Tinker Tailor Soldier BBC porduction 1

It is Tuesday October 25th 2011 and I am at my home on the hill overlooking the entrance to Tyne river at South Shields having enjoying a weekend with spies past and present, fact and fictional.

Spying, the obtaining of information by covert means, is an essential part of national security and intelligence gathering and the more politically and militarily powerful a nation, the greater its need for an effective and ongoing intelligence gathering system which must also include a watch on those within the state who could threaten its stability and security as well as from enemies and potential enemies without.

Having a democratic government with priority given to the Rule of Law are complications because totalitarian regimes and dictatorships have the advantage in not needing to have concerns about whether what they do will be challenged while the regimes remain in control. For democratic nations those who manage security have to live in a moral no man’s land, while the operators live with the possibility of being disowned and imprisoned if things go wrong at home in addition to the dangers when working overseas.

Moral ambiguity is at the heart of the writing of David John Moore Cornwell (John Le Carré), and Graham Greene and behind Callan of the 1960’s 70’s with Edward Woodward and Spooks which came to an end for good on Sunday and which I reported at length yesterday evening. While Ian Fleming, like Cornwell was employed by the national security services for a time, his books and particularly his films have little or no moral uncertainty and bear little relationship to reality.

The highest compliment which can be paid to Cornwall comes in the documentary biographic interview which accompanies the two DVD disc seven episode BBC TV production of the first of the Smiley Karla trilogy which arrived the weekend and which I marvelled at its brilliance throughout Saturday, ending well after midnight. A former East German Soviet counterpart praised the authenticity of his descriptions, and that in relation to the classic work which made him internationally famous:-The Spy who came in from Cold, he was able to communicate the conflict then going on in East Germany between those responsible for internal security and those engaged in covert operations abroad.

The inclusion of the biographical interview changed my planned piece of writing which was to have been restricted to Tinker Tailor and Spooks into something wider. I had already planned to continue with my reading of Le Carré, first with the Mission Song which I acquired sometime ago but have not complete despite the central character having a father who was a Catholic Priest until his death. I then planned to read the other novel in my possession The Russia House, made into a cinema film with Sean Connery and released in 1990 which I have ordered today on DVD together with The Spy who came in from the Cold, The Deadly Affair. The Looking Glass War, the Tailor of Panama, the Constant Gardener and Smiley’s people because my home video version is so poor and all for a total of under £30.

The first impact of the experiencing the BBC production was to confirm why I disagreed with the critics that the recent cinema production is a great film worthy of awards although I accept that the acting is good but not in the same class as that of Sir Alec Guiness and the rest of the team, many of whom also played the same roles in the TV production of the third and concluding volume, Smiley’s People, where I have also reread the book and watched the video, as well as reading the second book, the Honourable Schoolboy, which has not been made into a film or TV series, but is included in the BBC production, the Complete Smiley and which is available in audio disks covering the eight works that feature him to greater or lesser extent. I will leave an attempt overview all three books and the two BBC serials the Karla trilogy until listening to the radio serials.

The second impact yesterday’s experience is to also reread the novels of Graham Green, or at least the ten volumes I posses before embarking upon the planned reread the Strangers and Brothers series of CP Snow of which I posses eight of the ten volumes, and the Anthony Powell’s twelve book series, A Dance to the music of time of where I have nine books, having lost one compendium of three books on one of my UK travels.

These four writers cover what I now describe as my once hoped for life which arose from the experience of studying and living in Oxfordshire during five of six years it was 1960’s although it was the life of an Oxford Don for which I hankered rather that of the spy for although I possessed many of the characteristics defined as essential by Cornwell, several were beyond me: the ability to use violence, to lie and to speak in other tongues.

There have been two instances in my life when I speculated if my potential to work for an Intelligence service was being assessed. I was twenty and in the midst of my work for international peace by non violent action when a stranger called at the family home one evening without prior contact and referred to my having attended a closed meeting of a notorious Trotskyite organisation. My instinct at the time was that the organisation which would had no previous knowledge of me had called to assess my suitability for further involvement and we entered into passionate arguments about Christianity and non violence with the consequence he departed and there was no further contact. But later I wondered if I had misread the situation. The second instance was some three decades later when I received a letter with a telephone number to ring if I wanted to earn several times my then substantial employment income. I did not immediately respond and later when I did I was advised that the contact was in Africa and would be so for several months but if I was interested arrangements would be made and a date, time and location at a hotel was arranged but I decided against going because the aspect which had been disclosed was travel to Eastern European countries and this was only with a couple of years of the Berlin Wall be taken down and had implications which I decide not to test out. Again there were other possibilities which I had learned to always consider and not settle on one without proofs acceptable to me.

I believe I have seen the Cornwell documentary before as I also believe the play about life with his father, or at least extracts of it, although it appeared fresh because of the more penetrating lens of life which I seem to have acquired over the past years of concentrated self analysis, looking backwards, together with a sharpened critical examination of the works of those I admire and who have contributed so much to making me the person I have become.

The documentary begins with the observation that while the confidence trickster, gambler and actor play roles similar to the security and intelligent agent they can also switch into their other selves other whereas the agent has always to be their working selves which over time impacts on their inner perception as well as their outer face to others.

He described his father as a confidence trickster and racketeer always on the run from creditors and getting his son to lie about his whereabouts and passing on message which were known to be untrue when they were made. His mother disappeared when he was five and from the Wikipedia Biography there is no reference to what happened to her which suggests, given his onetime profession that either she had disappeared from the records and never made contact when he became famous, or he did undertake a search and has kept secret what was discovered. With the Spy being the master of half truths and disinformation one has to judge what he said about himself and his life with caution. It is consistent with the personality and checkable that his father attempted to become a professional politician, was adopted as a candidate and fought a General Election, echoing one of the Yes Prime Minister episodes in using the same speech adapted for each occasion.

His father had also talked his way out of the accusation of having been to prison at one election meeting and then pretended to his son that the office had been a minor of borrowing from post petty cash when in fact he found out later his father had been sent to prison four years. The consequence of his background is that Cornwell became secretive as a way of coping with his family situation, something which I know from my own childhood only too well as well as creating a distinctive inner life, becoming a keen watcher and observer and feeling separate and different from the rest of society.

As a reaction to the High church Christianity of Sherbourne School and the rackety criminality of his father he fled to Berne to a German speaking school in Switzerland which is itself an extraordinary development which I parallel my entering the world of traditional jazz and Soho life at the age of sixteen from my independent Catholic School and church middle class and claustrophobic suburban world. With the consequence that while he returned to England and a patriot he had always felt distant from it.

His story is that to keep in contact with England and its language he attended a small C of E chapel which was used by staff at the British Embassy and where the church goers invited him to their homes and this led to being recruited to undertake small delivery and collection jobs within Switzerland as a kind of courier. Although not precise for obvious reasons it appears that he was recruited when undertaking National Service although I am unsure if her did this before or after he went up to Oxford. He got into to Oxford via his former Master at Sherbourne and by the time he was subsequently recruited by MI5 he had married and his wife had to be interviewed and advised of her future conduct and what marriage to a Spook was going to be like. He had been an informant while at Oxford writing and associating with the left wing on the look out for the attempt of the Soviet Union to subvert knew undergraduates in the 50’s as they had successfully in the 30’s. His wife said that she was aware he had run informants who she thought were mainly trade unionist that had been or were communists but become disillusioned with what happened in 1956 and the uprisings.

He had started to write on the hour long train journey from where they lived into London which means that he did so via first class travel as it would have been impossible to do so on the commuter trains from my experience travelling for thirty five to forty minutes into Victoria Station between 1955 to 1957, unless one had a table and space. At one level I am full admiration that he was able to switch attention from his paid work to writing fiction in such conditions, but then of course the gulf between his work and his writing was not as wide as he pretended to the media until long after he had left the service.

When their second son was born he suddenly announced to his wife that he had moved from MI5 to 6 which he passed off saying that it would mean living and travelling abroad and great fun. He had gone into deep cover which meant his role was not disclosed even when placed in the country of ally.

The most revealing comment made about his writing of the Spy Who Came in from the Cold that it was evident from the papers which came across his desk how close the world was coming to another World War and he had written the book to make the point: A plague upon both houses. It is at this point the former Counter Intelligence chief from East Germany said he had obtained a copy of the book and was astonished at the depiction of the contradictions between the two leading characters from national security and counter intelligence in the books and he had always wanted to ask Cornwell if he had received intelligence about the actual situation inside the Ministry of state security or has guessed correctly. He said that the methods of interrogation were the same worldwide and that they would have a file of detailed background information and you would have someone who understood the individual and their motives while the other was hard and that in GDR physical methods was not allowed so they used psychological and these were akin to a form torture and were painful.

The Spy was published in the autumn of 63 just about when Kennedy was assassinated and by January 64 he had Life Magazine putting him on the front cover. Things hoted up so quickly that his office politely asked him to leave. His had a worm’s eye view of the secret world which he developed when he left the Service in his early thirties and which became a metaphor for the human condition.

He had not been in the spy world long before George Blake was unmasked and then in Bonn for a few months when Philby was found out and the shock was not which operations had been blown, but these were Gentlemen, men like us! He could not accept the duality of the life Philby had led recruiting and training people to go to Albania, saying it would be dangerous but was in the cause of a free Albania and then giving the information to the Russians so the agents would be picked up in arrival and executed dying horrible deaths under torture. Philby knew about what was happening in the Soviets and their planned genocide of the middle class. The East German said he had great admiration for Philby because he acted from belief rather than for money, sex or because of blackmail. A former KGB agent compared Philby to Cornwell and Sir Alec Guiness and said they were alike as men of intelligence and Gentlemen. Enough to make one still believe in revolution if it were not a Gentleman I would still be.

