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For The Critic

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I spy
You spew
He/she/Pierre Spies

We (Graf) Spee
You Spanx®
They spunk
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For The Oldie

— The Nelson Evening Mail, January 22 1907

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The erection of a verandah is a useful way to extend one’s living quarters.

Seven American states observe Abraham Lincoln’s birthday as a public holiday.

There is only one Tunumiisut-French grammar.

Anne Watson has just moved to university here, and right now really needs money to live. She is willing to go on a date – and has massive breasts.

There is a shark that can live for 400 years.

In 1945 the Soviet Union took the side of Chiang Kai-shek against the Chinese communists.

What in Britain is called the Special Relationship, in Germany is called treason.

Working-class people swear a lot.

At birth, a baby’s focal distance is not much more than 20cm.

In a recent survey, atheists and agnostics knew the most about religion. In second place were Mormons; third Jews; and then all other forms of Christianity.

Barack Obama is Irish.

The revolution will not be printed in Comic Sans.

The word ‘acrylic’ does not benefit from repetitive translation.
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From Call for the Dead (in ’61) to the classic ‘Karla trilogy’, and on til (almost) the collapse of Communism, he battled foe and, sometimes, friend, quite often in the streets of central London.

He’s not been seen since 1991. But in proper Oldie style (for Smiley would now be well over a hundred…), it seems he is about to make a re-appearance. 

The details of A Legacy of Spies are locked down tighter than a nuclear facility (the publishing trade could teach those spies a thing or two!). But to help you get back into that redoubtable, unglamorous le Carré spirit, Penguin have released a ‘Smiley’s London’ map, identifying a handful of old favourite locations, like his Chelsea home and the (Cambridge) Circus HQ, and one new one: a safe house which has languished undetected to this day (it’s 14 Disraeli St, in Bloomsbury).

Mapped and illustrated by Mike Hall, you can print it out or just download it to your phone. And sportingly, you’ll note, it includes each branch of Waterstone’s alone the route, enabling you to stop off for that lost le Carré paperback you’d hoped to reference.

The Old Un reckons you could do it in a gentle Sunday, with a stop for lunch. Watch out for ‘pavement artists’.

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For The Oldie

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For theartsdesk