Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)
2011 film based on John le Carré's novel
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 2011 Cold War spy film directed by Tomas Alfredson. The screenplay was written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on John le Carré's 1974 novel of the same name. The film stars an ensemble cast including Gary Oldman as George Smiley, with Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán Hinds, David Dencik and Kathy Burke. It is set in London in the early 1970s and follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service.
The film was produced through the British company Working Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. A critical and commercial success, it was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks. It won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film. The film also received three Oscar nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and for Oldman, Best Actor.
The novel had previously been adapted into the award-winning 1979 BBC television series of the same name with Alec Guinness playing the lead role of Smiley.
Plot.
In 1973, "Control", head of British intelligence ("The Circus"), sends field agent Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general and potential defector, who has offered to identify a mole installed by Soviet spymaster Karla amongst the Circus' senior leadership. Prideaux realises the meeting is a trap, attempts to leave and is shot in the back. Control and his deputy, George Smiley, are forced to retire and Control dies shortly after. Sir Percy Alleline becomes the new Chief, Bill Haydon his deputy, and Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase his lieutenants. In a flashback, we see that despite Control's and Smiley's suspicions, the four had begun handling a high level Soviet source ("Operation Witchcraft"); Alleline later begins sharing Witchcraft intelligence with the Americans.
Alleline and Bland meet with Permanent Undersecretary Oliver Lacon, the senior civil servant responsible for the Circus, to discuss the ongoing cost of a secret safe house to meet the Witchcraft source. After the meeting, field agent Ricki Tarr, currently in hiding due to being connected to several deaths in Istanbul, telephones Lacon to inform him of a mole within the Circus. Aware that Control had a similar theory, Lacon asks Smiley to investigate. Smiley recruits Peter Guillam and retired Special Branch Inspector Mendel to assist him.
After setting up a base in the Hotel Islay, Smiley has Guillam steal personnel records and copies of the Circus' slush fund accounts. He discovers several Control loyalists were ousted after Prideaux's shooting, as well as a record of payment made to "Mr. Ellis", one of Prideaux's identities, "after" the shooting. In Oxford, Smiley interviews analyst Connie Sachs. Sachs had discovered evidence that Soviet cultural attaché Alexei Polyakov was actually a military officer, and suspected his true role was to run a mole in London; Alleline had scoffed at her findings and sacked her.
Back in London, Smiley discovers Tarr in his house. Tarr tells how he was assigned to trail Boris, a Russian trade delegate in Istanbul who was offering to defect, but whom he quickly guessed was actually KGB. After Tarr witnessed Boris assault his wife and fellow agent Irina, he and Irina began an affair. Irina offered to reveal the identity of a top-level mole in exchange for asylum in the UK. Hours after Tarr cabled London about the existence of a double agent the local station chief was murdered and Irina abducted. Smiley sends Guillam to the Circus archive to steal the duty officer's logbook for the night Tarr contacted London. Guillam, who had been Tarr's boss, is unexpectedly brought before Circus leadership and told that Tarr, who has been detected flying into Amsterdam, is a traitor who has been bribed by the Soviets. Guillam returns to Smiley's house and, discovering for the first time that Tarr is there, punches him, but Smiley finds that the logbook pages for the relevant night have been removed, supporting Tarr's story.
That night, Smiley recounts his only meeting with Karla to Guillam. Whilst working under the name "Gerstmann" in 1955, Karla was captured and traded to Russia by the Americans. Believing he would likely be executed upon his return, Smiley travelled to Delhi to recruit him. However, his constant urging for Karla to think of his wife only revealed Smiley's weakness: his love for his wife, Ann. A chainsmoker, Karla listened silently, stole a lighter given to George by Ann, and returned to Russia.
Smiley contacts another sacked loyalist, former duty officer Jerry Westerby, who tells him of how Prideaux's shooting sent Control into shock. Hoping to find George, Westerby had telephoned Ann; Haydon then arrived and took charge. Guillam wonders how Haydon could have learned of the emergency, before Smiley informs him Haydon was having an affair with Ann. Smiley interviews Prideaux, who is working as a French teacher at a prep school. Prideaux explains that his Budapest mission was to identify the mole and relay one of five code-names to Control. Alleline was "Tinker", Haydon "Tailor", Bland "Soldier", Esterhase "Poorman", and Smiley "Beggarman". However, he was captured and tortured by the KGB, during which he witnessed Irina's execution. During his interrogation, Karla personally visited and asked how close Control was to identifying the mole before trading Prideaux back to the Circus.
Smiley realises that Witchcraft is actually a KGB ruse. The four Witchcraft lead officers believe Polyakov is trading sensitive Russian military and political intelligence for trivial British material. In reality Polyakov is trading false or insignificant intelligence and the mole is leaking substantive British intelligence. Smiley informs Lacon and the Minister that the true object of Witchcraft is to lure the CIA into sharing US intelligence, which the mole can then leak to Karla.
To draw out the mole, Smiley and Guillam send Tarr to the Paris Station to cable the Circus. To ensure his compliance, Smiley agrees to Tarr's request to trade the mole for Irina, despite knowing she is dead. Smiley and Guillam surprise Esterhase as he leaves the Circus and drive him to an airstrip where they threaten to deport him until he provides the address of the safe house. Smiley and Guillam wait at the safe house for the mole to alert Polyakov that Tarr is about to blow their cover. The mole is revealed to be Haydon, and Smiley arrests him at gunpoint.