Now it is time to concentrate on the BBC TV production of the book and which brought out all the characterization, the nuances and tensions which the film failed to do. The start is brilliant with a shot of Cambridge Circus with four of the top men assembling for a conference and Control (Alexander Knox) saying- Let’s begin and then moving the titles with the Russian egg figurines.

At his home Control explains to Jim the mission called Testify with Mendel, the former Policeman, acting as guard (babysitter) outside from a telephone box. The reason for the mission is that the potential convert says he has Treasure in exchange for his escape to the West, the name the Mole- code name Gerald that he learned when working in Moscow Centre. Control names the top group involved which Jim can scarcely believe: Percy Alleline his Director of Operations as Tinker, Bill Haydon the Director of Personnel with access to who is where is assigned Tailor, Roy Bland, the Director of Iron Curtain networks is Soldier, Toby Esterhase the Head of the Lamplighters (Surveillance and Couriers) is Poor Man and his “devoted” deputy Smiley Beggar Man.

The difference between the BBC production and the film is summed up in these opening moments as in the production we get to know the immediate inner reflections and personalities of the main characters as well as the nature of the activity. Control has the files and the pictures of his immediate subordinates pinned to a notice board which fits into his academic systematic approach and not the gimmicky attaching of small photos to chess pieces which is not his style however clever an idea.

The contrast between the way the BBC production portrays what then happens to Jim compared to that in the film is another example when one works and the other does not. The production communicates what travelling to a Soviet country was like at the time and the caution which spies had to take. In this instance Jim changes top clothes with his taxi driver escort and sends him forward to meet the General and triggers the trap prepared for him. He tries to back the car out of the forest but the extent of gun fire is such that he is unable to retreat before getting out of the vehicle before it blows up and then we know he is either shot, captured tortured or dead? The scene in the film is too staged glossy and has Karla, the Russian head of special counter Intelligence with the lighter borrowed from George Smiley at their only meeting in India before Karla became the powerful and dangerous man of the day.

I also liked the full meeting and meal between George and Roddy Martindale of the Foreign Office, a life long professional contact, which is designed to bring the audience up to date with the new set up at the Circus with Alleline in charge instead of George because of the Jim Prideaux Scandal and following the death of Control. Roddy suggests Control is still alive, in South Africa, but George knows better, he knew Control was dying over those last months when he became a recluse from the rest of team as he worked to find out the Mole at his table and he had died from premature old age provoked by the death of Jim and the failure of the mission.

Roddy says Alleline is not up to the speaking of his manner with contempt from having known Alleline and George throughout their time in the Civil Service which has irony because it is evident that that George has as much contempt for Roddy as he has for Alleline. Roddy continues in his usual manner disregarding the response of the other person, suggesting Bill Haydon is bisexual having had a relationship with Jim Prideaux and taunting George about Bill’s relationship with wife Ann and her promiscuity. The laid back show no reaction George explodes calling Roddy a pompous fool, although what Roddy says is all true.

The meeting and meal highlights main failure of the film because unless you have read the books or seen the BBC production most of what happens and why remains a mystery. Ok you grasp the essentials that there is a Mole and George who was sacked is temporarily employed to find out in secret that it is and does so at the end. The ensemble acting in the film is good but I was left greatly disappointed. That is enough of the film which will not be allowed to spoil the satisfaction with the BBC serial and which as with all great works of art can be experienced time and time again gaining new insights.

Before the encounter with Roddy (Nigel Stock) George had seen Peter Guillam outside the bookshop and immediate knew he was wanted and escapes via the rear entrance of the store only to find Peter waiting for him at home having made his way in without a key but leaves his gloves at the entrance so George will know it is a friend. Peter (Michael Jayston) has been sent to escort George to the home of Oliver Lacon played by Anthony Bate. Peter has been outposted to Brixton in charge of the Scalphunters (the licence to work outside the law) which on the journey leads Smiley to make observations about Bill Hayden and which in turn Peter explains the changes to the new set up with the regions, each having a JuJu man controller, abolished, and everything coming directly to London Station and Bill Haydon with Brand his number two and Esterhase their Gofer. The object of the change is to make them more secure to which George responds, a very good idea.

Then there is an exchange which sets the tone of the language and issues of the series beyond the scene setting explanations of the first episode. Peter asks why George, on your last day did you choose me to tell me you had been sacked and then go out and get drunk? The reply provokes Peter to remind George what he said when worse for drink later that night and Peter had asked why George had been sacked. George in his endearing way who always answers a question with a question says: reason as logic? Reason as motive? Reason as a way of life? George had continued “they do not have to give me reasons I can make my own reasons.” This exchange arises after George had asked why Peter had been sent because his answer would give a George a clue about why he had been summoned. It is also the important link which takes Peter into the Honourable School and again as a key character in Smiley’s People.

Ricky Tarr (Hywell Bennett) is at the home of the Cabinet Office secretary responsibility for Circus operations and coordination with the then separate Foreign and Colonial offices, the Ministry of defence and the Treasury. In the background is hard man Babysitter Fawn who is also someone like Lacon who is involved throughout the trilogy. George establishes that Ricki is on the wanted listed and absent without leave. Is presence has been kept secret from the rest of the Circus. George has therefore worked out the reason fro his summons. Why despite protestations that he had retired and established a new and satisfying life, is that George is a man with unfinished business and does not hesitate to give up his immediate existence for the opportunity to finish. He is a classic traditional Chairman leader with completer finisher secondary qualities. As a Creative Shaper leader it was my uncommon completer finisher obsession which so interested Henley and which were to prove my salvation but also my cross.

Rick then begins his tale with the day he was sent to Lisbon, and the start of events which will change all their lives.

Spooks series 10 in perspective

There are several creators of fictional stories of British National Security, and convert operations whose work has impressed, engaged, moved and become part of my life commencing with Graham Greene, and then David Cornwell, otherwise known as John le Carré, Callan with Edward Woodward and for the past decade Spooks, with Peter Firth as Harry Pierce and where the last episode of the last series came to its emotional and intellectually challenging conclusion on Sunday evening 23 October 2011.

In a documentary about his life and work, included in the Tinker Tailor 2 DVD set of the BBC production, Cornwell explained that he had written The Spy who Came out of the Cold quickly, subsequently editing to what became the International best seller and film with such popularity that it led him to having to leave his main profession as a member of MI6, but knowing that the book was everything he wanted from a creation as a writer.

I felt like that when I embarked upon my Artman 101 project, with the inherent paradox that at present I know the work needs recognition during my lifetime for it to be secured after my death, yet that any recognition before my death would prevent me from continuing to complete the work with the originality and consistency that has developed over the past eight years.

For the greater part of today I have attempted to write about the experience of viewing the seven episode BBC production of Tinker Tailor yesterday following by the documentary in the first hours of this morning, only halting to watch the final episode of Spooks and then knowing that I needed to write this before continuing with the other and that completion of the second writing would only become part of further work in relation to Le Carré and Greene and which in turn puts back but also brings forward the rereading and writing about the CP Snow ten book series Strangers and Brothers and the Anthony Powell 12 book series of A Dance to the Music of Time. I see these works as precursors of what I am attempting to do, to write about the experiences of a life over time.

Sir Harry Pierce KBE (Peter Firth) is no Smiley in that he is unable to detach himself from the pain of his professional and private life, such as it is, and that although he takes horrendous decisions which destroy, sometimes sacrificing, his own and the lives of those he cares about, he continues because he is certain that what he does is for the greater good as well as for the immediate security and individual safety of his fellow countrymen.

Harry is a creative thinker with an ability to use that blend of intuition and previous experience which few possess with the consistency to be trusted with high office whereas George Smiley has methodical academic persistence and thoroughness as had his predecessor at MI6-the Circus, which is not surprising as the character was based on a Master at Sherbourne School and then of an Oxford College with an uncanny resemblance to Sir Alec Guiness, or more accurately vice versa.

But the two men only come fully alive when at their desks or out successfully completing a task but whereas George has his academic and other interests that provide an alternative satisfying life when not required or can be assumed during retirement, Harry has no life, and thus it is when at the end of the series he has lost the only chance left of finding a life outside the work, it is taken from him, although he and we know it would never have worked anyway.

There is also one other fundamental factor which connects much of the work of Graham Greene. Le Carré, Callan and the Spooks’ writers, that the stories however authentic in their construction and believable in their representation of life within MI5 and 6 are always secondary to the moral ambiguity of their roles, protecting life but also taking life, upholding democratic values and the Rule of Law but also invading personal rights and privacy and breaking the law whenever necessary.

The only other continuing member of the Spook’s team is Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker) who was officially believed to have died at the end in the 2006, but Harry arranged for her to disappear, and she goes to a Greek Island where she established a relationship and brings up a step child. Prior to this Harry and Ruth had become close but knew their relationship could never become official because of their roles and the past. She reluctantly returns after her partner is killed and the child is brought up by others members of his extended family. There is a strong bond between Ruth and Harry and vice versa, which is deeper than most describe as love and beyond physical attraction. They will protect and if necessary cover up for each other and as emerges die for each other, as well as for their beliefs and their country.

Ruth has the same role at MI5 as Connie in Le Carré world, the super analyst who makes sense of vast quantities of information and sees what needs to be understood and this is prove Harry’s and the nation’s saviour in the last series, but alas not her own.

In the 9th series Harry forced the Administration to do a trade to rescue captured Ruth and Lucas North who has cracked from his time imprisoned by the Russians, becomes a traitor, so Harry is placed on gardening leave with a new acting head of service while his conduct is officially investigated by a Tribunal.

The Coalition Home Secretary has continuing doubts about Harry after his years of service to the previous Order and offers Harry a way back on the basis that the Tribunal decision is kicked into the long grass but can be resurrected if he fails to cooperate.

A retired former Spook Max Witt (Giles Havergal) has been killed at his home although the death is first made to look natural. It has emerged that Witt was killed because he knew somebody is posing as Harry using his old coded messages from the Cold War to gain the confidence of a former agent and gain current information about Russian activities.

