The Bluffer’s Guide to Espionage – Phil Kimby

It’s kinda funny when I look back at some of the circumstances on books I possess, and how I viewed them before I read them and after.

My landlord in England had this in his vast collection of books, and I picked it up before I got on the aeroplane to give me something to read. Am I glad I did or what?

To understand ‘The Bluffer’s Guide to Espionage : Bluff Your Way into Espionage’ I think most people would need to be British. This book is full of that dry, sardonic sense of humour that you’d traditionally associate with educated upper classes. Having said that, I love this book! Of course, this was written back when Germany was still split into two nations.

For instance one passage in the first couple of pages in this book talks about international Intelligence service alliances which goes as follows…

‘Alliances
In the West, the basic alliances are between:
- the British and the Americans
- the Americans and the Israelis
- the British and the West Germans
- the West Germans and the Israelis
- the French and the French.
The French, unfortunately, are still suffering from the rumour that its DGSE agency effectively went freelance some years ago (and certainly there were times when it showed little sign of working for the French goverment or for France)…

…Overall, there is a general awkwardness felt by other agencies in dealing with the FBI, since so many FBI personnel are:
- accountants
- lawyers
- still reporting to J. Edgar Hoover.’

Phil Kimby has a smashing sense of humour and manages to convey it excellently as he makes fun of all the suppositions on espionage, pointing out various ridiculously funny but true aspects to real life espionage. I think what I liked about this book is that the author writes it in a way so subtle that he expects you to know when he’s being witty without making big punchlines.

Another passage in this book which I find hilarious goes as follows:

‘Bluffers should note that within specific ‘divisions’ of the world espionage league, it is impossible to show an overall champion, except perhaps Israel which remains the top intelligence and security team. Against that, it tends to play against weaker teams more often (i.e. the Arabs), although bluffers should also know that the KGB maintains an entire department targeted specifically against Israel, while the US is lumped together with Canada. (This rather annoys the Canadians, who resent being thought of as another American state. Informed sources suggest that the KGB have agreed to give Canada its own department in exchange for extra cod and salmon quotas for the Soviet fishing fleet.)

Both China and Japan find it a little difficult to spy on Warsaw Pact countries since they tend to stand out in a crowd. As a consequence, they have been forced to spend most of their time spying on:
a) each other
b) Korea
c) each other spying on Korea

In recognition of their own paranoia, the Koreans call their own agency the CIA. The official reason is that the letters KIA, as originally planned, and standing for Korean Intelligence Agency, also stand for Killed in Action.

All emerging nations (never say emerging from what) now see the possession of espionage and counter espionage agencies as being proof positive that they should be allowed the key to the executive washroom at the United Nations.’

I’ll say no more, and allow you to enjoy the book.

‘Buy Bluffer’s Guide to Espionage : Bluff Your Way in Espionage’ by Phil Kimby’

Rising Phoenix – Kyle Mills

I chose to review this book first partly because it’s the author’s first novel. I loved it. Kyle Mills is the author and has created a masterpiece.

The story includes two main characters – FBI Agent Mark Beamon and former DEA Agent John Hobart. Secondary but very important figures are Colombian drug lord Luis Colombar, preacher Reverend Simon Blake, and Colombar’s lawyer Alejandro Perez.

The story starts out as DEA Agent John Hobart has a suspect in custody during an assignment. He uses torture, and physical brutality to glean information from this suspect. FBI Agent Mark Beamon walks in the middle of it, disgusts, and walks out with Hobart’s suspect under the train of Hobart’s pistol. The torture ends Hobart’s career.

The story then focuses on Reverend Blake, who is a preacher and the head of a financially successful church, disguised more like a corporate environment. His head of security is John Hobart. After one day finding out his child has experimented with drugs, Reverend Blake uses the vast funds from the Church’s accounts and orders John Hobart to hit back at the main drug suppliers to America.

Using those funds, John Hobart finds a chemical nerd and commissions him to find a deadly untraceable poison, with a time delayed reaction. Using the toxins of a mushroom found in Eastern Europe, John Hobart takes this poison to South America, where he uses an old buddy to find the main chemical plant manufacturing cocaine. Inserting the poison into the heavily guarded narcotics using an ingenious method, John Hobart successfully poisons all of the cocaine coming from the drug plant of Luis Colombar, destined for America.

Cocaine users in the U.S start dropping like flies in their hundreds. Then thousands start dying. Cocaine users simply keep dying and show no signs of stopping. Finding the perpetrator has become the FBI’s priority! Mark Beamon is put on the case. Aided partially by a Mafia boss from the Eastern U.S, the story definitely keeps the reader fascinated.

This books gives a realistic report on how things would transpire if someone did try to poison the American drug supply. It taps into that tiny hidden part of most good people who are fed up with crime, drug use and narcotic related murders, who secretly want all drug dealers and users dead, but would never actually do anything to make that happen.

I was fascinated by it… and have read this book three times in the last year.

Buy ‘Rising Phoenix’ by Kyle Mills from Amazon.

A New Addition

That’s right folks… I now have a new daughter who was born on February 15th 2007.   Her name is Alex Maryse Cobiness Paul.

There was an emergency in the maternity ward with her being born, and my woman had to get a Caesarean section.

They gave her a drug called Citosis or something like that to make the contractions start… and to cut a long story short, it caused the baby’s heart beat to drop from 160 to 60 per minute.   They kicked me out of the O.R on the pretence of getting scrubbed up.   Once I had they wouldn’t let me back in.   It was so urgent that the Senior Obstetrician told the nurses to stop painting the iodine on my woman, and to pour it instead which they did.   The whole process only took about eight minutes, but it was the longest eight minutes of my life.

You can be sure I will post more about this soon, along with pictures.

Another Tiresome Day

Today was alright at work…

Worked all day slicing up images for one outfitter’s website.   It’s tiring doing that.

Stuff is still pretty much the same at home – there was a real turbulent patch a couple of weeks ago… still is turbulent. Pregnant women can be extremely difficult to live with sometimes hahahahaha!   Can’t wait… I could have a daughter as early as a week Monday.   Amniotic fluid test is on Friday… depending on what the doctors say, the Monday after that could be the day.

Before I came to Overdrive, I was a beginner at PHP… I’m at a mid-intermediate level right now.   I can sometimes fix programs that have broken, and can write a few very small php snippets to aid in website building and functionality.   I’d love to go to school to learn php programming, but there’s noone around here that can teach it that I know of.

About a week ago I got four new GT Champiro 128 tyres for my Toyota Matrix.   I had to buy all four instead of just two because it’s All Wheel Drive.   The traction was 100% completely crapty.   I mean, bare F1 tyres would have had more traction.   These were labelled as All-Season tyres but I could barely stay on the road – nearly broadsided a Dodge RAM coming out of McDonalds.   So I went back to Northern Tire and Auto Service in Kenora, and Dave (the guy who owns it) was great about it… called up his representative who wasn’t happy about the returned tyres.   I paid an extra $80 and got Hancook’s.   THEY’RE AWESOME! Almost like having winter tyres.   I love my car.   I’ll post a picture of it tomorrow if I can.
It’s going to be -35 degrees tomorrow apparently which will really suck!

I did my first Youtube video blog, where I basically talked crap about nothing in particular.   I think I’m going to make it a regular slot doing that. Seems fun to be able to vent, rant and rave about anything and have people watch it.