The Circus holds Haydon at its training and debriefing facility, Sarratt. Smiley informs him he will be traded for British operatives held in the Soviet Union, and agrees to settle several of Haydon's sexual relationships with both women and men. Haydon informs him that Karla ordered him to seduce Ann to cloud Smiley's judgement. He also confirms that Prideaux, a long-time friend (and, it is hinted, lover), suspected Haydon was the mole and tipped him off before his Hungary mission. Haydon was able to inform Karla and prevent Prideaux being killed by the KGB. Prideaux, however, blames Haydon for allowing his torture.
Prideaux infiltrates Sarratt with a hunting rifle and shoots his friend underneath his eye, which forms a bloody teardrop that Prideaux watches from a distance before Haydon collapses. Ann returns home, and Smiley returns to the Circus as its Chief.
Cast.
<templatestyles src="Div col/styles.css"/>* Gary Oldman as George Smiley ("Beggarman")
Production.
Development.
The project was initiated by Peter Morgan when he wrote a draft of the screenplay, which he offered to Working Title Films to produce. Morgan dropped out as the writer for personal reasons but still served as an executive producer. Following Morgan's departure as writer, Working Title hired Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor to redraft the script. Park Chan-wook considered directing the film, but ultimately turned it down. Tomas Alfredson was confirmed to direct on 9 July 2009. The production is his first English language film. The film was backed financially by France's StudioCanal and had a budget corresponding to $21 million. The film is dedicated to O'Connor, who died of cancer during production.
Casting.
The director cast Gary Oldman in the role of George Smiley, and described the actor as having "a great face" and "the quiet intensity and intelligence that's needed". Many actors were connected to the other roles at various points, but only days before filming started, Oldman was still the only lead actor who officially had been contracted. David Thewlis was in talks for a role early on. Michael Fassbender was in talks at one point to star as Ricki Tarr, but the shooting schedule conflicted with his work on '; Tom Hardy was cast instead. On 17 September 2010, Mark Strong was confirmed to have joined the cast. Jared Harris was cast but had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts with '; he was replaced by Toby Jones. John le Carré appears in a cameo as a guest in a party scene.
Filming.
Principal photography took place between 7 October and 22 December 2010. Most of the film was shot in London. Studio scenes were shot at Inglis Barracks, a former army barracks in Mill Hill. Exterior shots of "The Circus" were at Blythe House in West Kensington. The Merlin safe house scenes were filmed at Empress Coach Works in Cambridge Heath. Some exterior scenes were filmed on Hampstead Heath and in Hampstead Ponds, where Smiley is shown swimming. Some exterior shots were filmed in Kensington Gore, and interior scenes were filmed in Queen Alexandra's House and the physics department of Imperial College London, all in South Kensington.
The production filmed in Budapest for five days. Exterior shots included scenes at Fisherman's Bastion. The café scene in which Jim Prideaux is shot was filmed in the interior hall of "Párizsi Udvar Hotel". The events which take place in Czechoslovakia in the novel were moved to Hungary, because of the country's 20% rebate for film productions.
The production filmed in Istanbul for nine days, shortly before Christmas.
The production reunited Alfredson with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and editor Dino Jonsäter, with whom he had made his previous film "Let the Right One In".
Post-production and music.
The film took six months to edit. The final song in the film, Julio Iglesias' rendition of the French song "La Mer", set against a visual montage of various characters and subplots being resolved as Smiley strides into Circus headquarters to assume command, was chosen because it was something the team thought George Smiley would listen to when he was alone; Alfredson described the song as "everything that the world of MI6 isn't". A scene where Smiley listens to the song was filmed, but eventually cut to avoid giving it too much significance.
Heard at a Circus office party, sung along to by the guests, is "The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World", composed by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, and performed by Sammy Davis Jr., from the British spy spoof "Licensed to Kill" (1965). At the same office Christmas function, the Circus staff sing the official "State Anthem of the USSR", conducted by a figure dressed as Father Christmas but wearing a Lenin mask. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)", an album featuring Alberto Iglesias's score, was released by Silva Screen Records on 14 October 2011.
Release and reception.
The film premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on 5 September 2011. StudioCanal UK distributed the film in the United Kingdom, where it was released on 16 September 2011. The US rights were acquired by Universal Pictures, which owns Working Title, and they passed the rights to their subsidiary Focus Features. Focus planned to give the film a wide release in the United States on 9 December 2011 but pushed it to January 2012, when it was given an 800 screen release.
The film was released in France on 8 February 2012 under the title "La Taupe" (meaning "The Mole").
Critical response.
