enter the conflict and thus tilt the balance.

When this photo was taken Dahl was a mere 28 years old and Hemingway was 45 years old. The picture doesn’t really do justice to how tall both men were with Hemingway being 6 feet tall but towered over by Dahl’s 6’6” wiry frame. Clearly Hemingway was already a celebrated author with The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls already published. Dahl, by contrast, hadn’t written anything significant yet - like his friend and colleague Ian Fleming - other than his children’s book, The Gremlins, in 1943.

It’s speculative to imagine that Dahl, the inventive intelligence officer and aspiring author, somehow contrived a meeting with the old lion, hoping to get some writing tips.

Photo: Roald Dahl and Ernest Hemingway in London during 1944.

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randomberlinchick · 5 months

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Death of a Codebreaker

Trevor Noah is right: we should all have a couple conspiracy theories that we believe in. He's right about a lot of other stuff too, but l need an excuse to post this.

I'm already on the final episode, and I know there's not going to be any definitive answer about what truly happened to Gareth Williams, because I've read just about everything John le Carré has written and I recently finished Mick Herron's Slow Horses book series. Obviously, these feats make me an expert on British Intelligence, even leaving out my extensive knowledge of James Bond (books and films). The point being that if the intelligence services are involved, then you might as well make up your own solution, because that's about as close as you'll get to the truth.

So, by the time I finish the final episode, I hope to have an intriguing, new conspiracy theory to add to my repertoire. . . because one bit of this is straight out of Mick Herron's Joe Country.

#gareth williams #mi6 #gchq #british intelligence #british security services #mi5 #spy #codebreakers #cryptology #bbc sounds #bbc radio wales #conspiracy theories

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o-kurwa · 2 years

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#grindr #russia ukraine war #british intelligence

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wordacrosstime · 3 months

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Bad Actors

[Bad Actors, by Mick Herron. 10 May 2022. Publisher - Soho Crime. 360 pages. ISBN-10: ‎1641293373. ISBN-13 - 978-1641293372. Weight - 1.18 pounds. Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1.17 x 8.52 inches. (publishing details thanks to Soho Crime)]

In 2010, writer Mick Herron published the first of his 8-book series centered on Slough House, an MI5 property that houses the discarded refuse of the British intelligence apparatus. The slow horses (a play on the name of the facility) are embittered, disillusioned, and disgraced, but evidently not quite to the level of termination. Instead, they labor on pointless, soul-crushing assignments for the Mother Ship of MI5, located at Regent’s Park in London (and prosaically dubbed The Park).

Heading up the slow horses is Jackson Lamb, himself a disgraced and hyper-cynical spy who, for reasons that are never made entirely clear, relishes his command position in this Purgatory of the intelligence community. Lamb is ugly, foul-mouthed, misogynistic, anti-social in the extreme, and has repulsive personal and professional hygiene. He claims to have total disregard (or possibly no regard whatsoever) for the people in his charge, whom he refers to as his joes. But underneath the crass and off-putting demeanor lies a profound and singular intellect and an exceptionally keen understanding of the ways of the world, especially that part of the world dominated by intrigue, deception, treachery and violence. And though he would never, ever admit it, he actually cares about his joes. If anything is to happen to them, it had better be by his hand, or woe be unto the person or persons who got in the way.

The volume under review here, Bad Actors, is the eighth and final (?) book in the Slow Horses series. In addition to Jackson Lamb, many of the usual suspects remain from the preceding seven installments: Diana Taverner, the ruthless and rapacious First Desk at MI5; Roddy Ho, Slough House’s tech genius, a legend in his own mind only; Claude Whelan, who used to head up MI5; Catherine Standish, Lamb’s gal Friday and the bulwark standing between him and the chaos beneath him; and many more.

In this episode, a Downing Street superforecaster – someone who can predict, with startling accuracy, how policies will influence the electorate and advises the Prime Minister on same – has disappeared. Claude Whelan has been assigned the job of finding her. The trail leads back to The Park and Diana Taverner. Just what is she up to? Are her labyrinthine schemes for control of the Intelligence Service coming to a boil? Or is something else at work? Simultaneous to this domestic intrigue is the sudden arrival of Taverner’s opposite number in the Russian intelligence machine, who enters Britain under a false name and promptly loses his MI5 handlers.

