My Captain Jack Moment

All Hallows Eve and I am atop City Hall. Below me the stygian black of the Thames is broken by the reflected blaze of the lights of Tower Bridge. The skin of the flowing serpent is host to rippling spills of phosphorous white and floating instants of sparkling green. Outside on the viewing deck, the wind plays with my tie while my jacket flaps with exaggerated drama. If I was wearing my leather trench coat instead of the suit, this would be my Captain Jack moment.

Thanks to the curve of Foster’s mutated giant sphere dream – the famous ‘glass testicle’ – I can look over the edge with the usual attack of height induced panic. From below I can hear the water lapping the shore, the snap of tarpaulin and creak of the moored rubbish barges. Gulls engage in Spitfire-like dogfights, vicious screeches as they turn and dive.

From St. Paul’s to the Gherkin, the city has never looked more pregnant with the potential of wonder. The emerald glow emanating from the top of Tower 42 makes it look like the headquarters of a superhero team. I half expect to see Green Lantern or Sentry fly from it, possibly to tackle the huge cranes involved in redeveloping Bethnal Green which appear at night to an alien invasion force of red-eyed monsters mechanical monsters. In the distance, sodium orange lights in Shooters Hill look like a line of fire cascading down towards Kent, threatening Bromley with a stream of lava. At this height at night, London is Fairyland.

House of Blair

This morning, I noticed one of the resident's of Connaught Square who lives directly opposite 29, had placed two huge Jack O'Lanterns on their porch. The giant orange guardians, all crazed teeth and demon slant eyes, looked curiously out of place on the black and white chequered tiles of the grandiose porch. However, if I lived across from the accused House of Blair, I do not think I would restrict employing the use of vegetable watchmen to ward off the threat of evil emanating from the place to just Halloween.

The Blair Family – far more monstrous than the Munsters or Addams could ever aspire to be – rely on Heckler & Koch for protection. Unfortunately for them, this did little to help defend them from an attack by a rather noisy spirit. At lunchtime, former world boxing champion and renowned eccentric decided to pay his respects to the House Blair. This involved him driving his huge truck adorned with anti-war slogans outside Number 29 and blasting his horn.

One noticeable difference between Mr. Eubank's protest and the more typical bit of direct action – aside from the use of a gigantic truck – is that I have never before seen a protestor glad-hand passers-bys while wearing a Versace suit and a massive diamond earring. Still, if you are going to look down the barrels of two machineguns while protesting, you might as well look your best.

While some may label Chris Eubank as nothing more than showman, a fop, fool or mix of all three, to me he is becoming something of a hero. With humour, style and flair, he continues to protest not only against military occupation of Iraq, but in favour of the right to dissent in public. He is not Mark Thomas, but he is clearly on the side of us who want to live in an England where democratic freedom is not a hollow phrase

'First we Take Seoul, then we Take Ankara'

Today I received an email from the Kimizi Kedi Publishing House. They want to put out a Turkish edition of Global Gangland. This is of course incredibly flattering. Who does not want to be published in Turkey? My friend Andrew Collins is something of an established literary name in Turkey and I remember seeing the beautiful Turkish editions of his works.

However, given the rights situation with Global Gangland, I had to let Kimizi Kedi know that as much as I would be delighted to authorise them as my Turkish publisher, it was beyond my power to make happen. This is a shame. I would love to be able to say: 'First we take Seoul, then we take Ankara.'

It is becoming clearer that I need a new agent. Not just so I can say: 'Talk to my agent about it', but so I am always in the situation to say yes to offers I would relish taking up. The core elements of Global Gangland for me were being able to provide a voice to marginalized victims and to highlight how anti- libertarian laws and inequality create forces that impact on us all. Talking about how the biggest crime and injustice is tolerating systems that perpetuate poverty is worth saying in any language. To remove all barriers to me doing just that is why I need a new agent.

The Secret History of English Jazz

There have been a couple of nights during the last fortnight where I have dreamed of a future where Stephen Grasso and I have become authors of a book entitled The Secret History of English Jazz. It was less an account of the music scene, more of a novel and exploration of an occulted culture hidden in basements. It covered the magic of music from swing to sweet rocksteady. The Café de Paris to after-hour clubs on the Charing Cross Road and a certain Powis Square shebeen. Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra to Cyril Blake’s Calypso Serenaders. Rum libations, sacred smoke and the tale of how the Loa of Bouncers became the Prince of London.

