A few last thoughts re the amazingly talented Martin Amis, very much a legend in his own lifetime, and my own very tangential relationship to Oxbridge and espionage skullduggery

A few last thoughts re the amazingly talented Martin Amis, very much a legend in his own lifetime, and my own very tangential relationship to Oxbridge and espionage skullduggery

Remembering Martin Amis: obituary

Celebrating the life of the iconic British author, 1949-2023

https://t.co/NIaPGuA37v

Martin Amis was born in Oxford, so per Oxbridge, the second place that I lived at in Washington, D.C., after arriving in 1988, was a neoclassical tan brick house in Tenleytown, at 4100 Nebraska Ave., N.W. that had been the last home of 1950's 'Cambridge Five' spy Kim Philby and his wife -and fellow KGB spy Guy Burgess- while he was MI6 chief of station. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby

According to the version of the story I was told by my landlord, a Georgetown University Philosophy professor, the house was raided by the FBI -quite unsuccessfully- shortly after Philby and company made their escape, but not before he left a fully-loaded and operational rifle in the top window, pointed at the street below, to scare off any and all FBI agents and interested parties, plus assorted angry and exasperated British officials.

Apparently, my English basement apt. is where they had constructed and maintained a fake wall behind a normal-looking bookcase that hid top secret documents that would later be communicated or spirited away somehow to Moscow. 

The house is next to the immaculately-kept Japanese Ambassador's residence, a few blocks down from the-then Swedish Ambassador's residence, the Washington studios of NBC News, the campus of American University, and the huge Naval complex, which includes Naval Intelligence, where the Nazi sub codes were broken in the 1940's.

My last place in the DC area was a comfy north Arlington, Virginia townhouse on a cul-de-sac I lived in for 7 years, which had been President Ford's daughter, Susan's place.
I had her old bedroom, the largest, with a southern exposure, and we still had the 1970's-era Secret Service-installed wall intercom system, along with her trash compactor, both of which never worked. 

Across the street from me lived a guy who worked at the Naval bldg. on Nebraska Ave. doing NCIS type work if I recall correctly.  

He even had the Mark Harmon mustache thing going on!

This excellent Sky News video from yesterday features Sky commentator Adam Boulton, who is also an Oxford grad, and is well worth watching, 

https://news.sky.com/story/renowned-british-novelist-martin-amis-dies-aged-73-12885619

 #MartinAmis wrote SO many of the best things I EVER read, yet was also the ever-compelling subject that so many others wrote abt, too, like this gem by @Alex_Bilmes in 2010, which I still have.

https://telegraph.co.uk/comment/7134959/Martin-Amis-Women-have-got-too-much-power-for-their-own-good.html

"There's a passage near the beginning of The Pregnant Widow, Amis's substantial new novel of the sexual revolution and its aftershocks, in which the narrator remarks on the protagonist's prescience:

"Unusually for a 20-year-old... Keith was aware that he was going to die. More than that, he knew that when the process began, the only thing that would matter was how it had gone with women. As he lies dying, the man will search his past for love and life." In the final analysis, acclamation, money and success – even such blazing artistic achievement as Bellow's, or Amis's – count for little, if one's personal history is a cause for regret."

This is genuinely amazing and definitely worth reading while you can!

The Paris Review

Martin Amis, The Art of Fiction No. 151
Interviewed by Francesca Riviere
ISSUE 146, SPRING 1998
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1156/the-art-of-fiction-no-151-martin-amis

https://youtu.be/1C6pSeokkiY

Martin Amis Remembered: Legend who was willing to examine the sordid side of his era
Sky News YouTube Channel
Uploaded May 21, 2023 #martinamis #author #skynews

Martin Amis was very much a legend in his own lifetime. He summed up the period in which he lived so very well, of getting over the baby boom, of Britain rediscovering itself as perhaps not as important as it had been, but certainly as a country very proud of its literary heritage.

Read the full story here:

https://news.sky.com/story/martin-amis-remembered-legend-who-was-willing-to-examine-the-sordid-side-of-his-era-12885879

Dave 

David B. Smith  

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Lib Dem MP assistant accused of being Russian spy says 'I will clear my name.' Sure, after you're back in Mother Russia. Adios!; DREAM Act

Channel 4 News: Westminster spy row

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid601325122001?bctid=699597927001

The accompanying news article is at:
http://www.channel4.com/news/i-will-clear-my-name-says-russian-aide-accused-of-spying

To this news in a part of England that has already seen a lot of gnashing of teeth this year, I can only say, just when you think things have already reached rock bottom this year in Pompey... boom goes the dynamite.

