And I thought there were diverse ideas at Yale… until I
stepped into my travel writing class. It
was certainly… interesting? The kids
from the UC schools and the kids straight from China were trying to top each
other with creative ideas on questions like what is travel and what is writing
and finally, what is travel writing? I
really enjoyed the girl who claimed that you can travel through the internet by
learning about a country. No. Pretty sure that’s imaginary. Then when we discussed if you could end up at
any destination through travel today, where you would end up. The first girl said “the middle ages.” Everyone agreed okay cool I guess, time
travel. She went on to say, “no middle
age in life, I am travelling there now.”
One, who wants to be middle age?
Two, that’s your IDEAL destination? And three, that’s just weird. I said South Africa in case you are all
wondering. Weird class, but guaranteed
to be interesting.
However, interesting cannot compete with Spooks and Spies. There was a plenary lecture last night that
they emailed the class suggesting you go.
It was the former head of MI6. He
talked for an hour and a half and it was amazing. It was pretty cool albeit a
bit frustrating when he began talking about something then couldn’t elaborate
because it’s classified information. But, by far the most interesting was his
story of 9/11. He was the head of MI6 at
this time, when it happened he was on a plane.
He was supposed to go through customs with an alias, but when he landed
he recognized his bulletproof car outside.
He was ushered out and briefed on the way to Downing Street. Tony Blair sent him to America to pledge his
allegiance, and when he went to the airfield, they refused to fly him out
because he didn’t have clearance. He
ended up getting on a cargo plane and promising if he got half way and didn’t
have clearance still, he would turn around.
He got clearance, and as he entered US air space, 2 fighter jets met him
to guide him in. They brought him over
ground zero (on the day it happened), and he landed in Washington. He was the only plane to land in the 5 days
after the incident. He went straight to
Langley for a week, flew back to the UK, then back to the US with Tony Blair to
meet with the President and continue meetings at Langley. Pretty damn cool.
Some more Spooks and Spies fun facts from lecture today for
the 2 people I know are extremely interested (and you know exactly who you
are)- Mansfield Cumming, the grandfather of the CIA, and father of SIS
(original head of MI5), signed all of his documents “C” in green ink. When my professor asked the head of MI6 if
they still signed all papers in green ink he looked at him like he was stupid,
and said “of course.” He was also in a
car accident with his son, who died. To
get himself out of the car, “C” cut off his leg with a pen knife. He returned to work and used an American
child’s scooter to get around the halls. And to imitate Germans in
interrogation, he would stab himself in his prosthetic since they had no idea
he was an amputee.
End of fun facts, although I am sure there are more to come.