This leads to learning that a Russian businessman, Government Minister and former KGB hard line officer akin to Le Carré’s Karla (Ilya Gavrik (Jonathan Hyde) is in London within his wife and son on a secret mission for the establishment of a new intelligence and anti terrorism relationship with the UK, and in secret from the USA who appear to want to keep control but distance themselves from issues in Europe. Harry has his doubts about opening up of British intelligence information to the Russians again similar to the situation that arose at the Circus of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and this is shared by his USA link officer in London Alton Beecher (Colin Salmond) who appears to know that something is afoot and warns Harry against such a development.

Harry has another reason for concern which he tells Ruth who is to accompany him as his partner at a reception in the London to begin the forging of the new relationship. Two decades ago Harry converted the man’s wife, Elena (Alice Krige) and the two had an affair and the couple‘s only child is Harry‘s. He arranges a secret meeting at the reception to arrange another meeting so he can warn her that he has not made previous contact and she has been sending information to an unknown third party. Their son Sasha Gavrik (Tom Weston-Jones) is a serving officer in the current Russian security service and is part of the delegation with responsibility to protect his parents on their secret mission to London. The son is waiting for Harry at his home threatens to kill him because he knows Harry was responsible for his mother being a traitor and the young man refuses to listen when Harry tries to reassure him that he had not resurrected the relationship in any form.

An attempt to assassinate the Russian emissary, ostensibly by a Chechen rebel is foiled and the man is killed by the new Director of Operations of the team and is her first kill. She resists the invitation to go out for a drink with a male colleague who says he knows they both lead lonely lives without friends because of the nature of their work, a theme constantly explored in the previous series. In fact she returns to a normal home life where her mother looks after her daughter while she away at work.

In the second episode a member of the team is mugged on his way to a meeting and his laptop containing the identities of five high level assets is stolen, one of which is Martha Ford (Lydia Leonard), an attractive woman who works for one of Gavrik's companies in London

Those behind the taking of the laptop appear to know what they were doing and threaten to release the identity of the uncover officers unless their conditions are met, The Team’s skilled technocrat attempts to trace the origin of the messages and eventually this is tracked to a former disenchanted spy but he has been working for someone else to organised the snatch of the information. The first undercover agent is revealed in the media and he commits suicide.

While the decision is taken to remove from the danger and take Martha to a safe house and offered protection she is asked to undertake one more mission and gain a copy of the hard drive of the Russian’s office computer. She is reassured she will be safe and is nearly caught but is able to leave the building having seen her face on the news on a TV monitor. It is evident to the Team that this is an attempt to undermine the proposed new relationship with Russian intelligence and where no doubt there are those in Moscow who are also unhappy about the new policy.

The Russian emissary demands that the girl is cut adrift as the price for enabling the new relationship to develop. This is a very hard thing for the head of Operations to implement as she has made promises about protecting the young woman who is now terrified about being paid off without the ongoing assistance and protection of the state. Harry is confident that his senior assistant can cope and one day becomes his successor. The betrayal of a promise made in good faith is a frequent aspect of the work of the Scalphunter and their managers.

Meanwhile Sasha tells his mother he is aware she has been a traitor and wants to know why she did it before he agrees to protect her. She explains that her parents disappeared and were killed by old regime because they were kind and wanted help others. One of Sasha’s closest friends and also a member of service begin to track down that there is a traitor within the mission and this forces Sasha to kill him and call on Harry to help in the cover up.

Meanwhile they try to find out who is behind the attempt to derail negotiations on the new relationship. While working at home their computer expert Tariq Masood (Shazad Latif) discovers vital information from studying close circuit footage of the area where the laptop was snatched. On his way to the HQ someone bumps into him and these results in his death from a secret injection. He dies on the steps of the building where he is found about another colleague. Harry meets Elena to warn her someone has been posing as him and he also asks Ruth to check up of the London CIA man Jim Cover (William Hope), believing the is the impostor.

As has been a regular feature of previous series the main story is interspersed with other others and in the third episode the belief that someone Johnny Grier (Mel Raido) is attempting to detonate a dirty bomb in London (as if there is such a thing as a clean bomb). Trace amounts of radioactive material have been found at Heathrow Airport and closed circuit camera film reveals that a well known anarchist and international protestor has re-entered the county and that he has a sister who uses an on line site for relationships. Another new member of the team Dimitri Levendis (Max Brown) is asked to operate a honey trap against his better judgement the sister, Natalie (Georgina Rich), via Internet dating.

She knows nothing which makes Dimitri even guiltier especially she wants more than one night stand. The brother arrives on the scene and is suspicious of Johnny but eventually takes to him which complicates his wanting to get out of the relationship with the sister. It appears that the target of the bomber and his many associates in London is a London based investment company which made millions out of the nuclear disaster in Japan.

The target is taken into custody and because of pressure Johnny reveals that he thought he was bringing heroin in to the UK and no idea a bomb was involved with the intention of killing and maiming. He gives information which leads capture of those in a vehicle reaching the destination building; however it is empty with no trace of the nuclear material. The team realises that Greer was lying and that this was a ploy to enable him to launch a personal attack on the Chief Executive Officer of the company. He breaks the phial over himself so only he is affected, hastening his end after the CEO escapes. He persuades Dimitri to end the relationship with his sister without revealing she was being used.

Throughout the episode there are links with the series story as Ruth goes to meet the wife of the Russian accompanied by the son to reveal that the CIA appear to be behind the sending of messages as if it was Harry underlining their intent to undermine the proposed new relationship between Russian and the UK. The team then find out the reason for the murder of Tariq, he had identified that the individual who stole the laptop works indirectly for the CIA and that she was also present at the party where the assassination attempt was to have been made. This suggests that the CIA killed Tariq

Meanwhile there has been another development which suggests the there is more afoot. The Home Secretary asks that Ruth keeps him informed as she high hopes for her in the future. Ruth goes along with this, we presume to gain knowledge for passing on to Harry. He follows up the first overture by taking her out to dinner.

This is what I had written at the end of the third episode but over the next three episodes everything is stood on its head and then given several twists and shake before the truth emerges in the final episode which I am sure will become the TV drama production event of 2011.

In episode 4 an Islamic extremist leader Zubier Al-Saad (Jeffery Kissoon), has application for release on licence turned down so he instructs two recently released inmates to commit a revenge suicide attack. One of those released, Ashur Mohali (Asif Khan), has been working for MI5 keeping them informed of what is being discussed inside the prison and he agrees to help stop the attack if his young daughter is protected and given British citizenship. Those organising the attack distrust Ashur and kidnap not only his daughter but that of units’ new number 2. Her daughter is rescued and mother pretends it has been no more than an adventure but she seriously considers leaving the service. The other girl is also rescued and the attack foiled but at the price of Ashur losing his life because he had become the instrument of suicide bombing in Trafalgar Square.

Convinced that it is the head of the CIA in London who is behind plans to wreck the proposed deal with Russia, and therefore was responsible for the death of Tarik, Harry with Ruth set up the wife of Russian Minister and his official son as bait to catch Coaver. They spot Coaver’s official car close by and then the woman who stole the laptop approach the car and speak to the driver hidden from view inside. The Car drives off, someone narrowly misses shooting Elena and the independent agent is killed. Satisfied with the evidence that Coaver, the CIA man, was responsible, Harry tells him he is coming after him.

In the penultimate episode, Harry has told Ruth to take the job as independent Security Adviser to the Minister and to take up the appointment immediately because of how he believes the situation will develop. He leads the team in kidnapping the CIA man who then denies as strongly as he can that he was not involved although he had used the independent female agent in the past and had gone to a meeting with her that she had requested but which had quickly come to nothing so he had driven off. Out of loyalty to her new boss Ruth discloses the action taken and his location. A CIA USA Embassy team arrive with instructions for the immediate release of Coaver but then they realise they have been duped as the official release team arrive. Coaver is dumped onto the roadway dying as the unit give high speed chase. He tells Harry that the truth is on his lap top. He was not working against British Intelligence.

Harry decides that it is the Russian Minister who is secretly trying to stop the treaty being signed and he tells the wife of this. The couple have had a frank exchange in which the husband admits that he was aware that his wife had become a traitor and had had set about protecting her and their son. In discussion between Harry and Jim we learn that it was Coaver who had intervened to prevent Elena and her son joining Harry in the West as she had been stood up at the agreed location where they had to wait for him.

The Unit is too late get the laptop from the hotel as it has been removed as part of the personal effects to the USA Embassy storage, and Sasha who has planted surveillance devices learns about the lap top and the subsequent successful attempt by Ruth who accompanies the Minister to the Embassy to discuss the death of the CIA officer and the role of Harry, to gain access to the computer and record the contents of the hard drive. Off screen we learn that Sasha has taken the data transfer stick from Ruth before she can transfer the contents to unit (one of the few weaker moments in the overall plot) and we observe the son finding out that Harry is his father, increasing his emotional turmoil and he smashes his personal lap top although as we know the data probably remains intact. (It is important to remember that Coaver says that the truth was on the lap top).

Meanwhile the Minister tells Ruth he had no alternative but to hand over Harry to the Americans for extradition to the USA. When in custody at the embassy a senior military officer attacks Harry because his own father had served with Coaver. Harry knows that his life as well as his career is now under threat along with the prospect of long term imprisonment. The situation is building up dramatically to a finale and only discovery and proof of who is the lead individual attempting to stop the Treaty can save Harry.