Amid the tumult, the Slow Horses become involved in these machinations, for two reasons: One, because they are terminally bored and eager to do something to set their personal records straight and perhaps – just perhaps – inveigle their way back into The Park, even though the history of Slough House suggests that this cannot happen; and Two, because Jackson Lamb hates Diana Taverner and The Park and loves to poke the hornet’s nest whenever and however he can.

Throughout this and the other seven Slough House novels, Mick Herron seamlessly interweaves caustic rhetoric with surprisingly poignant moments. He plays off the Slow Horses against one another to varying degrees while Jackson Lamb lurks like a spider in his darkened corner of proceedings. But when Lamb strikes, they all know to get out of his way (well, all but Roddy Ho who can’t seem to get out of his own way, much less anyone else’s) and let him do what he does best – whatever that is. Lamb, both figuratively and literally, knows where the bodies are buried, and knows this not only within his own agency but with other intelligence services around the globe – including the Moscow directorate. And though Slough House will never get their contributions acknowledged, even Lamb knows that sometimes the only solution to a sticky situation is a few Slow Horses – his joes.

Unlike many of his peers, Herron brings a decidedly literary quality to his writing. Fans of John le Carré will find these novels great fun; they certainly move ahead more swiftly than, say, his Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Len Deighton's Funeral In Berlin. There is a modern sensibility to these novels that will catch the interest of most readers of spy fiction and thrillers. And if one can ignore Jackson Lamb’s foulness, one will be rewarding with some of the most sardonic humor to be found in modern fiction. Herron’s writing pairs nicely with a chewy red wine and some spicy crisps of an evening.

Image credits from top : Cover with thanks to © publisher. Portrait of Mick Herron with thanks to photographer © Mikael Buck and Hachette

Kevin Gillette

Words Across Time

19 January 2024

wordsacrosstime

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ayanasanova · 1 year

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Studying for my new goals.

#travel #writing #study notes #study aesthetic #university #cyberspace #cyberattack #business intelligence #intelligence agencies #artificial intelligence #british intelligence #istihbarat #international relations #international #public relations #istanbul

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stairnaheireann · 7 months

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#OTD in 1919 – Official founding of ‘The Squad’, an IRA counter-intelligence and assassination squad.

The Squad was officially established at 46 Rutland Square on the 19 September 1919. Although at the time it had been in operation for two months and had already carried out two killings. Members were paid £4.10s per week. Officially the unit was a part of the Dublin Brigade under Dick McKee from Finglas, but they were separate from the Battalion structure and directly under the command of…

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aurora-ze-aquarius · 2 years

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I CAN'T BELIEVE I ONLY FINISHED SHUTODOROKI'S BRITISH INTELLIGENCE FIC TODAY WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING THIS PAST FEW MONTHS THAT WAS A REALLY NICE FIC LSKXKSKXKXNK

oNCe I'M NOT BUSY WITH HOMEWORK I HAVE TO DRAW FANART FOR IT

#pixar cars #cars fandom #pixar #british intelligence #cars 2 (2011)#I genuinely loved it omg 😭😭#🌌❔#finn mcmissile #leland turbo

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cooper-cellocat · 2 years

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Rewatched cars 2 and I can’t get over the fact that there is canonically car racism in the cars universe??

#there are SLURS #what is going on #finn mcmissile #british intelligence #tow mater #average intelligence #your mother #is the pope mobile catholic #WHY WAS THERE A GERMAN SCIENTIST #kachow #cars 2

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immaculatasknight · 18 days

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The real antisemites

#British intelligence #CIA #British Petroleum #Rockefeller #Palestine #Nazi collaborators #Allan Dulles #John Foster Dulles #Sullivan and Cromwell #ratlines #war criminals

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forgotten-dead-shadow · 2 months

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The Crazy Plan that Changed WWII : Operation "Operation Mincemea" #incrediblehistory #history

#Operation Mincemeat #World War II #deception #intelligence #D-Day #Sicily #Allied invasion #British Intelligence #Ewen Montagu #code name #misinformation #disinformation #propaganda #World War 2 #military history #secret history #espionage #true story

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the-saddest-clown · 5 months

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Hello tobecky nation. Enjoy this terrible wip of smth that was funny to me in my brain. Becky is not going to finish that book anytime soon.

