Aggie MacKenzie, co-presenter of the television series How Clean Is Your House? explains how her early career move to MI6 came about.
I applied - as a young Scottish girl from Aviemore, I thought it would be quite glamorous. I was soon put right on that! I had done German at college. I loved speaking it and found it easy. Somebody from MI6 used to come up to the college every year and talk to the students; people could apply for a job, and I did, and the whole thing was amazingly complicated. I had to go to London, and someone from London came up to Scotland to interview my old primary-school head. They also interviewed the woman who managed the cake shop I had worked in on Saturdays. Secret? I don't think so!
News went round Aviemore like wildfire. With all that, they somehow didn't manage to discover my rather left-wing past. I got the most boring job at MI6. This was 1975. I had to sort out the private-school fees in England for the children of officers living abroad. After a few months, a group of us were taken to train at a secret location on the south coast in how to throw someone off the scent if you thought you were being followed, how to meet and look after agents. And how to shoot a gun - it all seems completely farcical now.
I was in the Middle East section for a while. Then I was moved to the department that worked with MI5 and had to do with Northern Ireland. I ended up doing quite a sensitive job. I can't remember the details, but I ended up thinking, there are things going on that I would rather not know about.
Really, I should never have gone to work there. I was the only Guardian reader among all my colleagues. Unless you were a Times or Telegraph reader you were a bit of an alien. At one assessment, a boss brought up the fact I read Time Out.
They were amazed when I left. They were asking if my flat could be used for meeting agents and so forth. I said, "No! I'm leaving, that's it." They were, sort of, "What do you have to hide, what's going on in your life?"
I was sworn to secrecy for seven years after I left the job. I just said I'd worked for the Foreign Office. Next job, I was working in the office of the National Union of Students. For anyone from MI6, it seemed like the equivalent of going to work in the head office of the communist party.
Aggie MacKenzie
Flame academy
The Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg has a technique for responding to flame emails.
Dear Reader:
I received your email message. Sadly, I no longer permit myself the pleasure of personally responding to snide remarks from dissatisfied individuals, as doing so inevitably leads to time-wasting arguments and annoying exchanges of insults. Since such encounters often end with the reader complaining to my boss, it seems that this is what rude writers really want to do all along - to provoke me so they can satisfy some inner schoolyard desire to squeal. You may do so now by emailing the editor in chief, Michael Cooke, at mcooke@suntimes.com, though I should point out that his is a form letter, so his reaction probably won't have the sense of fresh outrage you desire.
Otherwise, I would like to point out that the piece of writing that upset you is a column of opinion, that the opinion being expressed is mine alone, and the fact that you disagree with or were insulted by my opinion really is not important, at least not to me ...
If you have cancelled your subscription, I am sorry, though I am also confident, as you wade through the arid world of the competition and the barren void of television, that you will eventually soften and start reading the Sun-Times again, and would remind you that you can always skip my column; that's why it always has my name and picture on the top.
If there were a shred of politeness or sense in your email you would not be receiving this letter, but as you are, I would urge you to re-examine your life, and suggest that you reach out to all the people you have no doubt hurt with your brusque and offensive manner and beg their forgiveness. I will myself set a good example by forgiving you now. It can be a terrible world, and I'm sure you have reasons for being the way you are.
Best regards, Neil Steinberg
Down Bobby's way
When my Irish wife tells Iranians where she is from, she is not greeted with praise for James Joyce or Bono. "Ah, Chris de Burgh!" say the taxi drivers. They throw in a cassette tape and sing a volume to Lady in Red.
Ranking a distant third in notoriety behind De Burgh and footballer Roy Keane is Bobby Sands, whose profile has had some assistance from Iran's theocratic leadership. Let's take a stroll along their tribute to him - the Tehran road to which the powers that be attached the Irish republican's name when they were overthrowing the Shah in the 1979 revolution, and were looking out for anti-imperial wind-ups.
There are misconceptions about the street. For one thing, it is a lane. For another thing, its previous name was not Churchill Street as reported in some quarters (that is another road near by), but Homayon, a fairly standard man's name.