As Harry faces deportation to the United States via a special military authorised flight later in the day. The wife of the Russian Minister and Harry‘s former lover and agent contacts to say she must speak to Harry as a major attack is being planned on London costing thousands of lives to wreck the Treaty which her husband is signing on behalf of the Russian Government in London that morning. We the audience had watched Elena in contact with some in Russia who says they will initiate action and we then see an operative take a device in an attaché case through airport control in Moscow using a coded message and insists on keeping the case at his feet against the advice of a stewardess who keeps observation because of his suspicious behaviour

Two members of the Unit plant devices in the roadway which immobilise the two vehicles ahead and behind that transporting Harry to the airbase and rescue Harry as meanwhile Ruth and a member of the Unit collect Elena who has been with her husband at the Embassy giving a press conference and her son Sasha who has noted developments insists on accompanying them and they all meet up at a former Ministry of Defence site on the coast which has a secure interview room with listening and observation position outside.

It is here that with her son and the other members of the Unit and Ruth listening Elena reveals that she was part of a special Karla type unit in Moscow and that she had been instructed to seduce Harry, appear to become his agent, providing some good material as well as “chicken feed.” When Harry had fallen in love and said she he did not want to use her as an agent (under USA CIA pressure) she had been told to defect with her son although the son was that of her husband, saying he was Harry would add to the emotional pressure for Harry to arrange the defection. This had been stopped by Coaver.

Her group had continued to function following the collapse of the Soviet Union and widened their membership to include leading figures who wanted a return to the former power and status of Russia and therefore the attempt to wreck the Treaty with the UK which the group regarded as retrograde and humiliating. She had sent the messages to herself and help arrange the death of the former agent who was being sent the messages, the attempt to assassinate her husband and then the death of Tarik, the attempt on her life providing details which only someone directly involved would know.

The reason she was now intervening was because she was against the loss of innocent lives as the plane carrying some 400 Russian and UK citizens was going to crash/blow up over or on central London - a mixture of Lockerbie and 9/11 and she was against the loss of innocent lives (this immediate struck me as inconsistent and should have struck Harry as it did Ruth although they were both caught up in the emotions of the moment.

Elena had become aware that Ruth was in love with Harry but that his secret love affair with Elena and its ending through the intervention of Jim Coaver resulting in the separation not just from her but his son was a barrier to his having a viable relationship with anyone else. She tells Ruth she will show what kind of man Harry really is. Elena says that Harry converted her into being a spy by providing documentation which revealed that her parents been tortured and killed by the Russian Regime, but she knew they had been killed in a road accident and that Harry’s story was a fake. Ruth interpreted this revelation different from the way Elena anticipated appreciating that Harry would have emotionally torn apart by having to use the story to convert Elena with whom he had fallen in love and believed her child was his.

At these points she reveals only the British contact telephone number of the agents in the UK who are undertaking the outrage mission with the help of those in Moscow. She does not reveal her knowledge of the man on the plane that meanwhile has killed the inquisitive stewardess and opened the box of tricks which appears to contain radar type positioning screen as well as devices which look like some kind of bomb.

The Unit trace the telephone number to a factory site where they find someone killed in the midst of destroying documentation but one document has all the content blacked out but with a photo of the man on the plane remaining. Elena says he is their top notch operative and they then are able to trace his latest whereabouts as having boarded the particular flight. Harry draws the conclusion that this is a suicide plane mission and on the principle of the American 4th plane it is proposed to destroy the plane and its passengers before it reaches UK airspace. At this point it was evident to me that this was the clever part of Elena and her group’s plan, that is to get the British Government to shoot down a plane full of Russian citizens and then fore not just end the Treaty before it was established but provoke the Russian government into some form retaliation and with the Americans unsympathetic because of what had happened to their chief CIA man in London.

Harry is able to convince the Minister to take action to shoot the plane from the sky but Ruth remains concerned and tell the members of the Unit to recheck the scene at the London centre of the group. Meanwhile Elena’s husband has expressed concern at the disappearance of his wife and son and Ruth tells him where they are and he decided to find out what is happening by driving himself on his own.

The Unit discovers that thedocument shredder had been fixed to stop just before the photo was being destroyed rather than the machine had broken down. It was also not clear why the assassin of the operative had not removed the documents with him or her. The Minister who is attending a meeting of the National Security team is reluctant to abort the mission, especially as it has entered British airspace. It is the Russian Minister who is able to convince the British Minister warning of the retaliation which would take place if he does not abort. Gavrik is convinced that his wife has been lying about her unwillingness to cost innocent lives when Harry warns that he will shoot her son and now someone he knows is not his, if she not admits she is behind the double or triple bluff. She is fanatical in her devotion to the cause that she is prepared to give up the life of her husband and now the life their son.

The Russian Minister agrees to talk to the British Minister only when Ruth gives him the key to the room in which his is being held He enters, locks himself in and strangles his wife to death. The son who is watching and throughout has put the love and respect for his mother above everything else attempts in vain to smash in a window into the room but does so with the help of Unit using heir firearms. They are too late and he picks up a long silver of the broker window and goes off in search of Harry who shaken by all the revelation and shattering of his illusions for the past thirty years is out walking on the beach where Ruth has gone to join him. She had previously talked of a countryside coastal cottage she had contemplated buying when she thought they were going to be together but had not inspected because when she realised the barrier between them. Now she appreciated that it the layers of secrets which each of them up which made them the people they were and the strength of bond between them. She pleads with Harry that they should both give up their Service lives before there is nothing left of their true selves.

At this point the son arrives and moves to attack Harry as he believes it is Harry who gave the key to his father. Ruth intervenes and is stabbed. Other members of the Unit shoot the son. We are not told if the boy lives who is one of the victims of the situation. Similarly we do not know what happens to the Russian Minister but who in the circumstances it can be assumed returns home to sort out the enemy within. It is uncertain for a while if Ruth will survive. She does not.

Harry goes to see the cottage home Ruth had mentioned and he is so upset he leaves. It is not clear if he had intended to buy it and live in but he is too emotionally disturbed. There is phone conversation between Harry and the Minister in which the Minister says he will support whatever Harry decides to do. It is evident the situations created with the Americans has been resolved, In the final scene we see Harry returning to his desk at the Unit after looking at and touching the memorial stone at the centre to which Ruth’s name has been added to the list of all the other agents who have died in service during the ten years of the series. The others look to the room in amazement but the number 2 tells them to go on as normal and asks for a briefing as to what is happening. Someone replies that the baddies are still trying to kill them. Harry’s phone rings, He lets it ring. Harry then answers Harry Pierce letting us know he is back in charge.

I debate if this is really the end of the series. Perhaps it is being held over for the year of the Olympics. Perhaps Harry has some other work in hand or wants to leave. Perhaps they have run out of stories. I think now that everyone is dead or departed who was there at the beginning of the series except Harry it is a fitting moment to end the series. By his way, the individual exchanged for Ruth in the previous series is used by Harry to help sort out the Russian dissidents.

Nicola Walker who played Ruth is a fine actor who commenced serious performing when at New Hall Cambridge she joined he footlights with one of the writers of Spooks and the comedienne Sue Perkins. While at University she played a part in the TV adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time. She has continued to act in TV and on the stage during her time with Spooks. She is married to an Actor and they have a son who they called Harry, and yes it is named after Harry of Spooks.

Peter Firth who played Harry throughout its ten years was born 1953 but looks older was a child actor who continued into adult roles on TV and the stage including an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the film version of Equus and has appeared on the Broadway stage as well as several other films, some 30 in total as well as on TV in the USA and Canada. He has been married twice with in the first instance his wife moving on to a relationship with the son of Diana Dors. He has four children by his second marriage. If they do not receive awards for their performances there aint any dramatic justice.

Sopranos season 3 continued

I have not appreciated the humour of the Sopranos until the most recent three episodes which had me in quiet fits of laughter throughout. They begin with episode 35 in season three on Carmela’s birthday when her son gives her a DVD of the Matrix which dad comments as being right up her alley while the daughter fares no better using her Mother’s credit card to buy them both a gift certificate for a day’s relaxation and beauty treatment at a spa.

The three episodes The Telltale Moozadell (Italian slang for mozzarella cheese and the Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Tell Tale Heart) To Save us all from Satan’s Power (God Rest you Merry Gentleman) and Pines Barrens (Protected New Jersey Wilderness and covers a quarter of the land mass of the state) are spread over either side of Christmas with heavy snow covering the Pines in the third of the series.

Tony begins in an excellent mood buying an expensive but gaudy sapphire ring for his wife’s birthday and who appears to have no inkling that he is having another of his great passions with the Mercedes Motor Sales firm executive, Gloria Trillo, who he met at the Psycho Analyst office when there was a double booking and who in a session with Dr. Melfi and unbeknown to Tony, has a suicidal past as well as a tendency towards having unhealthy relationships. They both hint to Dr Melfi they are in an important relationship and when the doctor works out the two are together they both react with hostility when she reminds them of their history of disastrous relationships. She has one joint session with Tony and Carmela and notes that they both appear able to talk over matters without becoming angry and frustrated with each other which pleases them both but afterwards Dr Melfi fumes to her consultant about patients who lie to her.

Tony denies he is presenting situation is a false one despite being remind what happened in relation to the Russian girlfriend, and who rings him at the boat when Gloria is waiting for him. Using the boat is one indication of how much he is smitten as until now he has avoided visiting because it reminds of when he took Pussy out to swim with the fishes. To Gloria’s amazement he accepts an invitation to visit the zoo forgoing an afternoon of bedtime pleasure although they end up having a quickie under a canopy in the reptile house oblivious to a giant serpent entangling above their heads.

All appears to go well until one evening when he skimps his food at home claiming he had a late lunch because he has promised to have a meal in with the mistress and then he has to leave because of a crisis caused by one of his Captains and Christopher and when she throws the main course at him and trashes the carefully lain table top settings. Tony denies to Dr Melfi that he has an inclination to go for depressed woman who seek to control him and their association with his mother, Livia. Tony is feeling so good that he gives additional fee money to Dr Melfi which she refuses and he tells her to give to charity if she wishes. Her son phones on the cadge for more funds because he needs expensive text books so she swallows principles and uses the criminals stolen money to help her son. She has become another corrupted soul.