The echoes of dream tumbled into the Soho twilight when I met Mr. Grasso on a Dean Street corner. One pint of the dark stuff at a spit and sawdust then we shuffled a few doors along. Descending a staircase, we entered the Black Gardenia, a strange nightclub that can only be called a true jazz dive. It was the type of venue where it would come as no surprise to learn that Lord C. had once worked the door. I had been warned the Black Gardenia was like something out of a David Lynch movie. I had not been misled.

Tight and dark, it was furnished somewhere between a faded burlesque bar and the Sunrooms of my youth. Surreal touches of decoration were rubbed raw over the cracked bones of dead glamour. There was snakeskin wallpaper in the gents and a boxed skull skulking behind bottles. The most impossibly chic barmaid I have ever seen spent the night looking like a Parisian Maquis poster while the two rooms pulsed to a soundtrack of 1940 swing interupted by the occassional eruption of Blue Beat.

Come nine, the records stopped. A man with more than a passing resemblance to a giant Kyle McLaughlin, ravaged by a diet of booze and pills, walked over the piano beside us. He called out for bits of wood to jack up the instrument so he could put his legs under it, set up his PA and we entered what he called his ‘time tunnel’ as he began to power through 1920s and 1930s jazz standards.

Requests were made and granted. I got a time travel rendition of That Old Black Magic and we also got a beautiful Caravan. This was especially fitting. Its lyrics of starlight mysteries, crossing the desert as a metaphor for crossing the abyss and getting through difficult times together make it something of a favourite with the English Hoodoo fraternity. While my request for some Ken Snakehips Johnson could not be met, his spirit was evoked by our pianist telling the story of how he had performed on the same stage at the Café de Paris where Snakehips had died in the bomb blast.

Having made our own libations and nods to the secret history of English jazz, we climbed back into rainy streets of Soho to dodge rickshaws as they splashed through neon puddles. Down below in the Black Gardenia the time travel was still happening. A crumpled lounge singer five hours off the plane from LA was guesting on vocals as the pianist played the opening bars of Ghost of a Chance. Every note and word a living line of transmission.

An Honest Stealer of Words

As regular readers of this blog will know, I believe all writers are thieves. Those in my profession who claim otherwise are both thieves and liars. In an attempt to at least be an honest stealer of words, I would like to point out that the reference in the post I will make above to 'the Black Gardenia being like something out of a David Lynch movie' was first spoken aloud by my friend Allison.

Strangely enough, Allison's music reminds me a soundtrack to a yet unmade film gestating in the mind of Mr. Lynch. Thankfully the plot to this imaginary opus would be easier to understand than Inland Empire, revolving around someone dissolved into the borderlands ether who guides the inhabitants of a town by singing to them in their dreams. You can check out demos of her music here.

Recall of Stones

I am definitely back on the farm again. The day starts with the ritual of shaving. Archaeology. Trying to recover the face I used to wear. Next the uniform is assembled: black suit, white royal shirt, knot cufflinks in red and black and a clubbable tie.

For official purposes, my picture is taken. No one looks good reduced to 2cm x 2cm, but somehow I manage to take on the appearance of a morose CID boozer and brawler. Gene Hunt without the brutal sex appeal.

I am given a computer, Blackberry and a time to be at the House of Commons. As soon as I get to the first security barrier it becomes natural. Mental muscle memory. I tune out the armour and machine guns. Empty pockets, go under the scanner and assume the position for the type of vigorous frisking I doubt even those with a fetish for being manhandled by a police officer wearing purple latex gloves could enjoy. As usual, the more sophisticated security technology remains inconspicuous.

Once inside the Palace of Westminster, even more comes back. Trying not to become emotional at the though of buying Edradour whisky in the shop for my grandfather, I push on deeper into the building. My recall of stones is strong enough to navigate along corridors and up staircases to the Committee Rooms without getting lost.

At one point, as the Minister spoke, I looked out beyond the wood panels through a window as the sun hit St Stephen's Tower. It looked beautiful. I felt history whispering to me and allowed myself the thought: my grandfather would have loved to hear about this.

Nigella Lawson ... Stepford Wife

Nigella Lawson is scary. Watching her in Nigella Express as she tries to project an aura of intense sexuality in her faux kitchen is liked being flirted with by a Stepford wife. The end result of attempted seduction is not only unsexy, but also unsettling. Every time the camera pulls back from a close-up of her lip licking, I expect to see the body of some poor, eviscerated sap impaled on the wall by one of her carving knives. When she flutters her eyes you cannot help but fear she is all set to go into killer gynoid mode.

