One of the growing markets in spy fiction is pop culture aimed at teenagers or ‘young adults’. The CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore depicts a junior wing of MI6, with the first novel in the series – The Recruit – depicting the recruitment, training and first mission of our protagonist, James Adams. This week I […](Read more...)
The Untouchables TV series (1959-63) was the first of its kind – a police procedural with explicit violence and action. Up until then most detective stories focused on the investigation, but The Untouchables featured the gunfights and car chases that became staples of the genre by the 1970s. It was also subject to investigation by […](Read more...)
I recently joined Robbie Martin of Media Roots to discussion the Salisbury poisoning, the Skripals, the Syrian airstrikes and the general state of politics and Russophobia. We covered many of the reasons to be sceptical of the official story about the poisoning of the Skripals, how this relates to the situation in Syria, and a […](Read more...)
In this month’s subscriber-only podcast I take a look at three TV series which predicted or reinforced various aspects of the official story of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. I examine Salvation, Homeland and Strike Back have featured dialogue and storylines about Litvinenko, Russian assassination of former spies, Novichok and more.
On March 4th Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the sleepy British city of Salisbury, by forces currently unknown. The British government immediately blamed Russian intelligence, leading to weeks of accusations and counter-accusations, diplomatic expulsions and lots of conspiracy theories about who really did this, and why.
Spy is a 2004 BBC gameshow where ordinary members of the public are trained and tested by real life ex-spooks and ultimately some are eliminated until there’s a winner. Spies is a 2017 Channel 4 gameshow where ordinary members of the public are trained and tested by real life ex-spooks and ultimately some are eliminated […](Read more...)
Continuing our long-running commentary, Pearse invited me back onto Porkins Policy Radio to talk about the first episode of the new season of Homeland. For the first time in several seasons Homeland maintained the storyline from the previous season rather than rebooting the show’s storyline and characters. This of course means that President Keane and […](Read more...)
Ted Kaczynski is most famous for both being the most prolific serial bomber in US history and for writing the Unabomber Manifesto – a political-philosophical tract that was published by major newspapers and by the FBI. This week I take a look at the life of Ted Kaczynski and conduct a philosophical analysis of Industrial […](Read more...)
Of all the US intelligence agencies, the FBI has the longest-running relationship with Hollywood. From spying on A-listers as to helping blacklist screenwriters, through to manipulating scripts for PR and propaganda purposes, the Bureau’s influence on Tinseltown is very broad. Using documents from throughout the FBI’s history, today we’re going to look at this relationship and ask: whatever happened about that Sony hack?(Read more...)