Carmela still oblivious to Tony’s behaviour tells a friend that Tony has changed his mind about getting a Mercedes Sport car saying that these are bought by men having a midlife crisis.

Where Tony and his wife agree is over the unsuitability of their daughter’s relationship with the son of Jackie Aprile. When his wife first raises the concern Tony defends the young man but over the three episodes his eyes are opened. He finds the young man in a gambling joint and then when he goes to visit the sex bar of the opposition for a night out with two of the boys he catches the young man fooling around with a topless dancer. He beats up Jackie Junior during which he finds he young man is carrying a piece

Jackie had arrange for a gun after an incident involving one of his associated drug pushers and a new joint The Lollipop Club which has been taken over by Christopher and the mob when its owner fails to keep up with protection payments/gambling debts because the place is dying on its feet. Christopher gives the club to his girl friend Adriana to manage, and she renames it The Crazy Horse. Christopher tells her that she will be the owner-manager and that the previous owner will work for her, as he broke himself financially betting on a football game and had to give up his business as a result. Furio Giunta and Christopher own a percentage as "silent partners"

Christopher also sees the club as an opportunity for the gang to run their business in a safe environment without FBI interference. However, at the opening, a drug dealer named Matush is caught pushing Ecstasy and is kicked out and told not to return. The pusher appeals to Jackie Jnr who is trying to appear a big man with his friends but when he approaches Christopher to make allowances, for a cut, he is told no and instead of admitting his failure he tells Matush he can go ahead but do so outside the club for a couple of weeks.

Matush is then badly beaten up by Furio when caught peddling outside the club and put into traction over the Christmas period. Knowing that if this gets back to Tony he gets his mother’s new man, the gangster Ralphie, to get him the gun. Over Christmas Jnr admits he was sent down from College. Previously he had said he was getting an A grade in literature because Meadow had written his paper. He had given Meadow an engraved necklace saying I will always be true. However it is not Tony’s efforts which end the relationship but Meadow, when she finds Jnr with another girl following a tip off.

Tony sister Janice, has decided that after spending Christmas’s with Carmela over several years, she wants to cook Christmas dinner for the family but when Tony and Carmela go over to help with the preparations they find chaos because Janice is finding it difficult to do anything because of the pain in her arm following the incident when a Russian came over to retrieve the expensive artificial leg belonging to Livia’s nurse. Tony has a list of things to do in his note book and adds The Russian. Arising from his trip to Italy Tony is doing deals with the Russians over the expensive car thefts and recycling and also laundering money by the hundreds of thousand dollars. He asks a favour to locate the Russian who has caused Janice ongoing pain for him but says he will sort the man out when his partners offer to do the damage. They pose as revellers and take the taxi the man has for his official living and later we see a news video of the man beaten up and left and a sleigh in the window of a store in a shopping mall. Janice understands this will have been Tony’s work and is moved by her brother’s gesture despite they way they are constantly at each others throats, verbally.

If Meadow has taxed her parents, their son AJ has driven them to despair. He persuades them to let him have a sleep over with a friend after attending Carmela’s birthday party but later we find him and friends having broken into their high school pool eating Pizza, yes clue to the first episode title. When they are finished swimming, they break into an office and throw papers and contents into the pool, and then they smash the large several shelf glass door covered trophy cabinet. The police are able to trace the culprit through the special pizza order box left behind. The pizza parlour owner is hesitant to reveal the name of the individual for fear of reprisals but after being threatened with police action.
A J’s parent are horrified and say he will be lucky not be expelled and can expect to be kicked out of the sports team. This appears the situation when they visit the Principal with their son. However in part because they have financially contributed to the school, in part because who they are, and that AJ is doing well in class and is an important member of the football team they let him off with a final warning and leave punishment to the parents. They are just as horrified with this thinking their authority has been undermined. They ground AJ for a month and make him do jobs including clearing the guttering of leaves. He has to be shown what a gutter is!

The Christmas Season episode To Save us from Satan’s Power has the mob trying to get one of their number of dress up as Father Christmas and give presents out to local children. The problem is that the role was carried out by Pussy. Tony was already affected when on the New Jersey Boardwalk he remembered sending Pussy to swim with the fishes. At Christmas Meadow gives up one of the singing fishes Big Mouth Billy Bass. Mine sings Be Happy. They select the giant Bobby Bascala because of his weight and finds he can use the outfit worn my Pussy and realise he had been wearing a write hence some of his questions about work on the day of the present giving. Bobby is no good as Santa so they propose to send him to Santa school for next year

In the third episode, Tony asks Paulie and Christopher to collect $5000 from an associate of the Russian mob, Valery, in Fair Lawn. Because Paulie resents being told to do the job when he is otherwise occupied he picks a quarrel with the Russian destroying his universal remote control by dropping it, feigning it as an accident. Valery insults Paulie, prompting him to attack the seated Russian. Christopher had tried to stop Paulie from acting out, but he jumps in on Paulie's side. The three men fight, and eventually Paulie chokes Valery with a floor lamp, severely injuring him and apparently cracking his wind pipe so that he appears dead. The situation causes the two to panic and they wrap Valery in a carpet before wheeling him out to their car. While trying to figure out what to do with the body, Paulie suggests that they take it to the Pine Barrens, as it will be deserted and is in close proximity to Atlantic City. Christopher, who has not yet eaten, wants to stop for breakfast but Paulie insists that business must come first, and will soon be completed.

In the woods, Christopher and Paulie open the trunk to find that Valery is still alive and has chewed through the duct tape. They lift him out of the car, present him with a shovel and force him to dig his own grave. When the pair are distracted, Valery smacks them with the shovel, delivering a brutal blow to Christopher's head and a jab to Paulie's groin before fleeing. Christopher and Paulie draw their guns and give chase, but are amazed when Paulie shoots Valery, clearly hitting part of his head, and the Russian immediately gets up and runs into the woods. They try to track his blood and footprints in the snow but are eventually left with no clues. Still on the hunt, the pair hear something and run, firing some shots. Paulie slips down a slope and loses his shoe. They discover that they killed a deer. They try to return to Paulie's car but cannot find it, and soon realize that they are lost in the woods. Paulie uses his cell phone to call Tony for help, but communication is limited by poor reception, interference and crosstalk.

Tony learns from Valery's boss and best friend, Slava, that, although he has developed substance abuse problems since, Valery was previously in the Russian Ministry of the Interior's Special Forces and once killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handed. However, the poor phone signal between Tony and Paulie results in a mix-up: Paulie passes the message on that Valery killed 16 Czechoslovaks and he's an interior decorator, to which Christopher replies, "His house looked like shit." As the night draws nearer, the lost, shivering pair become more desperate to find their way to food and warmth.

Sometime later, Tony fails to show up on time at a dinner Tony gets a call from Paulie telling him to come and get them as they may be dying of hypothermia, starvation, or even injury to Paulie's shoeless foot. Left with no option, he tells Gloria that he has to leave for an emergency and can't eat, causing her to become extremely angry. She throws a cooked steak at Tony, who suppresses his annoyance by laughing off the situation and leaves to help his associates, as Gloria trashes the laden table setting.

Paulie and Christopher manage to find an abandoned plumber's van, where they spend the rest of the night. For warmth, Paulie rips up the van's carpet and he and Christopher share packets of frozen ketchup and relish from an old Nathan's bag. Later, Christopher is seen clumsily trying to light a fire using sticks. When Christopher, standing outside the van urinating, blames Paulie for the predicament and accuses him of trying to save himself at Christopher's expense, the two have an angry confrontation. Christopher claims Paulie was planning to choke him to death when he slept. Paulie then attacks Christopher and begins choking him, so Christopher pulls a gun on Paulie, saying he thinks Paulie was conjuring up a plan to murder him. He had overheard Paulie blaming the whole fiasco on Christopher when speaking to Tony over the phone. Christopher then angrily says he'll leave Paulie out in the woods. After a few moments of tension, Christopher breaks down in laughter, realizing how ridiculous the thought of their killing each other is, given the severity of the current situation. Paulie tells Christopher to promise not to leave him, and also says he would never kill Christopher.

Tony asks Bobby Bacala, a skilled outdoorsman, to help him find Paulie and Christopher. He shows up dressed far too appropriately, wearing over-the-top outdoor/hunting gear and resents the ensuing ridicule, especially after being called to help at such an inconvenient time. Driving to the Barrens, the two share their first friendly moment when Tony apologizes for making fun of Bobby, and expresses gratitude for his taking care of Uncle Junior. Bobby tries to make a joke but it is embarrassingly juvenile and stale, to the point where Tony can't even begin to feign amusement. Arriving at the woods, they park in the same spot where Paulie and Christopher parked, Paulie's car is gone. Tony and Bobby holler for a response, but realize that they will have to wait until dawn.

In the daylight, Tony and Bobby are out searching for Paulie and Christopher, who have left the van and continue to struggle some distance away. Paulie's makeshift shoe falls off and he shoots it in a fit of crazed frustration. Tony and Bobby hear the shots and head toward their source, calling for Paulie and Christopher. They respond and soon meet up with one another. Paulie and Christopher are grateful they have been found and climb into Tony's Chevrolet Suburban, where there are food and drinks, but Tony is clearly irritated with Paulie for getting him into such a predicament with Slava and for losing the original target of their mission: Silvio's $5,000, which was in Paulie's car.

The four men wonder whether Valery took Paulie's car. When Paulie gives a false version of what caused the fight with Valery, Christopher backs him up. Tony tells Paulie to take responsibility for any trouble created by Valery's disappearance or potential re-emergence, and to make an executive decision about whether or not to further pursue Valery, as Paulie holds the position of caporegime and should have to take responsibility. Paulie decides to give up and head back home to North Jersey.