Despite this, I have to admit some of her recipes rock. Nigella’s ‘No Worries’ chocolate mousse is genius as is the idea of adding bourbon to her caramel croissant pudding. Tonight Surreal Girl tested out her pea and pesto soup. It was a grand success. If I did not have a couple of cookbooks to keep me busy – including the rather fabulous Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible – Nigella latest offering might actually tempt me.

Secrets & Lies Korean Style

The temporary break in the Royal Mail strike has meant post being delivered canalside again. Now any package that does not contain dubious chemicals is reason for joy, but one unexpected parcel this morning had me dancing while still in my boxer shorts. Given it had my publisher's logo stamped all over it, I knew it was safe to rip open, but I was not expecting what dropped onto the table – a Korean edition of Secrets & Lies. The slip from my editor simply said with wonderfully precise irony: ‘Your fame spreads!’

Shamefully lacking any fluency Korean, I have no idea how my name translates or whether they have kept in my song nods in the picture captions. It would be shame if the references to The Ruts (Babylon Is Burning), Bowie (Station To Station) and Stiff Little Fingers (Alternative Ulster) have all been lost. Then again, given I am not sure how big Luke Haines’ exquisite Baader Meinhof project was in South Korea, it might only be a loss to one soul in Seoul.

There is one thing I can say with absolute certainty about Secrets & Lies Korean style: it looks beautiful. The cover is fabulously eccentric. Does having Harold Wilson, the tail of an Apatosaurus and an upside down George W. Bush grasping John Kerry sell books in South Korea? Having a pipe smoking Cary Grant and a praying Bill Gates on the back certainly works for me.

Inside it is almost as if a manga-influence runs through the 456 pages. Halftone dots and dashes of gravure effect as design elements, pictures erupting with the impact of a good graphic novel splash. The layout simultaneously gives my words both kinetic energy and gravitas. Even the backpage flap advertising the Korean edition of Conspiracy Theories reminds me of the ‘Next issue’ trailer used by DC. I adore it.

'English Rain Hat Boys'

Playing around with the Google Analytics for English Dreaming, English Rain is interesting. I love to see what random phrases typed in by Internet explorers send them hurtling toward this blog. It is strangely gratifying to know anyone typing in ‘Evil Cockney’, ‘Avenue Q Scientology’, ‘MV Magdeburg’ ‘Albanian Freemasons’ or ‘Essex backwaters’ might end up here, However, I cannot help but feel those who happened on English Dreaming, English Rain by entering ‘Best vegetarian sausages’ or ‘Women fondled by men in latex gloves’ would have gone away hugely disappointed. I can only pity the poor souls who arrived by the phrases ‘There’s no aphrodisiac like loneliness’ and ‘Wanking with electrodes attached’.

Among my recent favourite surreal keywords that have directed traffic to these pages are ‘Toe wrestling’, ‘Lime green Adidas tracksuit’ and ‘English rain hat boys’. As glorious as they are, nothing beats the fact that English Dreaming, English Rain is one click away for those looking for ‘Charlie Brooker wanking for coins’ or ‘Badger deterrent’. I may not provide any Googlewhacks, but there are not that many places around where ‘Plinky plink’ and ‘Ernest Shinwell’ or the ‘Great Serpent Mound’ and ‘Mighty Boosh Test Card F’ live together.

Back on the Farm

This morning the rain was constant. I woke to Gatling gun staccato on the water and ripple interference patterns than even Bridget Riley could not match. It was cold as lawyer’s blood and the sun was a wheezing, invalid grey. We seem to have fast-forwarded through the joys of autumn to the first harsh edges of winter.

With just about enough light to recognise my own face in the mirror, I shave. Pull on a black Italian suit, blue and white-striped shirt burgundy silk tie and the Chelsea boots. I look like a Tory until the rain forces me to take the leather trench coat from its hanger.

At 10am I make my way down a Little Lebanon too early to be fully awake, too wet for the usual shisha huddles. Weaving into what estate agents and others pompously label ‘Connaught Village’, I nod to the policemen armed with Heckler and Koch MP5s like I am an old friend. No one challenges me. It is a trick I learnt from watching Doctor Who and used countless times as a journalist: act as if you own the place and half the time those on the gates do not even bothers to ask for ID.