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 83% based on 229 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The site's critics' consensus states: ""Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a dense puzzle of anxiety, paranoia, and espionage that director Tomas Alfredson pieces together with utmost skill." Metacritic calculated an average critic score of 85/100 based on 42 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Jonathan Romney of "The Independent" wrote, "The script is a brilliant feat of condensation and restructuring: writers Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor realise the novel is overtly about information and its flow, and reshape its daunting complexity to highlight that". David Gritten of "The Daily Telegraph" declared the film "a triumph" and gave it a five star rating, as did his colleague, Sukhdev Sandhu. Stateside, Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote, "As Alfredson directs the expert script by Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor, the film emerges as a tale of loneliness and desperation among men who can never disclose their secret hearts, even to themselves. It's easily one of the year's best films." M. Enois Duarte of "High-Def Digest" also praised the film as a "brilliant display of drama, mystery and suspense, one which regards its audience with intelligence".
Writing in "The Atlantic", le Carré admirer James Parker favourably contrasted Smiley with the James Bond franchise but found this "Tinker Tailor" adaptation "problematic" compared with the 1979 BBC mini-series. He wrote: "To strip down or minimalize le Carré, however, is to sacrifice the almost Tolkienesque grain and depth of his created world: the decades-long backstory, the lingo, the arcana, the liturgical repetitions of names and functions".
Keith Uhlich of "Time Out New York" named "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" the fourth-best film of 2011, calling it "a visually stunning adaptation with a stellar cast." In 2020, Uhlich named it the ninth-best film of the 2010s.
Box office.
The film topped the British box office chart for three consecutive weeks and earned $80,630,608 worldwide.
Possible sequel.
While doing press for Working Title's "Les Misérables" film adaptation, producer Eric Fellner stated that fellow producer Tim Bevan was working with writer Straughan and director Alfredson on developing a sequel to "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". Fellner did not specify whether or not the sequel would be based on "The Honourable Schoolboy" or "Smiley's People", the two remaining Smiley novels in Le Carré's Karla trilogy. While doing press for "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" in 2014, Oldman stated that talk of a sequel, an adaptation of "Smiley's People", had since disappeared; while also stressing that he would still like to see the film produced.
In July 2016, Oldman said that a sequel was in its early stages, stating, "There is a script, but I don't know when we will shoot." It was reported at the time that a script based on "Smiley's People" had been "greenlit" by Working Title Films.
In December 2021, Alfredson said that a film sequel to the 2011 film was unlikely; the rights having reverted to Le Carré's estate, who were planning to reboot Smiley on television. Alfredson expressed an interest in directing Oldman in a future TV miniseries adaptation of "Smiley's People" but he thought that the moment had likely passed. In an interview with the "Radio Times" in September 2024, producer Douglas Urbanski said that, "We loved "Tinker" and we started to do prep for Gary to do "Smiley’s People", and suddenly there was an unexpected rights issue. We've reached out, including again recently, to Le Carré’s sons and — the damnedest thing — they have no interest in Gary playing Smiley again. I don’t know why."
However, in March 2025, it was announced that a new TV adaptation of several Le Carré novels entitled "A Legacy of Spies" had begun production, effectively ending hope of a film sequel.
References.
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
1974 spy novel by John le Carré
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1974 spy novel by the author and former spy John le Carré. It follows the endeavours of the taciturn, ageing spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service. The novel has received critical acclaim for its complex social commentary—and, at the time, relevance, following the defection of Kim Philby. It was followed by "The Honourable Schoolboy" in 1977 and "Smiley's People" in 1979. The three novels together make up the "Karla Trilogy", named after Smiley's long-time nemesis Karla, the head of Soviet foreign intelligence and the trilogy's overarching antagonist.
The novel has been adapted into both a television series and a film, and remains a staple of the spy fiction genre. In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
Plot.
Background.
As the tension of the Cold War is peaking in 1973, George Smiley, former senior official in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (known as "the Circus" because its London office is at Cambridge Circus), is living unhappily in forced retirement, following the failure of an operation codenamed Testify in Czechoslovakia which ended in the capture and torture of agent Jim Prideaux. Control, chief of the Circus, had suspected that one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus was a Soviet mole, and had assigned them code names for Prideaux to relay back to the Circus, derived from the English children's rhyme "Tinker, Tailor":<poem>Tinker, tailor,
soldier, sailor,
rich man, poor man,
beggarman, thief.</poem>
The failure resulted in the dismissal of Control, Smiley, and allies such as Connie Sachs and Jerry Westerby, and their replacement by a new guard consisting of Percy Alleline, Toby Esterhase, Bill Haydon, and Roy Bland. Control has since died, and Smiley's former protégé, Peter Guillam, has been demoted to the "scalphunters".
Guillam unexpectedly approaches Smiley and takes him to the house of Under-Secretary Oliver Lacon, the civil servant who oversees the Circus. There they meet Ricki Tarr, an agent recently declared "persona non grata" due to suspicion of having defected. Tarr defends himself by explaining that he was informed of a Soviet mole at the highest level of the Circus – codenamed Gerald – by Irina, the wife of a trade delegate, while in Hong Kong. Irina claimed that the mole, Gerald, reports to a Soviet official stationed at the embassy in London called Polyakov. Shortly after Tarr relayed this to the Circus, Irina was forcibly returned to the Soviet Union, leading Tarr to suspect that the mole was real, and now knew his identity. Tarr went into hiding, resurfacing to contact Guillam.