Valery's fate is unclear. He was possibly killed by Paulie's shot, but as the two men search, the camera suddenly pulls back and up, showing a viewpoint looking down on the two gangsters, possibly implying that Valery is watching them from high up in a tree. Paulie's car is missing and possibly stolen by him. Valery is never seen again (on-screen) for the remainder of the series. David Chase has said in the past that the episode was not intended to evolve into a story arc. HBO's promotional material lists him as dead, although it does so with a question mark.

On the fate of the Russian, Terence Winter said:That's the question I get asked more than any other. It drives people crazy: 'Where's the Russian? What happened to the Russian?' We could say, 'Well, he got out and there's a big mob war with the Russians,' or 'He crawled off and died.' But we wanted to keep it ambiguous. You know, not everything gets answered in life.

David Chase said: They shot a guy. Who knows where he went? Who cares about some Russian? This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it.

Downton Abbey second series episodes 4-6

Now to Downton Abbey where I have watched the latest three episodes of the second series with a couple more to go.

His Lordship and his lady are demonstrating that they are able to adjust, however regretfully, to the changed circumstances of the first World Wartime. The Abbey has been given over to convalescing officers but they have been allocated a separate dining room rather than eat with his Lordship and Lady, and their daughters. It is evident the Earl of Grantham struggles without the use of the trusted man’s servant who left again, parting in bad humour for the second time because Bates acted in the best interests of the household as his wife threatened to expose the relationship between Lady Mary and the foreign gentleman. The Earl can be an awful clot oblivious to everything of importance occurring in his family but his heart is genuine albeit a product of his privileged and protected background from the reality of 99.9% of the humanity.

Bates having found out his wife had committed adultery commenced proceedings for divorce and naively for the umpteenth time assumes he has the upper hand. It is clever script writing to make him out to have a similar personality as his master albeit of slightly higher intelligence and worldliness.

He had returned to the area running a village pub which appeared to have no other staff or customers when first visited by his true love, the head housemaid Anna who had persuaded Lady Mary to use her London connections with the press Baron to find out if she had seen him about the nearest village. He admits he had come to get a glimpse of her but was unsure of his welcome after such a disappointing forced departure after they had made plans to marry and set up a small business together. When the Earl heard the news he had also visited Bates to make his peace and bring him back in one of several dubious contrived pieces of writing which makes the series even less convincing than the first despite its popularity.

They are quickly undone by the repeated alliance, the second plot contrivance, between former footman, blackmailer, conman and thief Thomas and the maidservant to her ladyship the evil Miss O’Brien. She writes the wife of Bates to let her know he is back and then immediately regrets doing so when the wife visits and announces proposes to explore the relationship between Lady Mary and Turk thus bringing shame and ridicule on the family although how this gets back at Bates is not made clear.

It is O’Brien who plants the idea of using Thomas, a common soldier, who trained as a medical orderly to get out of the front line and then got his hand shot through in order to get out of working at the front and a place at the local hospital given over to wounded officers, to have a role in the care of the convalescing men although is never made clear what his role is other than as a common solder orderly made up to acting Sergeant for some reason again not explained. The Countess fights with the mother of the heir, Isobel Crawley over the time of meals and staffing shift patterns and the army medical doctors are still in charge as are the generals. The Countess and Dowager Countess are still trying to find a way to retain control of the Abbey when the Early dies and the outsider Mathews take control of the estate and its wealth with the girls out on the street so speak unless Mathew and his wife to be take pity along with the Countess who would also become Dowager as her mother in law is now.

Her ladyship has been kept oblivious that Thomas is a cheating conman, blackmailer and thief by her husband who agrees to the return in the new capacity because he has been wounded in the war and we should forgive those who have served their country! Thomas swaggers around as if he owns the place until he is cut down to size by a senior officer but one cannot feel his role as a baddies is not over yet.

Bates advises Lady Mary of his wife’s proposed calumny that goes to see her press baron to pre-empt the story disclosure and throw herself on his mercy. She is showing her the unscrupulous side of her otherwise generous nature by pursing the marriage for wealth and position when her heart remains locked towards Matthew. He accepts the situation on the basis that her previous wanton behaviour makes them more equal. He uses the classic device of paying Mrs Bates for her story and getting her to sign a confidentiality agreement and then binning the tale. She is incensed when she finds out and warns she will find another way of getting revenge on the former husband.

This is only the first demonstration that Lady Mary can be underhanded without scruples and aided and abetted by the Dowager she attempts to expose Matthews’s fiancée because she stole a document for the Newspaper owner to expose a national scandal which they believe she did because the two had been lovers. When without appreciating the hypocrisy of her position she confronts Lavinia the young woman explains that she was blackmailed into the action because her father had been involved in the scandal and providing the document meant that her father kept his good name in public. As earlier in the second series Lady Mary realises that the young woman is someone of integrity and is in love with Matthew and she will not intervene further in the relationship.

How these issues unfold are at the core of the episodes although his Lordship remains oblivious to all this. The heir returns for a flying visit as part of his tour with the head of the regiment on recruiting and morale raising in the northern counties. A member of the house staff, a footman is called up and her Ladyship pulls strings to get him attached to the heir as his batman. When both go missing there is understandable anxiety on everyone’s part so when it was only a lack of communication there is great relief.

However their joy is short lived because back at the front Mathew and the former footman at the Abbey are severely wounded. Mathew is so severely injured that the doctors determine that he will not walk again or to be able to have normal marital relations. This means there is no prospect of an heir and therefore the long term future of the estate is in question once more.

When Lavinia comes to see Matthew after he has been wounded he insists that their engagement ends because his injury has been assessed as permanent together with the inability to consummate the marriage. Lavinia is distraught because she wants to be with him despite the changed circumstances and enlists the help of Lady Mary.

Alas the former footman who father lives in the village is in a worse condition. Before being called up he had showed great interest in one of the housemaids and assumes his feelings are reciprocated and she is bullied by other staff including the Housekeeper and the chief cook to consent to an engagement while he is in the war. When he returns and is dying he wants a quick wedding so the girl will be entitled to a state pension as a war widow. She is reluctant because she does not love him nor is the local vicar willing to conduct the ceremony but he is threatened with losing his livelihood if he refuses and the couple marry just before the young man dies.

The rebellious daughter is still being pursued by the chauffer who discloses he participated in the Easter rising in Ireland when a relation of his was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time although he was not an activist. He regales the staff with news of the revolution taking place in Russia and the imprisonment of Czar but is then horrified when the Royal family is executed. Before this he attempts to take revenge on a visiting General by offering to stand in as a footman to serve at dinner with the intention of pouring an unpleasant mixture over the visitor when serving the soup. He expects to be prosecuted which will give him the publicity to make his protest and to lose his job. His intentions become known because of a message left for the daughter intercepted by a staff member and his plan is thwarted and the matter covered up.

Not so the plight of one of the housemaids who responds to the advances of one of the convalescing officers under the misguided notion that this will be her way out of a life of service. She is dismissed when the relationship is discovered and he is told to leave. She returns for help when she finds herself pregnant. The father declines to accept any responsibility for mother and child. Meanwhile short of a maid a young widow with a child is taken on in service.

The kitchen staffs commences a soup kitchen for local men who return from the front wounded and cannot work or find work after discharge. Miss O’Brien again interferes and warns her ladyship that the staffs are stealing food to sell. When her ladyship visits she helps out with the venture and orders O’Brien to join in. The Butler continues his recovery from exhaustion and stress.

The marriage of Lady Mary and the Newspaper Baron is announced in his paper without Lady Mary or her father having advance warning. It is interesting as the second series progresses that the only members of the upper classes, apart from one of the daughters that appears to have genuine honour and integrity without being stupid and waste of space are Matthew, his mother and his fiancée. I am no sure this is what the programme makers and writer intend.

Le Carrés Smiley's People TV series part 2

George Smiley travelled incognito to Hamburg under a false passport and Circus money which he had not handed in when he retired and kept at his club. He appears to have told no one of his mission including former colleagues at the Circus. He had learned from Toby Esterhase that the way to make contact with Otto Leipzig in an emergency was through the man’s friend who owned a sex night club in Hamburg. This fitted into the picture he had printed out from the negative which the General had obtained from Villem Craven, the lorry driver and son of his brother comrade in arms who had died heroically in the war.

The photo was of two men, naked closer to old than middle age, on the kind of communal bed at such places as the Hamburg club, with two young women also naked. George who met Otto once recognised him as one of the two men and the reader is left to assume that either he had shown Connie or by some other means he had identified the other man as the Russian hood Kirov who was attached to the Russian Embassy in Paris. Smiley had paid an all year entrance fee of 175 marks at the club and an additional 25 for the first drink. He had seated himself alone at a table and given the waiter a tip so that he was not pestered by any of the naked women waiting for new customers. Other customers according to the novel were enjoying their intimate company while on the stage a couple went through the motions of intercourse. In the TV production there is a sado-masochistic couple stimulating play followed by a lesbian couple as he waited for the owner to arrive at 11 pm because we are advised he had other clubs to visit beforehand.

Smiley is given a meeting and hospitality and carefully communicates what has happened to the client of his enterprise with the photograph which he presumed was taken for the customer from a vantage point on one side of the office. Kretzschmar appears a cultured man of no illusion who emphasises that he operates a good business, selling sex where others sell ties, respecting the confidentiality of his clients except in this one instance because of his affection for the General who trusted in Otto because of his past services. Kretzschmar asks several times if Smiley has anything to give and when Smiley says no he says pity. Smiley is able to get information about the likely whereabouts of Otto who has not been in contact for some two weeks which fits into the period when Villem returned with the negative and the General was assassinated. Smiley says he is anxious to warn Otto who he believes is also in danger, adding that he thought the man would know that but had participated from choice, a point with the club owner concurs. There were issues of honour and principle involved.

