ПРЕЗИДЕНТСКИЙ KOMПPOMAT

QUITE CORRECTLY, THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY in London has recently pointed out that intelligence agents, or “spooks”, as the newspapers are calling them, are never “ex”. However, why the Russians should see fit to make this clear is astonishing to those of us in the know, and merely serves to reinforce my opinion that, sadly, the majority of the population seem to believe that espionage is about as real as an episode of Scooby-Doo.

WHEN JOHN LE CARRÉ published The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in 1963 it was heralded as a novel that brought realism to the spy genre, showing spymasters as rather tedious, ordinary men and women who would be more at home playing with model trains than in hotels playing with supermodels.

THUS THE SCANDAL LEADING up to the inauguration of Mr Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America appears merely to be something thrown in by bitter losers in America in order to muddy the waters and leave doubts in the minds of fools as to the true nature of Trump's intentions and desires.

HAPPILY, TO THE RESCUE in this unfortunate affair over Russian spying on the USA, we have the always trusted opinion of Vladimir "Ras" Putin, someone who himself has risen to the highest heights per aspera rather than per Iovem. Christopher Steele, the British "ex" spy who revealed the latest calumny about Trump has produced "an obvious fake", according to Putin, with his foreign minister calling Steele a "swindler".

SWINDLER OR NOT, we know very little about Steele, or even the document mysteriously slipped to Senator John McCain, except that Steele went to Cambridge, was President of the Cambridge Union Debating Society, was recruited by MI6 on leaving university, speaks Russian, and now resides abroad, all of which seem to confirm his untrustworthiness and probable nature as a double agent, or at least a shady character, given his education.

PUTIN FURTHER EXPLAINS that Mr Trump would never have fallen for a honey trap, as he was used to being in the company of beautiful women, having been the organiser of beauty contests for many years. Thus, continues Putin "I can hardly imagine he rushed to the hotel to meet our girls of lower social responsibility (sometimes translated as "loose morals") -- even though they (our prostitutes) are the best in the world, of course."

ONE MUST ADMIRE PUTIN'S PATRIOTISM, as well as the extremely liberal nature of the Russian people and the institutions in which they trust. In my opinion it will be many years before a president of the United States of America will feel confident enough in the open-mindedness of his people to state to the gathered international press that American prostitutes are the best in the world. 

HOWEVER, TRUMP'S SILENCE ON THE MATTER has sparked some discomfort among some of the sex workers (sic) of America, in particular Dennis Huff, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in the state of Nevada, where prostitution is legal. According to Huff, “Comparing our girls to Russian girls is ridiculous because American prostitutes take pride in their work." In not defending American escort girls, Trump may be reminded of the "Hookers for Hillary" campaign that probably explained his poor result in Nevada.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

MY NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE for 2017 is being written in the unlikely location of the Blue Hotel, in Nove Mesto, Bratislava, where I have come to spend a few days experiencing what my younger son calls “proper snow” and my good lady wife calls a “nightmare”, albeit an opportunity to invest in hats and boots.

PRIOR TO BRATISLAVA were several days spent in Austria, including Christmas in a blizzard at the Alpenlounge in Seebruge on the Nordkette Mountain, Innsbruck, and a few days in Vienna, where we were able to compare how Viennese imperial opulence stands up to Parisian republican decadence nowadays.

AS FAR AS BEING IMPRESSIVE goes, Vienna comes out on top every time, with the Julius Meinl gourmet coffee store being perhaps the jewel in the crown of its tasteful demonstration of wealth, and this was our last experience of Vienna before retiring to bed and then coming to Bratislava by train the following day.

THE ENSUING STARK CONTRAST was deliberately engineered in order for us to be able to compare the height of free-capitalist imperialist overkill, shown most famously in the racist tones of the logo of the Julius Meinl store, with the presumed grim poverty of probably the poorest capital city of the old Soviet bloc, vestiges of the influence of which I expected to find here and there.

THE RAILWAY STATION was the first evidence of what I was expecting, showing that you can bring a country in out of the cold, but you can’t bring the cold out of the country. Brutalism and reinforced concrete were still an ever-present on the skyline, competing with absurd mushroomings of blingy building complexes. All in all, however, downtown Bratislava was extremely pleasant, hip and efficient. Hot and cold running water and Dyson dryers everywhere.

THE TV SOUNDTRACK TO THIS SHORT BREAK was the America v Russia affair over Obama’s foolhardy decision to expel thirty-five Russian diplomats whom US intelligence had decided were responsible for cyber hacking and altering the result of the recent US presidential elections, followed by Vladimir Putin’s equally foolish decision to invite all of the children of American diplomats in Moscow to a New Year’s Eve party at the Kremlin. One of them will regret their actions forever, when the Kremlin staff have to smack some precocious brat about the face for “doing a wedgy” or whatever it is that American children find amusing during the ten minutes per day away from their gadgets.

MOST OBSERVERS ARE AWARE of the particular nasty game being played by the spiteful outgoing president, yet I am intrigued by the language used to justify this mass expulsion. These ladies and gentlemen have been accused of, and are being punished for “getting involved in American democracy”.

MY OWN ADVICE HAS ALWAYS BEEN that democracy should be avoided at all costs, so no doubt Obama has a point, but if the Democrats are so keen to revert to Cold War tactics to punish Russia for “getting involved in democracy” then it will be somewhat curious to see how 2017 plays out in the USA. The many people who claim that Donald Trump has no regard for democratic rights will surely be pleased.