Another hazard for Cambridge Uni

If it's not MI5 trying to recruit you, it's the local constabulary. Apparently they are keen to find out which members of the student body are joining political groups. This was in the Guardian yesterday. It's amazing because the sort of political activity the police officer is talking about is a campaign against cuts in public spending - a perfectly legitimate political issue. On the Guardian website there are video clips of this police officer telling the student what he is to find out about his follow students, taken by the student he is trying to recruit. My friend who is a lecturer jokes that he has been a police informant for years and gets a preferential rate of £35 for his information. ha ha.

An officer monitoring political campaigners attempted to persuade an activist in his 20s to become an informant and feed him information about students and other protesters in return for money.

But instead the activist wore a hidden camera to record a meeting with the officer and expose the surveillance of undergraduates and others at the 800-year-old institution.

The officer, who is part of a covert unit, is filmed saying the police need informants like him to collect information about student protests as it is "impossible" to infiltrate their own officers into the university.

The Guardian is not disclosing the name of the Cambridgeshire officer and will call him Peter Smith. He asks the man who he is trying to recruit to target "student-union type stuff" and says that would be of interest because "the things they discuss can have an impact on community issues".

here is the link

Documentary on Kennedy's Death

The other night there was a documentary on the death of John F Kennedy. After he died there was a post mortem. The room where this took place was full of secret service agents, some taking notes of what the doctors were doing. There was a photographer taking rolls and rolls of film of the head wound. Afterwards...
the film was not produced for the inquest, neither were the notes and the post mortem report was not complete. Why?

Not only this, but after the P.M. the secret service demanded Kennedy's brain and took that away as well.

Because, apparently, after the two shots from Oswald from the book depository, the security man in the car behind Kennedy's released the safety catch of his gun and in his panic, accidentally shot Kennedy in the back of the head. So the service men had to cover this up, which they did very effectively. This would explain a lot of mysterious circumstances.

 You have to worry about these enemies of truth, because they believe themselves to be above the law.

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

I finished this book in about 3 sittings (or lyings) because I really enjoyed it. It is the story of a female, attractive Cambridge graduate who joins the secret service. After I said somewhere in this blog that I don't read books about the secret service .... but this is not about the secret service so much as about deceit and writing. It's a very clever book and you realise how clever it is when you've finished it. It's an onion, like Shrek. it has layers. You do become emotionally engaged with it and it takes you out of yourself. It's quite brilliant.

I went for a run!

I used to do this 2 or 3 times a week and it was nothing - I used to run about 4 miles. But now I am very unfit and I am thrilled with the short run that I did just because I did it, and from time to time I enjoyed it. I always use my iPod to keep me going - can't run without it.

Running songs today,
 It won't be long - The Beatles - I love the Yeahs
I've got a Golden Ticket - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Have you met Miss Jones? - Robbie Williams version
Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen - I love the piano in this
Call Me - Franz Ferdinand - brilliant
Whistle for the Choir - Fratellis
Glamourous Indie Rock and Roll - the Killers
Like a Rolling Stone - Green Day - a very good effort by the Famous American Idiots, so beloved of my children

Hoorah for technology! Keeping we older people on the pavements.

The area where I live is really popular for runners. No matter how early you get up or how late you come home, you will always see someone running around the pavements.