We then follow Smiley to the home of Otto which is occupied by a young couple who had been making love and they advise where Otto has a boat at a location among a group of camped travellers on the shoreline. They are unfriendly suspecting him of being police but eventually someone rows him out to the anchored boat. Here he finds Otto (Vladek Sheybal) naked, bound hand and foot, tortured and dead for sometime. Before leaving he notes some yellow chalk mark and a line handing over the side followed by a sports shoe with a small packet sewn into the toe and later finds that the packet contains half a postcard. He manages to escape from the site as a couple of travellers take off the boot lid of the car which they fold and place back within the boot.

He then visits Kretzschmar at his home where he is having a barbecue. He had been given a personal card with the information. He explains what has happened and gives him the half of the card which the night club owner matches and then gives him a copy a video of what happened when after the sting Otto confronted Kirov and blackmailed the hood to reveal what he has been up to. There are also audio tapes of what was said. Kretzschmar is distressed by the news of the death of Otto and offers his resources in support including manpower but Smiley says although appreciative he will manage and will fulfil what the General and Otto had in mind. He does ask for the man to book him a flight to London under the name he has travelled but we see him deposit his fake passport in a bin and then travel to Paris by train using his real name.

In Paris Madam Ostrakova has been under observation and threat and on her way home from the bus is pursued by two men who throw her on to the bonnet of their following car. She survives with only bad bruises after persuading the hospital to keep her in over night. Following this she hides in her flat fearing to go out and without food and without as much sleep as she can, sitting in a chair holding an old hand gun after persuading the concierge and her husband to tell any visitors that she gone away to stay with friends. Eventually she agrees to open the door to the concierge who has Smiley with her, just in time as she is at the point of collapse from lack of food and sleep. Smiley contacts his former work colleague and assistant Peter Guillam who features more in the Honourable Schoolboy that the first of the trilogy who is now married, but not to Molly Meakin and whose wife is expecting a child. He is now attached to the British Embassy in Paris but his work on behalf of the Circus is severely curtailed because of the Government policy.

He does exactly as Smiley asks of him. He leaves the office and from a phone box contacts the Paris emergency services to go to the building and while they are there blocking the movement of the Russian surveillance vehicles they take Olga to Peter’s home to be looked after until he can make arrangements for her to go to the safe house of a couple who had been with the underground resistance during the Second World war. He gives Peter the video and audio tapes for his assistant to go take to London insisting that he ensures the Circus meet him when he arrives at Heathrow airport. He provides a covering note and asks Peter to arrange for a meeting with Sir Saul Enderby and his advisers when he returns to London after first ensuring that Madam Ostrakova is settled in safety.

Peter is none too pleased with Smiley when he discovers that the operation to date has been unauthorised and that his position at the embassy is in doubt especially having called out the emergency services. However once he has brought Smiley back to London he realises that the situation may have been justified when a top level meeting within the Circus is arranged at 8 pm in the evening.

At the meeting is Sir Paul Enderby, the new head of research replacing Connie, one Molly Meakham who refers to the boss as Chief. I thought there was reference in the book to the infamous Sam Collins in attendance, now Director of Operations who plotted behind Smiley’s back with Enderby and Lacon to ensure the product was delivered to the American rather than to the UK interrogation centre; also Lauder Strickland, another yes man to Enderby and Lacon played by Bill Patersen. First they show a couple of frames of the video at the moment when the blackmail is revealed by Otto, They are then provided with a transcript of the audio tapes which runs to over 100 pages and where Enderby reads the salient points, This covers that a member of the Russian embassy team in Switzerland has opened an account into which is paid £10000 a month which is the fee for a young woman with the name of Alexandra Ostrakova at a mental health clinic and where he visits each week and then gives a report working directly to Karla and outside all the usual systems and checks..

There is a discussion as to whether George should be empowered to go to Bern and attempt to turn the contact, Anton Grigoriev, and therefore provide a direct route to attempt to blackmail Karla into voluntarily coming over. Enderby is torn between the implications if the mission fails because he does not dare seek permission from Lacon who will be required to go to the Wise Men committee for approval knowing it is against current policy and would reveal the clandestine activity undertaken todate also without authority, and with the glory which would follow if the mission is successful, especially the kudos with the Americans.

He insists that Peter Guillam accompanies Gorge as his minder and George bring back Toby Esterhase to organise the surveillance team, and with Strickland observing and reporting back directly to Enderby. The team stakes out the clinic where the girl, Karla‘s daughter, is being treated and also the movements of Grigoriev who is hen pecked by his wife and has been informed of his mission in the Swiss capital. As with the operation in the Honourable Schoolboy considerable attention is given to establishing the details of the financial account and Grigoriev’s control and direct involvement as he draws cash to pay the fees of the clinic which is run by an Order of Nuns.

There is a genuine amusing situation developed when Anton is taken by the team on one of the only opportunities each week when he is on his own. He and his family are offered a welcome in the west as an alternative to exposure to the interests in Russia who would take action against him for participating in the unofficial use of funds. He is concerned about the length of time he is away fro m his wife and the grilling he will get from her when he returns so Smiley stiffens his backbone and provides him with the script to explain to his wife why he will be late. The ploy is a great success and the diplomat realises it is something he can use again to gain more freedom from the wife which he finds funny roaring with contagious laughter especially when he says that what has happened is looking more and more a good thing.

Smiley then goes to visit the young woman to have first hand knowledge of her and to also find out the strength of the link with her father. It emerges she is aware of being watched by a man in the distance at various stages during her life but without his ever having direct contact. She believes she is Titiana and the daughter of someone important. She hates where she is and pleads with Smiley to accompany him.

Smiley then writes to Karla offering him asylum with the opportunity to be with his daughter and to provide the treatment available which will be able to cure her condition. Otherwise she will be doomed to state institutions and he will never see or have contact with her again. He will also be exposed for his unauthorised activities

There is the final scene where they wait in Berlin at one of the crossing points for Karla to come. At the key moment he seems to hesitate when on the bridge from the Russian end of the Border crossing looks back and lights a cigarette. There is mounting tension and building of excitement as he continues and George goes out to confront him although the two only exchange looks at this point rather than words. The man drops the lighter given by Anne with an inscription and which Karla took when the two met in India all those years ago. The taking of the lighter has been used against George by people like Enderby and Lacon. Smiley had commented to one such recent jibe that it as a common lighter although they had been made to last. He is not seen to pick up the lighter nor is anyone else. Karla who is played by Patrick Stewart is driven off. Peter Guillam remains alone with Smiley and comments “you won George.” George reflects without emotion, yes I have, or words to similar effect.

But there is sense that this far from a victory more the closing of a long drawn out chapter within his life and that he has now to come to terms with retirement away from the Circus and his life as a Spy and Spy chief. He is to make one more appearance in a Le Carré book when he is asked to lecture at the training school and to reminisce on his experience. He does not become involved in the present.

And what of Olga Ostrakova? When she recovers her strength a little and is able to relax at the safe house George and Peter has arranged for her, there is sufficient time for George to explain to her something of what the Russians were up to though this was before the last phase had commenced so what was said would have been limited and is not shared with the reader. Her main concern is the question: will she ever see or have contact with her daughter again? Gorge helps her to accept that it will never happen and she must find a way of continuing as she had done before. The irony is that this was the right thing to have said when the book was written. It was a decade later that the Berlin wall was breached marking the collapse of the Soviet system. Mother and daughter assuming both remained alive would have been able to meet and if they wished live together.

It was just after the removal of the wall with the reunification of Germany that Smiley was invited to lecture at the training school. He asked not to be invited again. By then he and Ann would have known that whatever had passed between them they needed each other for the present and whatever future was left to them.

Alec Guiness as Smiley's People

After seeing the recent film and read Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor and the Honourable Schoolboy of the Karla Trilogy, I could not resist continuing with Smiley’s People and watching the original TV taped video at the same time. Doing this involved changing video players, cleaning the video heads and readjusting the second video player to the tape. This all took time but was well worth the effort because the TV script brilliantly transfers the book to screen with one if the best assemblies of British acting. describe.

I found the book and the TV production the most dramatic and engaging of the three works and all three can be experienced individually with satisfaction and enjoyment while the three together do form a major work in this genre.

And yet the basic plot with which I was already familiar is a simple one. It is known that the head Russian Spooks, Karla married and had a daughter with mental health problems and when he uses a émigré widow in order to bring her to the West for treatment, George Smiley officially retired for the second time within a few short years is first brought back to clear up a potentially damaging mess that ahs occurred with the death of a former agent, and then alerted to what is happening sets about creating a situation in which Karla is forced to defect if he wishes the young woman to get the treatment she needs.

The difference between Le Carré and so many others working in this genre of writing is the understanding of human behaviour and his ability to draw characters whose outward personalities we can recognise and which in the BBC production the casting was superb. The only difference I can immediately see between the TV production and the book is a slight variation in the sequence of some events to ensure the that TV watcher has a clarity in their understanding for with the book one can stop and reflect or re-read a passage to ensure you have grasped what the author is communicating. As in all three of the Karla novels Le Carré switches from the individuals caught up the main event and the Spooks trying to understand what is happening before they personally act to bring the situation to a satisfactory conclusion.

The work begins with an émigré living in Paris who has reached a level of security although she has five different locks on her flat door. I encountered this fear when as a social worker I needed to visit a family of refugees from one of the post World War uprisings, Poland, Hungry, it does not matter which and had to wait for a similar number of locks and bolts to be opened before gaining entry and was explained that the mother had become and remained a nervous wreck after the experiencing the invasions of Germans and then the Russians. While the fear of the bombs is enough for most of us to deal with, being the subject of not one but two totalitarian and ideological invasions is beyond the comprehension of most of us.