Bobby Sands's lane is lined with trees and it occupies 200 politically loaded metres due to running alongside one of the long brick walls that enclose the British embassy compound. Diplomats there say there is a further misconception: they have not been lobbying Iran to change the street name, though a news agency quoted one of them as saying it has been suggested from time to time. Since that story, the Bobby Sands Trust in Belfast has been running an online petition to keep their man's name on the blue-and-white street sign in Farsi and English.
The lane has also gone very quiet since concrete barriers were put up three months ago to keep traffic out, after gunmen took pot shots at the British embassy. Closing the street to traffic has been bad for business. Ali Reza, who has been selling flowers from a white kiosk on the pavement for 13 years, says he has lost half the customers who used to drive up in their cars to buy blooms.
He knows that the street was named after "an Irish fighter who went on hunger strike in jail" but he is more interested in describing how this neighbourhood used to be the main shopping district before the city's population exploded in the 1980s: "It was the heart of the city."
Across from the kiosk is a shop selling silver and gold Parker pens and the Bank Tejerat, its white paint soiled by the pollution that hangs in the air. Past the Homayon garage with its faded yellow metal doors shut, teenage fans have spray-painted in red their allegiance to the country's football heroes, "Peace Be Upon the Iranian National Football Team."
There is an arts faculty, too. It is dedicated to martyrs who died not for a republican Ireland but for the Islamic Republic during the hellish eight-year war with Iraq that ended in 1988. A revolutionary mural near the entrance shows women in dark blue chadors under a flock of white doves. Someone lacking enthusiasm for the Islamic revolution has sprayed in mocking red paint: "Religion is against progress."
Most Iranians would rather keep their opinions private and stay out of trouble. The tired, middle-aged man locking the front door of his empty shop does not want to jeopardise his family. "I don't involve myself in politics any more. They change the name of the streets back and forth, I don't know why."
In north Tehran, there is also a Bobby Sands barber shop, and in the foothills above the city a Bobby Sands snack bar that serves kebabs.
Dan de Luce
Chastity begins at home
You would be forgiven for thinking that there had been something of a lull in the chastity-belt market since the glory days of the middle ages. Had you been keeping tabs on the matter, you would be aware that earlier this week it emerged in Greece that a chastity belt caused ructions when it set off a metal detector at Athens airport in the run-up to Christmas (for the record, the husband of the British wearer in her 40s had apparently installed the contraption, fearful that she might be tempted to stray during her business trip).
The origins of the chastity belt hark back to a simple, symbolic cord worn around the waist, much like the one worn as a girdle by monks as a symbol of their purity. The modern version is not altogether unlike the world's oldest metal examples, currently on display in the Cluny museum, France, and is strikingly similar to those worn by women in 15th-century Florence to protect them against rape. Safeguarding against unwanted sexual advances has generally been the purpose of female chastity belts, with the male equivalent, from the 1850s until the second world war, worn largely to prevent masturbation - a consequence of which was thought to be insanity. Approximately 80% of all modern chastity belt-wearers are believed to be male.
In Britain, the premier manufacturer is the Sheffield-based firm Tollyboy, founded in 1958 by the delightfully named Hal Higginbottom, and now run by his former apprentice Richard Davies. "We sell, on average, 100 a year, mainly to English-speaking countries, but it varies wildly," says Davies. "You're looking at about £300 upwards, and they take about six weeks to make. People want them mostly as toys, but occasionally we sell them to women worried about sexual assault."
Higginbottom adapted the traditional Florentine design for the modern wearer, introducing a unique seven-pin radial lock. Spare keys are, naturally, available. Although there are fibreglass examples, the most popular design remains the traditional stainless steel variety, polished to a mirror finish to protect against rusting. The steel is just over an inch thick, resting closely against the skin and with its edges cushioned by rubber mouldings to reduce chafing. It sits snugly between the base of the ribs and the top of the hips, with two chains at the back, and a groin plate at the front. The male chastity belt differs from the female by the addition of a metal sheath which is attached to the groin plate.
Care of one's chastity belt is a relatively simple process, and the belt can be worn indefinitely provided one adheres to basic requirements. Ablutions and, indeed, visiting the lavatory should pose no problem, although one may wish to have a hairdryer on hand, and, on occasion a lock de-icer spray, to ensure that the metal stays dry and the brass lock remains in good working order.
Laura Barton