Dead Right

TOO BUSHED tonight to blog, except to note that not one of America's aspiring presidents can hold a candle to this man:

Even from the grave, The Gipper has Obama's guts for garters.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Bunyip

OFF to the flicks later tonight and very interested in hearing what readers think may think of the film the Professor and his Rufous Bird have been counting the days to see. The novel is mid-period LeCarre, when he was at the height of his powers, but it will not be the film of his best book. That would A Perfect Spy, and it has yet to be put on film. If you haven't read Perfect Spy, you should -- but prepare yourself by first taking up a copy of  Anthony Cave Brown's engrossing Treason In The Blood, which will set up LeCarre's fiction with a factual of account of Kim Philby and his father, the no less tangled and treacherous H. St John Philby.

And while we're handing out library chits, William Boyd's thoughts on Philby and other matters are also worth a glance. The hope at the Billabong is that Hollywood has done a better job with Tinker than with Boyd's A Good Man In Africa. Extraordinarily funny book, absolute stinker of a movie.


And if you have the time, C-Span's hourlong chat with Brown is well worth watching.