DON’T MENTION THE WAR
- Edmund Thorold
- Feb 23, 2024
- 4 min read
Unveiling the Intricacies: Navigating Spy Thrills Amidst Russia's 'Special Military Operation' - A Tale of Eternal Blue Series, a spy Thriller Series
Those words became famous from the famous TV series Fawlty Towers, featuring John Cleese at Basil Fawlty, the owner of a small hotel back in 1975, when in Episode 6 of Season 1, he goose-steps through the dining room, upsetting a group of German tourists. It then somehow found its way into British folklore that one should never mention Hilter or WW2 in the company of Germans, so as not to cause them offence.
That was pretty funny in its time, when there was much less political correctness around and it was still fine to make light fun of the Germans.
I doubt the BBC today would ever let that scene through their woke induced censorship and best let you be the judge of whether or not that’s a good thing.
But do, if you get a chance, check out Basil’s antics, which can still be found on YouTube. Don’t you just love YouTube?
So many good things would be lost or become difficult to access.
Now a place today you must not mention “the war” is, of course, you’ve guessed it, Russia. Their latest invasion of Ukraine, two years ago on February 24th 2022, is not “a war”, or least,
in Russia you are not allowed to call it one. It’s a “Special Military Operation”
and if you talk about it as “the war”, all sorts of unpleasant things could happen to you.
I’m not going to catalogue all the unpleasantness that has been dished out to those guilty of choosing their words badly, but take it from me, the consequences are more than a slap on the wrist.
The Russian regime that started the Special Military Operation is not yet finished, and neither is the war.
Frankly, if they thought they could conquer Ukraine with just a quarter of a million soldiers and hold it, they were poorly advised.
Now the Russian economy is on a war footing and every rouble it makes goes towards their military goals.
No one has told the Russians that with an economy only about the size of Spain’s,
they have little chance in a long distance contest to prevail against the might of the NATO block, even if does have trouble getting its act into gear and giving the Ukrainians enough shells to lob back in the other direction.
So you rightly ask, given this nasty war, a virtual genocidal attack on Ukraine, how can you write a Spy Thriller series with the main protagonist, a female version of James Bond, working for the FSB?
The Russian organ of state security, which would in the past have been known as the KGB. And we all know, of course, who worked there in his past, before anointing himself as President for life.
So surely it’s in bad taste to have your Russian heroine running rings around a lethargic CIA, fast ageing MI6 and generally having the time of her life in London and Prague.
With the odd trip back to Moscow to catch up with her old mentor.
Well, you have a point, so how can I explain how that happened?
First is that I started to write this first book in the series back in 2020, almost two years before “the war” started.
Not that I’m claiming even back then Russian spies were universally popular.
They’d already got a bad name for bringing a Novichok nerve agent to the lovely streets of the cathedral city, Salisbury. And there was little doubt as to how high up their orders came from.
But my FSB Major Natalya Popova, ‘Nastya’ for short, is not meant to be a typical bad actor.
For a start she has a Czech mother, was born in Prague and has Ukrainian grandparents. She would be the first to admit that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a big mistake and as time goes on, she more and more questions whether she should be following the orders she receives. Spoiler alert…sorry no, not going to do that.
You will have to read through the series and see how she deals with all her conflicts.
Going back to the first book of Eternal Blue. Much of the action takes place on a luxury hotel boat in Prague.
The BAM BU DAH. It really exists and you can even find it today, but now under another name, the Botel Marina.
But back when “the war” started and Ukrainians came in their droves to the Czech Republic to escape the bombing and other terrible atrocities that they were suffering, the good old BAM BU DAH became the home and safe refuge for a number of Ukraine families.
Apart from crying every day about their suffering, I thought I actually should do something to help.
So BAM BU DAH started to welcome the refugees, and we tried to make our new guests as comfortable as we could.
It’s worth noting that we had a few Russian staff working for us.
They did their bit also,
so don’t tar them all with the same brush.
We are all human at the end of the day and the important thing is to just try to remember that.
So Nastya continues to struggle with her heritage and one day I’ll tell you more about BAM BU DAH and the legend behind it, ‘Saigon Joe’. But that’s for another day.
Thanks for checking out this blog, I hope you enjoyed!
Like this post and comment your thoughts below!
In return,
HERE'S A FREE COPY OF MY BOOK!
Comments