Lacon reasons that neither Smiley nor Guillam can be the mole, due to their respective dismissal and demotion, and so requests that Smiley investigate the presence of the mole in total secrecy to avoid another PR scandal for both the Government and the Circus. Smiley cautiously agrees, and forms a team consisting of himself, Guillam, Tarr, and retired Scotland Yard Inspector Mendel. Smiley is also given access to Circus documents, and begins by examining Alleline's restructuring, discovering the ousting of Jerry Westerby and Connie Sachs, as well as slush fund payments to Jim Prideaux.
Smiley begins the hunt.
Smiley visits Sachs, discovering that she confronted Alleline about her discovery that Polyakov was actually a Soviet Colonel called Gregor Viktorov, but he ordered her to drop the subject. She also mentions rumours of a secret Soviet facility for training moles, and makes allusions to Prideaux and Bill Haydon's relationship being more than just platonic friendship.
Smiley examines Operation Witchcraft, an operation in which Soviet intelligence was obtained through a key source known as "Merlin", which was treated with suspicion by both Smiley and Control. Alleline obtained ministerial support to circumvent Control's authority, and his post-Testify promotion supporters Haydon, Esterhase, and Bland have sponsored it. Smiley also learns that this "Magic Circle" has obtained a safe house somewhere in London where they obtain information from a Merlin emissary posted in London under a diplomatic cover, who – Smiley concludes – is Polyakov himself.
Smiley suspects that the Circus does not realise the flow of information is going the other way, with the mole "Gerald" passing important British secrets ("gold dust") in return for low-grade Soviet material ("chicken feed"), which would make "Witchcraft" simply a cover for the mole.
Karla.
Smiley also discovers that the log from the night Tarr reported in from Hong Kong has been removed, and Guillam starts to suffer from paranoia as a result of their operation. Smiley tells Guillam that he suspects a Soviet intelligence officer named Karla is linked in some way to the operation, and reveals what he knows about him. Karla is believed to have followed his father into espionage, getting his start during the Spanish Civil War posing as a White Russian émigré in the forces of General Francisco Franco, recruiting foreign, mainly German, operatives. After this the Circus lost track of Karla, but he resurfaced during Operation Barbarossa, directing partisan operations behind German lines. Smiley explains his belief that somewhere in the gap between these two conflicts, Karla travelled to England and recruited Gerald.
Smiley points out that Karla is fiercely loyal to both the Soviet Union and communism, highlighting Karla's current rank despite his internment in a gulag by the Stalinist regime, and reveals that Karla turned down an offer from Smiley in India to defect, even though his return to the USSR in 1955 was to face a likely execution. During his attempt to obtain Karla's defection, Smiley plied him with cigarettes and promises that they could get Karla's family out to the West safely. Smiley suspects that this only revealed his own weakness, his love for his unfaithful wife, Ann. Smiley offered Karla his lighter, a present from Ann, to light a cigarette, but Karla rose and left with it.
Merlin and Testify.
Smiley suspects a link between Merlin and the botched Operation Testify. Sam Collins, who was duty officer that night, tells Smiley that Control ordered him to relay the report of the Czech operation only to him, but that when he did so, Control froze up, and that Bill Haydon's sudden arrival was the only reason the hierarchy didn't fall apart that night. Smiley then visits Max, a Czech operative who served as a legman for Prideaux on the operation, who tells Smiley that Prideaux gave him instructions to leave Czechoslovakia any way he could if Prideaux didn't surface at the rendezvous at the appointed time. Smiley next visits Jerry Westerby, who tells Smiley about the trip to Prague when a young army conscript insisted that the Russians were in the woods waiting for Prideaux a full day before he was ambushed.
Finally, Smiley tracks down Prideaux. Prideaux tells him Control believed there was a mole in the Circus, and had whittled it down to five men, Alleline (Tinker), Haydon (Tailor), Bland (Soldier), Esterhase (Poorman), and Smiley himself (Beggarman), and that his orders were to obtain the identity from a defector in Czech intelligence who knew. He tells Smiley he almost didn't make the rendezvous with Max because he noticed he was being tailed, and that when he arrived to meet the defector, he was ambushed, taking two bullets to his right shoulder. During his captivity, both Polyakov and Karla interrogated him, focusing solely on the extent and status of Control's investigation. Prideaux suggests that the Czech defector was a plant, contrived by Karla to engineer Control's downfall through Testify's failure, all conceived to protect the mole.
Catching the mole.
Smiley confronts Toby Esterhase, stating that he is aware that Esterhase has been posing as a Russian mole, with Polyakov as his handler, in order to provide cover for Merlin's emissary Polyakov. Smiley compels Esterhase into revealing the location of the safe house, through making him realise that not only is there a real Soviet mole embedded in the SIS, but also that Polyakov has not been "turned" to work in British interest pretending to run the "mole" Esterhase, and in fact remains Karla's agent. Tarr is sent to Paris, where he passes a coded message to Alleline about "information crucial to the well-being of the Service". This triggers an emergency meeting between Gerald and Polyakov at the safe house, where Smiley and Guillam are lying in wait.
