Is something happening?

[Desert Orchid]

I'm just wondering about something.

I'm heavily into puzzles (which probably explains my fascination for the really big handicaps) and, on a good day, can do a 'killer' sudoku inside half an hour.

I've been known to do the Times Crossword in my lunch break when I was still working.

At home I have the GCHQ puzzle book which I admit I'm not great at solving but clearly there are people who are.

I really enjoy the TV quiz show Only Connect, and not just because I want to sh@g the arse off Victoria Coren.

Tonight there was a 'reality' programme on TV about recruitment for the SOE. I missed the first few minutes but I presume SOE stands for something like 'Special Operations Executive', or wartime special agency, an MI6 kind of operation.

You can apparently try the Only Connect stuff online.

Here's my suspicion...

We're desperately short of 'agents' who can do their bit for queen and country a la James Bond and all these things are geared towards attracting likely candidates.

If I'd been 30 years younger I could have seen myself getting more involved in this kind of thing but I reckon I'm past it now that I'm in my sixties.

But I'm really wondering why might we be needing agents of this sort?

Is there something going on we're not being told about?

[Outsider]

Spook y

[simmo]

This is what happens to people when they retire........

[G-G]

SOE does stand for Special Operations Executive. They were agents dropped behind enemy lines during WW11 to help the resistance/gather intelligence etc.. men and women. A fabulous book about the women particularly is A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins And The Lost Agents Of The SOE which documents Vera Atkins' quest to discover what happened to the women who didn't come back, practically single handed as not given a lot of help by the powers that be. Parts of make a harrowing read.
Intelligence has many guises: not all can be James Bond but I would think in this age of data being almost king, minds which can fathom codes supposed innocent conversations online, would be very useful. Age is no barrier to intellect.
I listened to a few minutes of a programme on Radio 4 yesterday and they were commentating that data is the new oil.

[Danny]

Is there something going on we're not being told about?

Always.

[Danny]

Age is no barrier to intellect.
.

So its not too late for Des yet. Sign your self up mate.

Trouble in Moscow ? Send in the Orchid ! That has a ring to it

[Diamond Geezer]

He could be a Moscow Flyer

[an capall]

I really enjoy the TV quiz show Only Connect, and not just because I want to sh@g the arse off Victoria Coren.

I was watching OC with my Dad a few weeks ago and he alluded to a similar infatuation. He is 87.

[gigilo]

I like david Mitchell but doubt he's fulfilling her needs...

[Desert Orchid]

Send in the Orchid ! That has a ring to it

... where Orchid is code for 'clown'

[Desert Orchid]

This is what happens to people when they retire........

Indeed, simmo, the mind remains active...

[Desert Orchid]

I was watching OC with my Dad a few weeks ago and he alluded to a similar infatuation. He is 87.

You had that kind of conversation with your Dad??

Jeez. If the words "sh@g the arse off Victoria Coren" were ever uttered by either my old man or me in the presence of the other a heart attack would have ensued immediately.

Having said that, a talking point in our family remains the day our Liam, returning to the hacienda from the pub where he had partaken of one too many, stumbled into the middle of a conversation about the intelligence of certain former pupils at the school we used to attend. Without hesitation, Liam proffered the now-legendary summation, "Aye, but St Pat's FPs are as thick as shite!" As the rest of us who'd been there experienced stabbing pains all over our body in our attempts not to burst out laughing and Liam, suddenly even more beetroot in complexion than usual as the full scale of his utterance dawned on him, attempted to slope out of the room, old Charlie never batted an eyelid. And he himself an FP.

[an capall]

I think I should qualify my comment Mo.

What me Da actually said was "I think that she is a very attractive woman, don't you think so?" But I knew what he was thinking.
Personally I measure my quiz staff on the Rachel Rileyometer so I disagreed. I think I disappointed him. Not for the first time.

[Desert Orchid]

Rachel Riley or Victoria Coren, now there's a horny dilemma...

[Bolero]

I'm just wondering about something.
I'm heavily into puzzles (which probably explains my fascination for the really big handicaps) and, on a good day, can do a 'killer' sudoku inside half an hour.
I've been known to do the Times Crossword in my lunch break when I was still working.
At home I have the GCHQ puzzle book which I admit I'm not great at solving but clearly there are people who are.
I really enjoy the TV quiz show Only Connect, and not just because I want to sh@g the arse off Victoria Coren.
Tonight there was a 'reality' programme on TV about recruitment for the SOE. I missed the first few minutes but I presume SOE stands for something like 'Special Operations Executive', or wartime special agency, an MI6 kind of operation.
You can apparently try the Only Connect stuff online.
Here's my suspicion...
We're desperately short of 'agents' who can do their bit for queen and country a la James Bond and all these things are geared towards attracting likely candidates.
If I'd been 30 years younger I could have seen myself getting more involved in this kind of thing but I reckon I'm past it now that I'm in my sixties.
But I'm really wondering why might we be needing agents of this sort?
Is there something going on we're not being told about?

Alluding to para.5 with me it has to be Rachel Weisz, especially after seeing her in the Stalingrad film "Enemy at the Gates". Lordy, lordy! I don't care if she is in real life married to the current James Bond!

[Colin Phillips]

Didn’t I hear on the news that GCHQ is opening another intelligence gathering centre (can’t remember where).

DO you’ll have to change your username, can I suggest Mystic Mo?

[tiggers1972]

Manchester Col

[Colin Phillips]

Thanks, tigg.