Within an hour, hands are shaken and papers are signed. I feel the shudder of collapsing parallel dimensions as I meet and move forward from this nexus point. I am back in the game, back on the farm.

Later in the day I close forever the door on my grandparent’s council flat – the place they called home for 40 years of their 78-year long marriage. A frequent and reliable refuge, a place where I could always find love no matter how crushed and crumpled my life was, is now lost to me. Returning from Essex, tears escape on the train as I try and update my internal map.

The sunset I watch from the carriage window is a nursery scheme of pink and blue. The industrial spires and refinery flames across the estuary look like a science fiction backdrop from the 1960s. I find I am my eyes are still damp when the sky has become dark and the shimmering pyramid atop Canary Wharf signals that the end of the line is nigh.

Falafel with William Blake

Every Friday for the last few weeks I have battled with an intermittent Tube system that flickers between on and off worse than any dodgy light bulb in a cheap motel. My destination has been Moorgate and the clinician who is helping me regain my old superhero powers. In news that should strike fear in scary monsters everywhere, I can report that after each session my eyes blaze Robert Redford blue.

Aside from returning from the White Hot Room faster, smarter and more focussed, one benefit of the visits are they land me on Surreal Girl’s patch during lunchtime. This gives us the chance to meet up and walk the short distance to Bunhill Fields. Once ensconced on my favourite bench, we eat falafel with William Blake.

Bunhill Fields can claim to be the oldest recorded boneyard in London. Used since Saxon dominion, the name Bunhill derives from ‘Bone Hill’. It has been a constant backdrop for London’s apocrypha of death. Its unconsecrated soil always attracted the planting of all manner of dissenter and nonconformist bodies. In the 16th century, so many cart-loads of bones were removed from London’s charnel houses to make way for new internments that a hill supporting at least one windmill grew from the moor. Defoe told of plague victims making their way to Bunhill to throw themselves into pits already deep with corpses. Years later he was buried at the site himself.

Now death is seen only in the headstones and monuments. Avenues of Plane thrive, the City’s traffic drone is silenced and off path, everywhere is a carpet of grass, ferns and lichens. As we eat, a chattering crocodile of Montessori pupils in their smart, time warp uniforms walks by with timid waves and smiles of distilled sunshine.

Trees are often living scaffolds over which history is draped. Trunks become solid spines growing through time. Here in Bunhill Fields, they are as diverse as the dead who have fed them. Oak, ash, sycamore, fig and mulberry all entangle and push aside bone to rise through the years. My favourite witness to past, present and days yet to come in the boneyard is a Norway Maple. This week it is a slow motion explosion, falling tongues of red and gold fire held together by a flickering pause mode.

As we eat, figs drop onto flagstones and the playing Montessori children whoop. This seems to be the universal childhood soundtrack to the simple joy of running about. The song of innocence.

Of all the non-conformist champions and villains in the boneyard – from Thomas Bayes and Charles Fleetwood to two Cromwells and the lightning struck tomb of Thomas Godwin – none shows signs of a living tradition of love and veneration apart from Blake. Albion’s favourite visionary saint is always remembered with fresh flowers in a jam jar. Offerings of figs and rose petals loop around the memorial stone he shares with his beloved Catherine. Their bones may wait here for resurrection, but if their bones are haunting Bunhill it is only to Dervish whirl with the Montessori.

David Icke

Below is a draft, un-edited extract from the new version of Conspiracy Files released in England, Wales and Scotland this week.

DAVID ICKE
Few figures in the world of conspiracy theory research cause more polar extremes of reaction than David Icke. Like some types of food, it seems you either love or loathe him. There does not seem to be any neutral ground where Icke is concerned.


Many sober, serious parapolitics investigators who hate any mention of aliens, secret occult societies and long-disproved mega-conspiracies blaming all the world’s ills on just one group will froth at the mouth if he is mentioned. At the other end of the conspiracy spectrum among those who have rejected most ideas relating to consensual reality, he is hailed as a hero. To this group, his talk of the late British Queen Mother being a form of humanoid reptilian existing at a higher dimensional level is a sign of bravery, not a sign he should be restricted to a lunatic asylum.


In my former role as a journalist, I have interviewed David Icke and formed my own opinion on him. Given Icke’s profile in conspiracy circles, it also has been hard to miss his often apparently bizarre statements and interesting speculations. However, in 2004, something happened that changed my view of David Icke and his self-proclaimed role since 1990 to expose “who and what is really controlling the world.”