Haydon is revealed to be the mole, and his interrogation reveals that he had been recruited several decades ago by Karla and became a full-fledged Soviet spy partly for political reasons, partly in frustration at Britain's rapidly declining influence on the world stage, particularly on account of the failings at Suez. He is expected to be exchanged with the Soviet Union for several of the agents he betrayed, but is killed shortly before he is due to leave England. Although the identity of his killer is not explicitly revealed, it is strongly implied to be Prideaux, due to the method of execution echoing the way he euthanises an injured owl earlier in the book, Prideaux's implied threat to execute a driver in Czechoslovakia in the same way that Haydon is killed, and a sense Smiley has of someone with Prideaux's background observing some of his later interrogations. Smiley is appointed temporary head of the Circus to deal with the fallout, and is still head at the start of the second book of "The Karla Trilogy", "The Honourable Schoolboy".
Background.
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is the fifth of le Carré's spy novels to feature the character of George Smiley (the first four being: "Call for the Dead", "A Murder of Quality", "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", and "The Looking Glass War") and the fictionalised intelligence agency of "the Circus." Two of the characters, Peter Guillam and Inspector Mendel, first appeared in "Call for the Dead", while Control appeared in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold." With "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", le Carré returned to the world of spy fiction after his non-espionage novel, "The Naïve and Sentimental Lover", was panned by critics.
When "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was published in 1974, revelations exposing the presence of Soviet double agents in Britain were still fresh in public memory. Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Kim Philby, later known as members of the Cambridge Five, had been exposed as KGB spies. The five had risen to very senior positions in the British diplomatic service.
John le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, worked as an intelligence officer for MI5 and MI6 (SIS) in the 1950s and early 1960s. Senior SIS officer Kim Philby's defection to the USSR in 1963, and the consequent compromising of British agents, was a factor in the 1964 termination of Cornwell's intelligence career. Le Carré also drew from the paranoid atmosphere created by CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, who after Philby's defection became convinced that there were other moles operating at the highest levels of Western intelligence agencies.
The title alludes to the nursery rhyme and counting game Tinker Tailor.
Themes.
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"It's scarce wonder that Smiley has become almost as legendary a figure as [Kim] Philby, for "Tinker, Tailor" with all its outward verisimilitude, constructs a potent and appealing myth for the class-ridden and post-imperial "angst" of Britain in the 1970s."
David Stafford
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is set against a theme of decline in British influence on the world stage after the Second World War, with the USSR and the USA emerging as the dominant superpowers during the Cold War. Mark Fisher said the notion of "postcolonial melancholia" hangs over the novel, arguing that both the protagonists and antagonists are motivated by what they see as Britain's "irreversible decline." These themes are particularly found in the character of Bill Haydon, who is modelled off the upper-class double agent Kim Philby. After his unmasking and capture, Haydon voices both a latent hostility towards the United States and a mourning of Britain's lack of "relevance or moral viability in world affairs." The novel is emblematic of a British "rottenness," according to critic David Monaghan, and le Carré locates it with a failure of the British ruling class itself, which has become directionless and self-seeking.
Central to the novel is the theme of betrayal. Melvyn Bragg wrote that le Carré sought to illustrate that "the public or institutional default is always more excusable than the personal betrayal of faith." Haydon's betrayal of the Circus to Karla comes as a reaction to a postwar world that "[deprived] him of the Empire he was trained to rule." Monaghan notes that le Carré (in "Smiley's People") refers to Haydon as a "born deceiver," who betrays his colleague (Smiley), his lover (Ann and/or Prideaux) and his country. Nevertheless, Haydon's exact motivations are left vague – unlike Philby, who espoused a deep ideological commitment to communism."
Historian David A.T. Stafford considered Haydon's eventual capture to be a mythologised reimagining of the Philby affair. He noted that, "far from receiving his just desserts," the real-life mole ended up alive and well in Moscow, thanks to the incompetence of his superiors and the wilful ignorance of his colleagues. "That Philby was protected by a conspiracy of class is true enough, but that he was unmasked by a Smiley is not... "Tinker Tailor" is a fantasy; George Smiley a myth." In this sense, Stafford considers Smiley and Haydon to exist as classic foils to each other:
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Tom Maddox wrote that Smiley's conflict with the Circus, past and present, represents the idealistic virtues of the Second World War that are "at odds" with the inhumanity, sophistry, and careerism of the spying profession. "The secret service seeks to dispense with that humanity, the consensus on high being that humane virtues have outlasted whatever limited usefulness they might have had. So Smiley comes and goes, comes and goes." Fisher noted Smiley's characterisation as an outsider to the affairs the Circus, representing an archetypical Englishness that is both "stolid" and "voyeuristic". Fisher likens Smiley in the novel to both King Arthur — a "perpetually cuckolded" figure "returning to save his ailing kingdom" — as well as T. S. Eliot's figure of J. Alfred Prufrock, who is at once self-conscious and "pathologically self-blinding" to his weaknesses.
Jargon.
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" employs spy jargon that is presented as the authentic insider-speak of British Intelligence. Le Carré noted that, with the exception of a few terms like "mole" and "legend", this jargon was his own invention. In some cases, terms used in the novel have subsequently entered espionage parlance. For example, the terms "mole", implying a long-term spy, and "honey trap", implying a ploy in which an attractive person lures another into revealing information, were first introduced in this novel, and have only subsequently entered general usage.