#I MIGHT finish it later today who knows #but ye this was funny to me i guess so enjoy peepos #Becky grew up and married a British nerd that laughs maniacally to himself in his garage what a loser (affectionate)#i stand with the British tobey truthers because it’s FUNNY #i think that married tobecky should have exactly 2 brain cells that they share. obviously Becky has both of them 90% of the time.#who says that 2 terrifyingly intelligent people can’t be stupid around each other #CAN YOU TELL THAT THE TOBECKY BRAINROT IS GETTING TO ME #anyways.#tobecky #tobey mcallister iii #becky botsford #wordgirl #Joy’s art #*points* BRITISH /derogatory

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mildcicada · 13 days

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#when i was first coloring him in he was gonna be golden chinchilla colored but then i was like ehhh jonah magnus should be red/orange but #elias should be gray ...so i just desaturated what i already did instead of recoloring lol but #he is now supposed to be shaded silver lol #but thats why his coat pattern is on the darker side compared to what it *should* be #og elias bouchard coming from an important/roch family and while whole thing with thinking he just *deserves* stuff bc of his upbringing.#etc. -> he is purebred and matches the breed standards etc for a scottish fold of his color #obviously the eye color doesn't matter because. ahaha #i thought elias fit the Scottish fold vibes because: Scottish folds are known for looking sort of like owls and having intense eyes #and the cat body/face type (also present in british shorthairs) to me gives off sort of... unnasumming vibes?#like ahaha yes i am a boring boss who loves paperwork look at how unnasumming i am season 1-2 elias y'know #trying to think of what cat breed jonah would be. and also jon gerry etc you know all the other characters i like #would it be boring to have multiple british shorthairs #i mean..#Michael shelley/distortion is a laperm that's all I know #i didn't particularly care with the personality attributes associated with eliascat because it didn't need to fit his personality on account #of not being his original body. but i do try to keep in mind the best personality/look/etc. cat attributes as a whole for a character #also sometimes get obsessed with jt making historical and geographical sense but then it just limits me greatly to a point im not into it #so i don't care about specific breeds in that respect lol #tma #my art #elias bouchard #the magnus archives #some notes looking back(made it 2 hours ago but still looking back ok..) on it now are that i feel like elias would never choose this breed #for his next bodyhop because of the inherent health issues in scottish folds. I saw the breed was created in like the early 1960s and #assumed that maybe the health issues wouldn't have been common knowledge until later enough for jonah to be unaware of them but actually no #there's legislation about it like 6 years later LOL so jonah would..maybe not make this choice #i guess in the future when drawing i will just make him a British shorthair #my catTMA is simultaneously 'they are just regular cats or like all show cats or something' and 'exact tma plot but as intelligent cats'#LOL its just vague in my mind idk..also maybe jon can be an Abyssinian #ALSO WHAT WAS I THINKING 'jonah may not have been aware about x thing' like did i...did i forget. me 2 hours ago was dumb as rocks

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catherinetheprincessofwales · 3 months

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The Princess of Wales, Disney Tangled/Frozen era.

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ayanasanova · 1 year

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Diaries of university

#writing #university #study aesthetic #study notes #studyblr #study hard #british intelligence #istanbul #cyberattack #cyberspace #cyber news #cyber insurance #cyber intelligence #librarylife #academic libraries

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stairnaheireann · 2 years

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#OTD in 1919 – Official founding of ‘The Squad’, an IRA counter-intelligence and assassination squad.

The Squad was officially established at 46 Rutland Square on the 19 September 1919. Although at the time it had been in operation for two months and had already carried out two killings. Members were paid £4.10s per week. Officially the unit was a part of the Dublin Brigade under Dick McKee from Finglas, but they were separate from the Battalion structure and directly under the command of…