Back in late October I sent a lengthy email out to friends and former colleagues in far-flung parts of the world who love and appreciate high-caliber football (soccer) titled, simply enough, "Sacha Gaydamak's demand for a ransom payment may cause Premier League club to close down and be liquidated."

That dispatch was prompted after a weekend spent watching perhaps too many SkyNews Sports reports on Fox Soccer Channel, but reading even more of the more astute British tabs and football blogs/websites than usual, where the news for the beloved ball club and its loyal fans kept getting worse and worse by the hour.

Imagine traveling a few hours for an away Portsmouth game and then hearing on the radio that it might be the last game your team will ever play?
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11688_6462212,00.html

For the latest on what's going on with Pompey football, see the well-produced Pompey Pages at http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sectionhome.aspx?sectionID=12295

Here's the latest:
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/Pompey-financial-report-to-be.6647296.jp

Lib Dem Mike Hancock's website for his constituents in South Portsmouth and Southsea:
http://www.mikehancock.co.uk/

On that site are these comments about his legislative assistant of over two-and-a-half years, Katia Zatuliveter:
http://www.mikehancock.co.uk/news/555/24/Statement-from-Mike-Hancock-about-Katia-Zatuliveter/

Not mentioned here, though, for obvious reasons, is that more than a few other MPs, even other liberal members, feel that Mike Hancock is too "soft" on Russia, and far too often, too uncomfortably close to the official Russian government position on certain issues, like what's been going on in the Republic of Georgia.
These very facts make Hancock's denials, however heart-felt and truthful, seem to some well-informed observers, perhaps a bit disingenuous, and I suspect that you will be hearing more about this as the week goes on.

The last thing in the world that members of Parliament want to consider is the possibility that there might actually be foreign intelligence agents or sympathizers working around them, with aims considerably more dire than simply bloggers or paparazzo taking snaps of embarrassing personal situations.

If you think about it logically from the perspective of the Federal Security Service, the FSB, ФСБ, the successor to the KGB, the day-to-day schedule and hours of tedious tasks on behalf of a staffer in Parliament, esp. for a member on a Defence committee like Mike Hancock, would be the perfect position for an FSB mole to gather useful info on members, staffers and myriad agency liaisons they deal with on a daily basis.
Perhaps you've heard - loose lips sink ships.

Channel 4 News: Russian spying has 'absolutely' not gone away
says Lord West.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid601325122001?bctid=699578293001

The Beatles - Back In The U.S.S.R [HQ] RARE PROMO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Qk-mZjwhA

See also 'Britain is under attack from Russian spies'
http://www.channel4.com/news/lib-dem-mp-denies-his-assistant-is-a-russian-spy
and UK Border Agency http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/

From the UK Border Agency website: "Every week, our frontline officers are locating and removing migrants who flout the UK's immigration law or pose a risk to the community."

If we only had such marked vigilance here in South Florida, where the print and electronic news media is ardently pro-amnesty for all illegal aliens, especially the editorial board, columnists and reporters at the Miami Herald.

And FYI, no, I haven't forgotten about my promise here a few weeks ago about posting some very accurate and measured analysis of Herald reporter Alfonso Chardy and his consistently one-sided, factually-flawed and self-evidently biased stories about illegal immigration, so recently seen the past two weeks with seemingly daily pro-amnesty stories about the DREAM Act.

You know, those over-the-top stories of Chardy's that ALWAYS leave out inconvenient facts that hamper the story that he and the Herald want to peddle to their beleaguered readers, almost as if they really are stupid enough to think that if he doesn't mention those pesky facts that contradict what he says, nobody will be the wiser.

The same condescending way they seem to assume that nobody ever notices the compelling stories in South Florida that they have consciously ignored for years or give short-shrift
to now, like SO MANY of the interesting ones that first appear at Bob Norman's Daily Pulp blog. http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/

But fortunately, there are a lot more well-informed people like me who pay close attention to issues and public policy than you might otherwise think in South Florida, and we not only have technology on our side, in the form of blogs and websites and social media, but from past experience, we are totally hip to the tricks that Chardy and certain other reporters have long played with pesky inconvenient facts in their so-called news articles in the Herald.