The television adaptation of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" also uses the term "burrower" for a researcher recruited from a university, a term taken from the novel's immediate sequel "The Honourable Schoolboy".
Moscow Centre.
Moscow Centre is a nickname used by John le Carré for the Moscow central headquarters of the KGB, especially those departments concerned with foreign espionage and counterintelligence. It arises from use by Soviet officers themselves, and Le Carré likely just used the nickname to gain greater credibility for his books.
The part of Moscow Centre most often referred to in Le Carré's novels is the fictional Thirteenth Directorate headed by Karla, the code name for a case officer who has risen and fallen from political favour several times and was at one point "blown" by the British in the 1950s. Karla and George Smiley meet while Karla is in prison in Delhi, with Smiley trying to persuade Karla to defect during an interrogation in which Karla gives nothing away. Karla refuses these advances and eventually returns to favour in the USSR, masterminding the Witchcraft/Source Merlin operations supporting the mole Gerald in the Circus. Karla possesses a cigarette lighter given to Smiley by his wife, which he took during Smiley's interrogation of him.
Critical response.
In a review for "The New York Times" written upon the novel's release in 1974, critic Richard Locke called "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" "fluently written," noting that "it is full of vivid character sketches of secret agents and bureaucrats from all levels of British society, and the dialogue catches their voices well." He praised the novel's realism, calling the detailing of "the day to day activities of the intelligence service at home and abroad" convincing. He noted that the "scale and complexity of this novel are much greater than in any of Le Carré's previous books," while the "characterisation too has become much richer."
An article published in in-house Central Intelligence Agency journal "Studies in Intelligence", presumably written by agents under pseudonyms, called it "one of the most enduring renderings of the profession". It does question the "organisational compression" involved in the form of a large organisation, which the SIS would be, being reduced to a handful of senior operatives playing operational roles, but admits that this "works very well at moving the story along in print." However, the idea that a major counter-intelligence operation could be run without the knowledge of counter-intelligence professionals, an allusion to Smiley's investigation progressing in an undetected manner, is deemed an "intellectual stretch."
John Powers of NPR has called it the greatest spy story ever told, noting that it "offers the seductive fantasy of entering a secret world, one imagined with alluring richness." Le Carré himself considered the novel to be among his best works.
In other media.
Television.
A TV adaptation of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was made by the BBC in 1979. It is a seven-part serial and was released in September of that year. The series was directed by John Irvin, produced by Jonathan Powell, and stars Alec Guinness as George Smiley, with Ian Richardson as Bill Haydon. Ricki Tarr was played by Hywel Bennett. In the US, syndicated broadcasts and DVD releases compressed the seven-part UK episodes into six, by shortening scenes and altering the narrative sequence.
Radio.
In 1988, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a dramatisation, by Rene Basilico, of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" in seven weekly half-hour episodes, produced by John Fawcett-Wilson. It is available as a BBC audiobook in CD and audio cassette formats. Notably, Bernard Hepton portrays George Smiley. Nine years earlier, he had portrayed Toby Esterhase in the television adaptation.
In 2009, BBC Radio 4 also broadcast new dramatisations, by Shaun McKenna, of the eight George Smiley novels by John le Carré, featuring Simon Russell Beale as Smiley. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was broadcast as three one-hour episodes, from Sunday 29 November to


Rat in Mi Kitchen
1987 single by UB40
"Rat in Mi Kitchen" is a song written and performed by British reggae and pop group UB40. It features Herb Alpert on trumpet and is the sixth track on their album 1986 "Rat in the Kitchen". Released as a single on 5 January 1987, it reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart later the same month, staying on the chart for seven weeks.
Although "Rat in Mi Kitchen" is attributed to the whole group, like many UB40 songs, it was written by Astro. At the time, lead singer Ali Campbell had moved into a new home in Balsall Heath, Birmingham and was troubled by rodents. When asked by Astro if he had any ideas for new songs he replied, "Oh God, I don't care about the album for a minute, I've got a rat in the kitchen!" Astro, who sings lead vocals on the song, wrote the track in response.
The sleeve artwork is by Bob Linney.
References.
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Rose Thering
American activist (1920–2006)
Rose Thering (August 9, 1920 in Plain, Wisconsin – May 6, 2006 in Racine, Wisconsin) was a Roman Catholic Dominican religious sister, who gained note as an activist against antisemitism, educator and a professor of Catholic-Jewish dialogue at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. She played a crucial role in the implementation of the landmark Vatican II document Nostra Aetate, which repudiated anti-Semitism and laid the groundwork for improved relations between Catholics and Jews. A strong advocate for interfaith dialogue and understanding, she participated in numerous conferences, lectures, and seminars aimed at promoting mutual respect and cooperation between people of different faiths. In recognition of her interfaith work, Seton Hall established the Rose Thering Endowment for Jewish-Christian Studies, which provides scholarships for teachers to take courses in this department.
Biography.
Rose Elizabeth Thering was born in Plain, Wisconsin, the sixth of 11 children in a German-American farm family that prayed together daily. She entered St. Catherine of Siena Convent of the Racine Dominican Sisters in Racine, Wisconsin at age 16. After taking her permanent vows in the Congregation, she earned a bachelor's degree from Dominican College in Racine in 1953, then a master's degree from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1957 and, finally a doctorate at Saint Louis University four years later.
