A Fish Rots From The Head

The Chief of Police called (we get along) all distraught about the way the media was portraying his actions regarding the recent G20 meeting in Toronto. I consoled him with these words from Chaucer, from the Prologue to his magnificent Canterbury Tales:

"And this figure he added eek thereto,
That if gold ruste, what shal iren do?"

Yes, it's Middle English. Deal with it.

What was disturbing the Chief was his receipt of conflicting orders from The Mayor, he of the strong socialist bent. On the first day of the G20 session, the Chief's orders were to 'facilitate' the marching of sundry protesters yelping at everything from First Nations land claims to outrage at the state of Israel having the temerity to defend itself. Thus the police were marshalled to do just that, and succeeded.

Unfortunately, this concentration provided a gap in coverage which was exploited by the vicious and mentally disturbed, who proceeded to trash and burn with gay abandon. The Mayor was horrified, and now ordered the police to stop all this. On the second day, the police did just that, retrieving many perpetrators from within the marching crowds and arresting them. No trashing was done that day, but the howls of outrage from various marchers who were swept up in the mayhem delighted the media, and the Chief was duly blamed.

I made the point to the Chief that he had fallen victim to rotten leadership, and asked him to remember such stellar examples as The Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, or, during the American Civil War, the actions of any Union general prior to the advent of Grant and Sherman. (In this context it is worth noting that Robert E. Lee killed more Americans than Hitler or Hirohito combined). I also referred him to Barbara Tuchman's fine book on ridiculous leadership, 'The March of Folly'.

The Chief was lighter in mood when he rang off, and I turned to another matter that sort of fits into this area -- the Great Russian Spy Scandal erupting south of the border. This was so bizarre that I called in a marker from a Russian colleague in The Trade, Svetlana Marinskaya. We had become good friends (when we weren't trying to kill each other.)

Svetlana, having determined that the phone connection to The Manor was secure, explained what was going on.

"You see, Simone, what happened is that The Kremlin SIMPLY FORGOT THAT THE SLEEPER CELL WAS STILL OPERATIVE. Vladimir and Dmitri were furious, and heads will roll. Those running the operation were all from the old KGB, and had a nice little earner on the boil. They had a suite of offices in the Kremlin basement, liberal funds for the operation, and of course some of the monies were diverted into several well-appointed dachas on the Black Sea. Stalin and Beria live again, as it were."

"So," I said, "now would not be a good time to call and offer sympathy?"

"Nyet. Definitely nyet. In fact, things are so bad here that a small vacation is in order. Perhaps you could join me? Paris? The Georges Cinq? In three days? And maybe that nice Compte de Rienville --"

"Svetlana, don't even think about it. Besides, he's in Beijing helping me win a sugar beet contract. But a French fling sounds just the ticket. See you there."

And so it transpired. I mean, Mark Twain was never more accurate when he recounted some dialog between a man and his wife, with the man saying, "And note dear, when one of us dies, I shall move to Paris.".

Would have worked better had the woman made the statement, but you can't have everything.