[Steel Wolf]

Yet, here in Highgate, I am talking to a man and woman who have worked in the British secret services and who, together with their landlady Belinda, a professional linguist, ... Here we have a new kind of conspiracy theorist: the chattering conspiracist, respectable, well-read, articulate, but, I regret to report, no less cranky than those rednecks and misguided Kabul cabbies.

In an attempt to put this in British terms (i.e. as a dry, deadpanned understatement), let me offer this observation:

"Many people in the intelligence business are somewhat eccentric."

I could tell stories and expand on that statement for the better part of the evening. Instead, I'll simply add this, and go:

"There's a reason they call it 'the intelligence community' and not 'the common sense community'"

[bonfire]

Tell!