We've all seen Hollywood blockbusters like this. They start well enough; taut atmosphere, sinister bad guys, menacing soundtrack. Then they just seem to lose it. Everyone's killing everyone and a plot to blow up a small municipal bookstore somehow becomes something threatening the whole galaxy. There's nothing to do but wait for the villain to die his third and final death so the credits can arrive.
So it is with the Alexander Litvinenko story. For a while it was possible to ignore the human tragedies or broader political implications and just enjoy it as a rollicking good yarn. The beginning was intriguing enough: a former KGB agent poisoned in London, most likely by the modern equivalent of the KGB. For days one astounding revelation followed another. They culminated in the news that Litvinenko had polonium-210 slipped into his sushi and the maginifcent Guardian headline 'The Radioactive Spy.' But once again, things have gotten out of hand. The so-called radiation 'trails' appear to have ended up covering most of Europe. Now Litvinenko's associate, Mario Scaramella, seems to have been poisoned too and you wonder where things are going to end. It's no longer possible to willingly suspend disbelief; or indeed the question "why didn't they just shoot him for Christ's sake?"
It began as a John le Carre and has turned into a James Bond. And anyone who's seen Casino Royale, or indeed any Bond film made in the last twenty five years, will know that's not a compliment. At this rate matters will culminate in Big Ben exploding while the hero (John Reid played by Sean Connery, possibly) rescues the woman in the nick of time. We needed a break from David Cameron, Pete Docherty's 47th drug bust and the Iraqi 'Not A Civil War, Not On Your Life' insurgency, but this is a bit much.
So it is with the Alexander Litvinenko story. For a while it was possible to ignore the human tragedies or broader political implications and just enjoy it as a rollicking good yarn. The beginning was intriguing enough: a former KGB agent poisoned in London, most likely by the modern equivalent of the KGB. For days one astounding revelation followed another. They culminated in the news that Litvinenko had polonium-210 slipped into his sushi and the maginifcent Guardian headline 'The Radioactive Spy.' But once again, things have gotten out of hand. The so-called radiation 'trails' appear to have ended up covering most of Europe. Now Litvinenko's associate, Mario Scaramella, seems to have been poisoned too and you wonder where things are going to end. It's no longer possible to willingly suspend disbelief; or indeed the question "why didn't they just shoot him for Christ's sake?"
It began as a John le Carre and has turned into a James Bond. And anyone who's seen Casino Royale, or indeed any Bond film made in the last twenty five years, will know that's not a compliment. At this rate matters will culminate in Big Ben exploding while the hero (John Reid played by Sean Connery, possibly) rescues the woman in the nick of time. We needed a break from David Cameron, Pete Docherty's 47th drug bust and the Iraqi 'Not A Civil War, Not On Your Life' insurgency, but this is a bit much.
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