Every researcher into conspiracies and parapolitics should have at least a couple of spooks – agents of the secret services – amongst their sources of information. While you have to expect a certain amount of disinformation alongside the usual bar room bragging, spooks are often able to provide interesting leads and help confirm the veracity of information. It was while drinking with a spook in a London bar I first learned Icke was the victim of an odd rumour campaign. Although I had met my source to gain help in confirming whether the CIA had sunk a ship in the river Thames in 1964, my spook contact brought up the subject of Icke.


During the course of the next few minutes he outlined an outlandish conspiracy theory in which he claimed David Icke was working for MI5. The source claimed Icke was deliberately promoting fantastic assertions that the bloodlines of powerful families such as those of President Bush and Queen Elizabeth II were linked to reptilian humanoids to purposefully discredit the whole field of conspiracy research. By making such peculiar claims, his alleged paymasters hoped more straightforward areas of conspiracy investigation would be tainted with an air of the ludicrous in the eyes of the public.


At first I took this as a one-off comment, a peculiar aberration from a usually reliable source. However, other authors had heard similar whispers. In fact, some conspiracy theorists had already begun publicly discussing claims of Icke’s involvement with the British security services. When talking about the issue they made the reasonable point that MI5 have a track record of infiltrating the conspiracy community. MI5 do this partly as they need to keep track on certain rampant crypto-fascists within parapolitical research and partly because it is wise to monitor those trying to monitor you. As the CIA have shown over the years in ufology, it can also often be useful to use a conspiracy theorist to discredit a subject and spread misleading rumours.


If there were a secretly orchestrated campaign to make David Icke look like a MI5 puppet, it would only be the latest instalment in a life that often looks like the unfolding of a surreal soap opera. David Icke had certainly made an incredible journey. His first career was as a professional footballer, keeping goal for Coventry City before a leg injury finished his playing days. He turned to journalism and eventually became a sports reporter and then anchorman for the BBC. At the height of his fame, he left television to become an activist for the Green Party. In 1990, Icke received a number of messages from a medium. When he revealed these to colleagues in the Green Party he was banned from speaking on their behalf. By 1991 he had gone public with a number of his controversial views – such as his “I am a channel for the Christ spirit” – and became a subject of national public ridicule.


Although it is acknowledged by many researchers that Icke has unearthed some interesting facts to support some of his conspiracy ideas on areas such as 9/11, he has also often relied on material thoroughly disproved to have a basis in reality. He has repeated claims made by a man called Mark Phillips about the existence of a mind control programme to produce child sexual slaves for senior US politicians. Needless to say, Mark Phillips has never been able to produce any objective proofs of his claims or even his alleged career in the CIA. It is hard to doubt that Icke’s promotion of these views along with his talk of reptilian humanoids has cast a shadow of media derision over some elements of conspiracy research.


THE STRANGE PART
If as many like to portray him, David Icke were a mere lunatic who has wandered so far off the map of reality he is almost beyond ridicule, why would anyone bother to indulge in a campaign to undermine him? Surely his quoting of highly dubious sources and belief in the reality of hyper-dimensional reptilian humanoids raise enough obstacles to creditability for the average person exposed to his work? It is strange the slander about him being an agent of disinformation seems designed to cause most harm to his reputation with the thousands of people who buy his books and attend his public lectures. If Icke is a threat to no-one and speaking rubbish, who would bother to try and further denigrate his reputation?


THE USUAL SUSPECTS

REPTILIAN HUMANOIDS
Some conspiriologists back David Icke’s ideas about the world being controlled by higher-dimensional reptilian humanoids working through the prominent families and secret societies. They claim any slander or attempt to smear Icke is the work of these reptilian humanoids working through their global network of human agents.


BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY
Icke has made repeated claims that some members of British royal family we perceive as human are in fact secretly lizard people. If you were in the position of power enjoyed by Queen Elizabeth II and were fed up with a former footballer calling you and your late mother lizards, what would you do? Get agents in your security services to try and discredit the miscreant perhaps?


MI5
Fed up with Icke accusing them of working on behalf of lizard paymasters and sticking his nose into their operations, MI5 may have spontaneously taken it upon themselves to start rumours about one thing they knew would hurt any conspiracy researcher – working for them.


THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS


LEFT-WING CONSPIRIOLOGISTS
Conspiracy researchers with a left-wing bias have regularly attacked Icke for bringing ridicule to the whole field of parapolitcal research. They have also criticised his links to authors such Eustace Mullins who once wrote a book entitled ‘The Biological Jew’. A secret cabal of left-wing conspiriologists would certainly seem to have motivation for orchestrating a campaign against Icke.


ANTI-JEWISH DEFAMATION CAMPAIGNERS
Numerous anti-Jewish defamation groups have accused Icke of anti-Semitism. They have protested at his conferences, thrown custard pies at him and claimed when he talks about lizards, he is really talking about Jews. Icke has always rigorously denied their allegations and they have not impacted on his growing popularity. Could elements of anti-Jewish defamation groups have changed tactics in an attempt to discredit someone they view as dangerously anti-Semite?


MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE
In the years following Icke’s public ridicule in 1991, he has recovered some of his reputation. He was the subject of the 2007 TV documentary David Icke: Was He Right? and The Waterboys’s song ‘Sympathy For David Icke’ was written in his honour. Icke has produced more than 20 books on spirituality and his belief in a global conspiracy, attracting a worldwide following for his ideas. It was only after a growing number of people began to take seriously his pronouncements about 9/11 and the ‘War on Terror’ being the result of a conspiracy that rumours about him being an agent of disinformation began. It was also only at the point he was enjoying a new surge in popularity that he faced other obstacles to promoting his views such as a legal fight for ownership of 16 books he had written.


MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT
Several conspiratorial predictions made by Icke have ended up looking like prophecy. In January 2001 he wrote: ‘Don’t be surprised if the United States finds itself in another manipulated war during this administration. You will see monsters being created in the public mind to justify such action’ also adding ‘before 2002 the United States will suffer a major attack on a large city’. He had already predicted in 1998: ‘There will a plan to start a Third World War by stimulating the Muslim world into a holy war against the West.’


SCEPTICALLY SPEAKING
Stripped of its stranger trappings, David Icke’s message seems to be we should wake to the lies told by our leaders and defeat the ills of the world through love. It is easy to see how anyone preaching that humanity is systematically exploited, hypnotised by television and needs love to overthrow the illusions holding it prisoner could be seen as a dangerous radical by those in power. It would be far more suspicious if there were no trace of an anti-David Icke campaign – that really would smack of him being either totally irrelevant or acting on hidden orders. Besides, to be slandered by some conspiriologists and British spooks should be taken as huge badge of honour.

A Force Field of Astringent Curry Aroma

No names, no pack drill, but when kissing one of my girl friends goodnight, I noticed a distinctive curry powder smell. It was so pungent, rolling up from the area of her décolletage, neck and face, that I could not help but mention it. It is the first time in years my gentlemanly nature and powers of diplomacy have failed me.

“You smell of curry. What are you wearing?”

The answer was something called Roc Retin-Ox Correxion. I know few of us are happy about wrinkles, but who would want smooth skin if the cost was projecting a force field of astringent curry aroma? I am sure Roc crucifies enough fluffy animals in the name of research, so how did their scientists fail to spot that curry is not a good smell for a face cream?

‘Now more than ever’

Surreal Girl returned from the last awful death rattle of the political party conference season bearing gifts. As you would expect of anyone returning from a gathering of Tories in Blackpool – the tawdriest place in England – the gifts are of dubious quality. Alongside the obligatory stick of rock, was a blue mug with an image of Thatcher circa 1983 and the slogan: ‘Now more than ever’. If this line was not so ambiguous and the mug so capable of détournement, it could be classed as the most offensive gift I have ever received.

Alexander Litvinenko

Below is a draft, un-edited extract from the new version of Conspiracy Files released in England, Wales and Scotland yesterday.

ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
The explosive conclusions of some conspiracies produce flashbulb moments – the white magnesium flare leaving its violent after image burned into global cultural memory. It is commonplace for those alive in the 1960s to talk of remembering where they were when they heard the news of the assassination of JFK. Among my generation, its exact point when you heard the news John Lennon had been shot that delivers total clarity of recall. For my teenage god-daughter’s age-group, it is September 11, 2001.


It was the final dying moments of another conspiracy with a strangely personal connection to me that means I recall 24 November, 2006. I had enjoyed a fantastic night out, drinking Bellinis at the Heights Bar high above London, watching 100,000 lights shine below me, transforming London into fairyland. I got home just before midnight and in autopilot mode switched on BBC News 24 to hear: ‘At 9:23pm Alexander Litvinenko died.’