The present level of the personal security of Madame Osktravova, played by Eileen Atkins, is shattered when she is approach by a Russian hood, Oleg Kirov working at the Embassy in Paris who offers the woman the opportunity to see her daughter once more. Her husband a nationalist and a Jew was banished to Siberia from where he escaped to the West and then his wife subsequently against all expectation was given permission to join him during his last moments as he was dying from cancer. The price was to leave her daughter behind who was taken into care and who according to Kirov (Dudley Sutton) had become a criminal by running away from the institution. It had been decided to rid the country of the young woman so all Olga had to do was to fill an application for the daughter to come to her in the West and permission would be granted. But Olga was no push over and in Paris she had been in contact with General Vladimir, (played by Curt Jurgens), the leader of the Estonian émigré’s with his chief Assistant Mikkel (Michael Gough) who also work for the Circus as an agent looked after by Toby Esterhase in terms of day to day contact and by George Smiley as the supervisor “the Vicar“. Because his role had been exposed he had fled to London when he had been effectively pensioned off in the form of a grant to his organisation, after the coup in which Saul Enderby, of the Foreign Office had become the permanent head of the Spooks and gained his knighthood after and despite George’s success in the saga of the Honourable Schoolboy.

In addition there had been a Political change with the policy decision taken to end the clandestine activities of the Circus in general including those of the émigré’s considered out of touch with reality and a nuisance in terms of the official attempts to establish better relations with the Soviet Union and is occupied territories. I remember articles and news programmes which from time to time painted an unsympathetic picture of these aging individuals clinging to past and scheming for something which most commentators considered unrealistic. This of course may have been a double bluff, presenting one government position for International consumption while behind the scenes everything was being done to bring about the collapse which took place against all general expectation.

In this instance Olga writes to General about what had happened and that no daughter had arrived. The General makes contact with an associate in Western Germany Otto Leipzig someone who had worked for Karla directly and had become a double agent, a fantasist at times, a racketeer and a pimp but who had provided valuable information over time about the Russian operations and is a personal friend of the owner of a sex night club in Hamburg.

In the first part of the novel and TV experience all we know is that the General had made contact with a European Lorry driver based in England and accompanies him on a journey to one of the ports bringing with him a bag/basket filled with oranges and that he is to meet someone on a ferry with a copy of the previous day’s paper who will place a folder of film negatives on top of the basket which he must bring back.

Later we learn that the mission had been carried out by Villem the son of a literal brother in arms of the General who had died a hero in the war and brought up by the General who he had come to regard as father rather than an uncle. He had married to Stella, a British woman, played by Maureen Lipman who wanted her husband to have nothing to do with the past, especially now that he got a well paid job and was planning to buy their own home. She had effectively banned all contact with the General so when Smiley arrives as part of his clean up operation and to establish what happened, she first denies her husband is present and then is shocked to learn that the two had contact with the general accompanying him to the coastal port with the basket giving him the instructions and then visiting on his return while his wife was out the house to collect the negatives.

The negatives had been passed to him by Otto who had also been to Paris to warn Olga she had to be careful. The General had replied to her letter sending her the torn half of an unused postcard. The man he would send would slip the other half of the card under her door so she would know it was someone she could trust and who she nicknamed as the magician.

Back in London the General had become very excited on receipt of the negatives. In one of the early parts of the book and TV production he attempts to ring George who he knows as Max at the Circus. But Max is long retired and the young man, Nigel Mostyn (Stephen Riddle) a recent recruit but sufficiently experienced to have heard George speak at the training school, had taken the call on a special phone used exclusively for contact from the émigré’s and other pensioned off agents. Mostyn asks the General to ring back (when his section head gets back from lunch) but the man does not return until later and then goes off for long weekend leaving Mostyn to deal with the situation himself.


Mostyn has checked the simple data record system which informs who the general is and who Max is and although this is not stated in either the book or TV production it can also be assumed he checked who the Sandman was. In addition to be told to deal the situation himself he had been told not to contact Smiley because the superiors knew how Smiley would react and because he was part of the former Order which the new political master had effectively abolished.

The General had insisted on Moscow Rules, the traditional spy craft of leaving nothing to chance. He had arranged a safe house close to Hampstead Heath where he had bread Vodka, black bread, a salami type sausage, gherkins and the proceeded to the heath and a particular hut where he had placed a drawing pin/ The General had paced a chalk mark to say all was well and he would proceed to the safe house while Mostyn had gone to the house to wait for General who had not arrived. His body was later found with his face half blown away.

It was at this point that Sir Saul had contacted Oliver Lacon, the Cabinet Office link, another super casting, with Anthony Bate, and his tendency to talk in platitudes and a lack of insight into people or understanding of the world beyond his limited public school Oxbridge experience. He wants the matter cleared up in such a way that the General never had any connection with the Circus and with no loose ends to be followed. As his “vicar” Lacon also argues that the man’s death could be said to have been Smiley’s responsibility. The Circus had been damaged enough by the recent past and was in the political doghouse so that any new scandal would cause it broken up further or abolished. There was now a committee of wise men who had to approve anything and everything in advance. Lacon as does the equally awful Saul Enderby later played in this instance by Barry Foster also ask Smiley about his wayward but influential wife and well connected wife. Is she well, is she with him or away up to her tricks. Smiley would prefer no reference and when they want to get under his skins they refer to her relationship with the traitor Bill Haydon fearing that if Smiley and confided in his wife and she with Haydon then the info would have gone straight back to Moscow.

Mostyn who appears a good and sensible lad leaves the service because he has lost his first agent. In TV series Enderby says he tried to get Mostyn into the BBC but there was not interested so he had gone into a Monastery. In the book when Mostyn reveal to Smiley the conversation was taped Lacon stamps on the young man saying this is a confidential development and Smiley is no longer part of the time but it is a move to prevent Smiley learning what was said. Smiley gets the information Mostyn privately that the General had said he was able to deliver the Sandman and that he had two proofs. The reason Karla is called the Sandman is because everyone he comes into contact is sent to sleep!

When examining the body and tracing the evidence of the man’s walk along paths through the Heath Smiley notes that he is shot in the face, a Karla trade mark to serve as a warning. He also notes that although it is evident from the foot pattern that the General had hurried when he knew someone was following he had stopped at one point before continuing to where the actual assassin was waiting for him. Smiley is shown the body and the route by Michael Elphick who plays the police Chief Superintendent who has been instructed to cooperate with Smiley who is not there so to speak and has to leave the scene before the press arrive.

The following day he inspects the flat of the General in the hope that there is evidence to help him learn what the émigré leader was working on and he notices a large pack of French cigarettes which we later learn had been bought as a present by Villem. Previously he had inspected the contents of pockets of the General which had been placed in plastic bags. This included a receipt for a taxi which at over £17 indicated a long or length journey and which after bribing the driver revealed that he had taken the General to the home of Villem Craven stopping off to by a toy for his Godson on the way and then waiting an hour to collect him to bring him home. There was no cigarette packet although the General was a chain smoker.

He also returns to the Heath and explores the undergrowth at the point where he stopped when knowing he was being followed and then spots a packet of French cigarettes placed in branch of tree. It is only later that he carefully examines the picture from the negative which he develops at his home. Before this he visits the office of the General to express his condolences to Mikkel and to Mikkel’s wife who works as a secretary clerical officer and who is known to be one of the many women with whom the General had a relationship. He has been told that Mikkel had been trying to get in with Villem following return from his mission and the General’s visit to him about the £50 he had loaned and which Villem said he had returned to the General, Smiley speculates whether Mikkel had spoken to the enemy out of ambition to replace the General and because of the relationship with the man’s wife. Similarly he had questioned Villem and his wife to check that had not betrayed the man.

There was one piece of information learned from the General which had confirmed Smiley’s concern from the outset that the General had asked for him and not his first contact Toby Eaterhase given that he had been such a stickler for standard procedures. He had expressed great disappointment about Toby some two weeks previously.

This Smiley follows up when he visits the dodgy art gallery Toby now runs following his retirement. Toby Eaterhase is a central European who Smiley rescued and recruited when they were both young men and Smiley a fieldman, In Tinker Tailor he had become head of the pavements artists those who conduct human surveillance and a member of the fifth floor confidants of the former chief, of Haydon and the others. He had been leaned on by Smiley to become his man in setting up the unmasking of Haydon and was played in the film by a David Suchet of Poirot fame as a pathetic wimp who runs with the hares and the hounds according to appears to be winning. In the TV productions he is played by Bernard Hepton who went on to play the leading role in a wartime underground series based in Belgium whose name escapes and I am too lazy to check.

His portrayal is of a confident con man selling fakes and besieged by creditors. He admits that the General came to see him with the proposition that he should go over to Hamburg to collect the proofs that Karla had created a legend, a fake history in order to place a spy using the identity of the child of an émigré and that he had arranged for the Russian hood Oleg Kirov to be blackmailed by his friend Otto Leipzig with the help of sex night club owner Claus Kretschmar. Toby had rejected the request because he had no regard for Otto and did not want to get involved again having been pensioned off.
George makes one further visit in which he is officially discouraged from doing. He goes to Oxfordshire to see Connie Sachs) played by Beryl Reid, as he had done in Tinker Tailor then bringing her back to work for him in the Honourable Schoolboy. Now she is disabled running an animal sanctuary with the help of a former female member of the Circus who had a breakdown, Hilary (Norma West), who is alarmed at the visit of Smiley fearing is it going to upset the secure existence she had developed with Connie. He presses Connie and her failing memory who confirms his own understandings that Karla had married but had been responsible for the execution of the woman when she commenced to question the regime. They had a daughter that Karla had raised at arm’s length and who had become psychological disturbed.

I am not sure at what point we get to meet Anne his wife, played by Sian Phillips who also plays the same role in the first book but who is only seen briefly from behind in the film. In the book she rings Smiley seeking his company at but he is unable to invite or go to her, fully engaged and anxious that anyone who may have knowledge of the legend is likely to be eliminated. In this TV adaptation he visits her at her father’s home to explain that he is going away and that she had best remain where she is and that he is arranging for two men to provide security day and night. She asks if he is unable to tell her what is going on because of her affair with Bill Haydon.

Smiley has the technique of never answering anyone’s questions, says goodbye and goes to Hamburg.