Her doctoral dissertation at the Jesuit-run Saint Louis University concerned the treatment of Jews in Catholic textbooks. She was shocked by her findings. The film, "Sister Rose's Passion", depicts her recalling how she "almost got ill" reading texts that were used across the country to educate school children. Her work was published later in an anthology, "Faith and Prejudice".
In 1962, when Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Augustin Bea used Thering's study to draft portions of the 1965 Vatican II document “Nostra aetate” (“In Our Age”), which declared of Christ's death that “what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today”. As regarding how this issue was to be handled in catechetical instruction, it added, “The Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God.”
As she recalled later, "They were 15 lines in Latin, but they changed everything.
In 1974, Thering presented a menorah to Pope Paul VI at the Vatican. In 1986, she went to Austria to protest the inauguration of President Kurt Waldheim, the former U.N. secretary-general, who had served in a Nazi army unit implicated in the deportation of Jews from Greece during World War II. In 1987, she went to the Soviet Union to protest the government's treatment of Russian Jews.
At Seton Hall, where she joined the faculty in 1968, she established workshops on Judaism for church leaders and teachers, and led student groups on 54 tours of Israel. Following her teaching career, she was named Professor Emerita at Seton Hall. As a member of a Commission appointed by Gov. Thomas Kean, she helped write a 1994 law mandating the teaching of the Holocaust and genocide in all elementary and high schools in New Jersey.
Later in life, Thering remained an active and vigorous opponent of antisemitism. She received numerous recognitions for her work including; The Woman of Valor Award from the Anti-Defamation League (1993), Cardinal Bea Interfaith Award from the Anti-defamation League (2004), The B'nai B'rith's "Flame of Abraham Award" (1975) as well as a woodland of 2,500 trees presented by the Jewish National Fund, Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award, and Myrtle Wreath awarded by N.J. Region of Hadassah.
She died, aged 85, from kidney failure in 2006 at her motherhouse in Racine, Wisconsin.
Rabbi Alan Brill continues Sister Rose Thering's work toward interfaith understanding in his role as chair of the Department of Jewish-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University. A documentary film about her activism, "Sister Rose's Passion" was made in 2004. It was nominated for an Academy Award.
I know the power of teachers. It is my deepest wish that teachers in our public and parochial schools, with scholarship assistance, will be able to enroll in Jewish-Christian studies at Seton Hall University to stem the tide of ignorance in our schools and in society.
To be a better Christian you need to find out where you are rooted. Take a good look at Judaism. Our roots are in Judaism. Jewish people have much to teach us. We must learn from our elder brothers and sisters. Read one of Elie Wiesel's books—if you've read "Night", read it again. You will find things in there that you didn't understand. Begin with the Hebrew Scriptures, the First Testament. Read a little bit each day, if possible.
On the film, "The Passion of the Christ":
In that film there is so much hatred, so much violence you almost forgot what Jesus did. Jesus should have been dead by the time he got to the cross with all that they did to him. In that film you see little Jewish boys turned into devils, and the Jews were all wearing prayer shawls. The whole thing was made as if the Jews killed Jesus, and Pilate came off a saint.
from: New York Times obituary
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The Rat (Beavis and Butt-Head)
"The Rat" is the second episode of Season 8 and 209th episode overall of the American animated television series "Beavis and Butt-Head". It aired on MTV on December 1, 2011.
Plot.
Beavis and Butt-Head wake up after napping on the couch and find a rat causing havoc in their house and eating their nachos. They go to the hardware store to get a mousetrap, and find it difficult to set it up, constantly trapping their own fingers in it. Eventually they set it with a corn chip as bait and return to the couch. Butt-Head sends Beavis to check on the trap, but Beavis falls for the bait and traps himself again. Later, they hear a noise in the kitchen and find the rat trapped, but still alive. Butt-head sweeps the rat towards Beavis, who accidentally releases it from the trap. The rat is grateful and follows Beavis in admiration. The pair go to work at Burger World, with the rat in tow. Beavis lets the rat work in the kitchen with him, and takes it out on the tray when a woman orders. She is shocked and calls the manager, who is angry with Beavis and Butt-Head. As the rat went missing while they were being told off, they search around for it. Later, it turns out that the rat was pregnant and it gives birth to a litter of babies in the restaurant, possibly leading to an infestation.
Production.
The animated produced by Film Roman, AKOM and Nelson Shin.
Reception.
R.L. Shafer of IGN rated the episode a 8.5/10 in a joint review with its successor. He praised its simple premise and called the scene where they set the trap "comedy gold". Although he wished that the scene in Burger World had lasted longer, and wrote that it "ends on a fun, ironic note". On the video reviews, he called their analysis of "White Nights" "[not] exactly sharp, just laugh-out-loud funny", as they gave their idea that female singers get outlandish videos directed by male directors who want to have sexual intercourse with them. However, their commentary on "My Machines" was deemed to be one in which "the laughs aren't as prevalent"
In a combined review for "The A.V. Club", Kenny Herzog gave the episode and its three successors a B+, likening it to "Seinfeld" and The Three Stooges. He wrote that it "has a warped realism, and is a nearly perfect little vignette about nothing".