Suddenly I was a mess of empathy for his wife and son, anger towards his killers and a heightened sense of my own mortality. Although from the moment of his death the world would come to know him mainly by the tabloid title of ‘the radioactive Russian spy’, to me Alexander Litvinenko was a fellow author of conspiracy books. He was also a generous source of information for some of the material in my book Global Gangland that dealt with the Organizatsia and the links between Russian politicians and criminal networks.


Alexander Litvinenko was not your usual conspiracy theorist. Before coming to live in England as a political exile from his Russian homeland, Litvinenko had been a lieutenant-colonel in the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), the successor organization to the Soviet KGB. In 1998, after more than 12 years loyal service in the KGB and FSB, Litvinenko took to a platform with four other senior FSB officers. The five men publicly declared they had been ordered to assassinate Boris Berezovsky, a Russian businessman who then held the government post of Secretary of the Security Council and was close to President Boris Yeltsin. They claimed their orders had come from the top of the security service. At the time the head of the FSB was future Russian President Vladimir Putin.


After he made this claim, Litvinenko was dismissed from the FSB. The following year he was arrested on charges of having beaten up citizens and stolen explosives while carrying out anti-terrorist duties. After serving a brutal month in prison, the authorities released Litvinenko on condition he remained in Russia. With the help of old FSB contacts and friends of Boris Berezovsky, Litvinenko was able to flee to Istanbul on forged passports with his wife and young son. He eventually arrived at London’s Heathrow airport where he applied for politcal asylum.


Once safely settled in Britain, Litvinenko began to make further conspiratorial claims about the role of the FSB in Russian politics. Some of his claims – such as those in his book Blowing Up Russia – were backed up by hard evidence. He was able to show that members of the FSB carried out some of the wave of apartment bombings that killed more than 300 people in Moscow and other Russian cities in 1999. The bombing had originally been blamed on Chechen terrorists, but Litvinenko believed the FSB had carried them out to justify a new war in the disputed territory of Chechnya and help bring Putin to power.


Some of Litvinenko’s other claims were harder to prove. He asserted two of the terrorists behind the Moscow theatre siege in 2002 were FSB operatives and leading al-Qaeda terror chiefs such Ayman al-Zawahiri had been trained by and were still linked to the FSB. Some thought him a hero for announcing a FSB dimension to the July bombings in London in 2005. Others though him a madman for maintaining Vladimir Putin had ordered the killing of journalists who tried to expose his alleged paedophilia. However, no one doubted he was an expert on the workings of the FSB and linkage between the security services and elements of the Russian Mafiya. He certainly tried to use his knowledge to save the life of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered just weeks after Litvinenko warned her Putin had ordered her death.


On November 1, 2006 Litvinenko suddenly became ill and was hospitalised. It later emerged that he had been poisoned with the rare and highly toxic radionuclide polonium-210. Litvinenko told police that he had met three ex-KGB agents on the day he fell ill, drinking tea with them at the Millennium Hotel. He had then dined at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly with Italian contact Mario Scaramella, to whom he made the allegations concerning Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.


When it became clear that his death from radiation poisoning was imminent, Litvinenko converted to Islam and allegedly drafted a statement in which he blamed President Putin for the conspiracy to silence him through the ‘beating wings of the angel of death’.


THE STRANGE PART
Why use polonium-210? As it can only be produced in minute quantities inside nuclear reactors it is an expensive and difficult substance to obtain. It is also a ridiculously ostentatious way to murder someone. Polonium-210 leaves a radioactive trail detectives can easily follow across continents via contaminated vehicles such as passenger jets. It seems whoever planned the murder of Litvinenko was happy for him to suffer the type of strange, lingering death guaranteed to attract global media attention and leave a radioactive trail pointing back towards Russia.


THE USUAL SUSPECTS

VLADIMIR PUTIN
Alexander Litvinenko and many of those close to him believed that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered his death, using the vast resources available to FSB and it network of agents to ensure the silence of one his most virulent critics. Was Putin trying to make an example out of Litvinenko, his extravagant and cruel death a marker to deter others from speaking out against him?


BORIS BEREZOVSKY
Given the amount of spectacular bad press Litvinenko’s death and claims of Putin’s hand in it brought the Russian president, the Kremlin has claimed that Litvinenko was killed by those trying to undermine Putin through an ingenious smear campaign. FSB agents suggested that it was one of Litvinenko’s closest friends and Putin’s most powerful political enemies – Boris Berezovsky – who arranged the murder.


