—
For Perspective

—
For The Emigre

—
For The Emigre

—
For The Critic

—
For The Oldie

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’.

—

For The Oldie

— The Nelson Evening Mail, October 10 1906

.
The Museum of Emotions in London has a game with yes/no answers.

Adolf Hitler fixed the Nazi Party registrations, to make it seem they had more members than they did.

The endnotes to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest comprise their own entire audiobook.

Vandals put lives at risk.

The ‘Blue Danube’ waltz is played on a radio station somewhere in the world every minute of the day and night.

The English county of Midsomer has the highest murder rate of any non-metropolitan area in the UK.

Barns are typically painted red because of nuclear fusion.

In France a few yards of silk can make a nobleman.

The Cutty Sark was still in service in 1953.

‘Orientation’ comes from the fact that the earliest Western maps placed the East at the top, putting Paradise in pole position.

Public procurement expenditure accounts for nearly 50% of the Afghan budget.

The weather in Northern Ireland is always fine.

Girls have a higher chance of getting pregnant than boys.