PLUS, CHARDY JUST HAPPENS TO BE MORE OBVIOUS ABOUT IT, NOT TO MENTION, RIDICULOUSLY PREDICTABLE!

Those tricks of his don't change much on his stories re the South Florida transportation scene, either, the most egregious of which will also get their own analysis blog posts here, since Chardy has a LOT to account for with them, too.

Trust me, when you know the true facts, Chardy's so-called 'reporting' is even worse than you think.
It's not so much journalism as it is old-fashioned, biased stenography.

No matter how many times the Herald's management and editors tell Chardy to write about it, the DREAM Act bill in Congress is deader than dead -and rightfully so.

No matter how many times Chardy tries to insinuate that Florida's U.S. Senator George LeMieux might support it, somehow, he's a NO vote, comprende?
No means no!

Sublime and fascinating! Channel 4 News video: A Licence to Reveal: MI6 spy secrets uncovered; speech by MI6 "C" Sir John Sawers

Fascinating Channel 4 News video with reporter Jonathan Rugman on the evolving history of MI6, the British Special Intelligence Services, including an interview with former MI6 "C" Sir John Scarlett. For the first time since its creation in the run-up to the First World War, Britain's secret intelligence service has allowed its secrets to be unveiled in an official history covering its first 40 years. Jonathan Rugman reports. This segment is ten minutes and 23 seconds.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid64523559001?bctid=614006288001

Here's one of those many posts in Blogger Draft I was talking about earlier today that were just lingering on life-support, a fascinating report from late September that came on the heels of some very troubling news for MI6, with the death of an employee under very mysterious circumstances.

Here's the story from three weeks ago on the historic public appearance on TV by current MI6 "C" Sir John Sawers, the first public speech by a sitting Chief.

http://www.channel4.com/news/mi6-chiefs-historic-speech

Channel 4 News: MI6 chief speaks out on terror threat and torture

Story at http://www.channel4.com/news/mi6-chief-speaks-out-on-terror-threat-and-torture

See also: http://www.channel4.com/news/liveblog-mi6-chief-sir-john-sawers-speaks-live

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See this interesting blog post by Channel 4 Political Editor Gary Gibbon story on whether or not the end is near for 'control orders,'

http://blogs.channel4.com/gary-gibbon-on-politics/could-it-be-the-end-for-control-orders/14032ns

-------

Sir John Sawers: profile of MI6 chief Described as a "smooth operator" and likened to Pierce Brosnan's portrayal of James Bond Sir John Sawers took up the post of head of MI6, known as "C", in November 2009. By Laura Roberts 10:22AM BST 28 Oct 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8092322/Sir-John-Sawers-profile-of-MI6-chief.html

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If you don't recognize the tune at the beginning of this next video, being hummed by an animated early 1940's John Bull, followed by his trusty bull dog, it's the same one that's instantly recognizable by anyone of a certain age who ever listened to BBC Radio's World Service.

In my case, that was for years via my Radio Shack short-wave radio while studying at Indiana University in Bloomington, from 1979-'83, especially on weekend mornings, and more recently, digitally from Washington, D.C., Arlington County, VA and South Florida.

My recollection is that the tune was played after the time chirp and the intonation, "This is London," just before the news broadcasts began.

British WW2 Public Information Films - Collection Three, Part 1 of 3.

Central Office of Information

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USye8ZoXye8

http://www.youtube.com/user/blaster2012

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Special Operations Executive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5aH8pLdv5g

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I previously mentioned it a few years ago on my other blog, South Beach Hoosier, soon to be revamped, but since many of you readers never saw that in the first place, I'll just mention here by way of circumstance that my family -and certain of my friend's relatives- have worked for U.S. intelligence agencies or in intelligence operations since George Washington was a Continental general fighting the British.

Here's a video tidbit that dovetails with the above stories.

BBC World Service idents over the years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuJ5_j4U6HQ

1945: BBC Radio announcement of Adolf Hitler's death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyZICBPh0wc

Gary Gibbon's blog: http://blogs.channel4.com/gary-gibbon-on-politics/

Channel 4 News Catch Up service for the past 7 days:
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/

Channel 4 News homepage: http://www.channel4.com/news/