RENEGADE VITYAZ ELEMENTS
Vityaz – Russian for ‘knight’ – is a special unit of the Russian army created to fight terrorism and rebel insurgents. Litvinenko had often criticised its activities fighting a ‘dirty war’ in the Chechnya. ChechnyaVityaz members even used photos of him in marksmanship training. Fiercely loyal to Putin, some believe that renegade Vityaz co-operated with FSB agents in a plan to wipe out Litvinenko without their bosses having any knowledge of it, thereby giving them plausible deniability over events.


THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS


ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
One offensive idea articulated by some Russian pro-Putin conspiracy theorists is that Alexander Litvinenko conspired with dissident FSB agents and exiled anti-Putin political activists to stage his own death. He used polonium-210 knowing it would help garner massive press attention and give him a global platform to denounce Putin.


THE ORGANIZATSIA
Litvinenko was an expert on the links between the Russian Mafiya, high-placed politicians and the security service. During his time in as a FSB agent and exiled conspiracy theorist, he had earned the hatred of the Solntsevo crime syndicate, the most powerful group within Russian organized crime. It is believed by some the Organizatsia had him silenced to protect their powerful friends in Putin’s regime.


AL-QAEDA
Claims made by Litvinenko that al-Qaeda was working with and often for the FSB was embarassing for both organizations. In retaliation for suggesting it was the puppet of secret Russian masters, al-Qaeda may have murdered him knowing the harm it would do to the reputation of the FSB and therefore making sure no-one could believe they were secretly in league.


MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE
A conspiracy as defined the dictionary way of ‘secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act’ was clearly needed to orchestrate such an operatic death for Alexander Litvinenko. In addition, the aftermath unfolded almost as exactly predicted by conspiriologists in two ways. First, the FSB launched a major campaign to discredit Litvinenko, even suggesting a PR firm had been involved in drafting his final statement. Second, Boris Berezovsky exploited his friend’s death for politcal potential – using it as a justification when he announced plans to stage a ‘second Russian revolution’.


MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT
Andrei Lugovoi, a millionaire security consultant and former FSB agent dined with Litvinenko on the day he was poisoned. He has vehemently denied allegations made by Boris Berezovsky that he was involved in the poisoning. Lugovoi had previously been the head of security for ORT – a TV network owned at the time by Berezovsky – and the KGB bodyguard of former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. In November 2006, Gaidar was poisoned in Ireland while on a book promotion tour. Gaidar has claimed ‘adversaries of the Russian authorities’ carried out the poisoning. He has not elaborated on who these adversaries might be.


SCEPTICALLY SPEAKING
It is impossible to deny that there was a conspiracy to kill Alexander Litvinenko. It is also clearly a conspiracy instigated by someone whose wealth, power or professional contacts made securing polonium-210 easy and who had no regard for ruining relations between Britain and Russia. However, knowing a conspiracy exists does not mean that any researcher into it or the authorities charged with trying to seek justice for its victims have any concrete idea of who was behind it. It is easy to spot the pawns in a game of chess, but not always the hidden hand moving them. I personally think I know who ordered Litveneko’s death, but there is no way the lawyers will let me tell you who I want to see fed radioactive sushi to bring about a sense of eye-for-an-eye justice.

Back in the Blogosphere

As Renegade Soundwave might say: ‘I am back to announce/Put some style in my accounts…’

Despite the best attempts to save the world from my words, English Dreaming, English Rain is back in the blogosphere. More than ever before, I feel I am contributing to the voice of the intifada just by not rolling over and shutting up. Much has happened during the blackout. Some of you reading will understand why despite my new book being out today, I will not be enaging in usual round of publicity. However, I will post some extracts from Conspiracy Files here over the coming days. I will also be backfilling the blog as there are tales of West Ham fans, tortue technology and Blackheath babies to be told.

It has been a dramatic start to October. All of autumn has arrived in one day. Since early morning the canal has been a constant mass of of temporary rain craters. The sky’s pallete has narrowed to constant shades of gaunt grey. Outside chill has been bold enough to creep into the kitchen and towpath is suddenly thick with a carpet of fallen leaves. With this world outside the window, it feels natural to be a little teary when listenning to Johnny Cash. I already know the bed is going to seem ridiculously cold and empty tonight.