References.
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Dennis Thering
German politician
Dennis Thering (born 5 April 1984) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and chairman of the CDU parliamentary group in the Hamburg Parliament. He has been a member of the Hamburg Parliament since 2011 and has been chairman of the parliamentary opposition since the 2020 elections. In April 2023, he became chairman of the CDU Hamburg.
Education and professional career.
Dennis Thering graduated from the Wirtschaftsgymnasium City Nord, a secondary school in Hamburg with a focus on economics, in 2003. After graduating, he spent one year doing community service at the Hospital zum Heiligen Geist ("Holy Spirit Hospital") in the Poppenbüttel quarter of Hamburg. Thering then completed an apprenticeship as a bank clerk at the German public savings bank Hamburger Sparkasse in 2006, where he then worked for four years. In 2010, he went back to school to study political science - he eventually earned his BA degree at the University of Hamburg in 2013. From January 2014 to March 2020, Thering was employed as an executive assistant at the care services provider Pflegen & Wohnen Hamburg GmbH.
Political career.
Local affairs.
Dennis Thering has been a member of the CDU since 2001. He acts both as chairman of the CDU in Alstertal and as district chairman of the CDU Wandsbek. Between 2004 and 2008, he was a member of the local committee Alstertal where he was appointed deputy group leader. From 2008 to 2011, Thering was a directly elected member of the Alstertal-Walddoerfer constituency for the Wandsbek district assembly. During this time, he was the spokesperson for the Alstertal region as well as the representative of the sports department of the CDU Wandsbek parliamentary group.
State parliament.
Thering has been both a member of the Hamburg Parliament and a member of the state board of the CDU Hamburg since 2011. In the 2015 state elections, Thering was reelected into the state parliament via a direct mandate in the Alstertal-Walddörfer constituency. He was deputy chairman of the CDU parliamentary group until spring of 2020: At its constituent parliamentary group meeting on March 18, 2020, the CDU parliamentary group unanimously elected Thering as their new chairman.
In the general election on February 23, 2020, Thering was once again appointed as the top candidate of the CDU Hamburg in the Alstertal-Walddörfer constituency. On February 23, 2020, he - for the third time - was reelected as a member of the Hamburg Parliament
In April 2023, the previous chairman of the CDU Hamburg Christoph Ploß stepped down and handed over the chairmanship to Thering, who was elected by the party members with 185 out of 197 votes. Eight delegates voted against him, four abstained.
Political positions.
Thering focuses on transport policy, internal security and economic policy. The CDU does not want to "exclude" any road users, stands firmly by the Port of Hamburg and wants to contribute more to the safety of Hamburg's citizens, he stated. Improving health care is also important to him, Thering said.
He, alongside the CDU Hamburg, supported the initiative "Put an end to gender language in administration and education" in February 2023.
Thering distances himself from the far right, stating in February 2023: "The AfD is an openly racist party, in part also anti-Semitic, so we clearly distance ourselves."
Candidacy for mayor.
On 24 February 2023, Thering announced his candidacy to run as a candidate to challenge Hamburg's First Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) in the 2025 election for the 23rd Hamburg Parliament, stating in the Hamburger Abendblatt Summer Interview of 2022: "Government responsibility does not mean that we then automatically provide the next mayor." Thering's mayoral candidacy is viewed controversially. Party researcher Elmar Wiesendahl commented in an interview on 25 June 2022 that ‘the plan of parliamentary group leader Dennis Thering to lead the party into the election is a subscription to defeat’ and pleaded for "a prominent newcomer, like Walther Leisler Kiep once did" in order to "connect with Hamburg's business circles".
In July 2024, NDR saw Thering as the "new strong man in the CDU. Young, adaptable, rhetorically fit, but also a bit conservative". On 20 August 2024, Thering was unanimously nominated by the CDU state executive as his party's top candidate for the upcoming 2025 parliamentary elections, followed in second place on the state list by Anna-Elisabeth von Treuenfels-Frowein, the former Hamburg frontwoman of the FDP, who switched to the Hamburg CDU in July 2024. On 7 September 2024, Thering was placed first on the state list for the 2025 Hamburg elections by the CDU state representatives' meeting with just under 92 percent of the vote.
Memberships and cultural involvement.
Thering is a member of the following clubs and associations:

Kitchen Kabaret
Former Audio-Animatronic show at Epcot
Kitchen Kabaret was a 13-minute audio-animatronic show at Epcot, Walt Disney World Resort, United States located in The Land pavilion. Kitchen Kabaret was present on EPCOT's opening day, October 1, 1982.
The host, Bonnie Appetite, introduced the acts in a musical revue and comedy format that advocated healthy eating and provided a primer on the four food groups: meat, dairy, grains and fruits/vegetables.
The show was replaced in 1994 by "Food Rocks".
Show description.
Introduction.
"Meal Time Blues" by Bonnie Appetite

Bonnie sang this at the start of the show. Looking exhausted, she had cookbooks and her hair wrapped in a bun, and her legs crossed. She explained that it was time for her to prepare a meal, and she wasn't too excited about it. The lights turned off, and the next performance began.
Act 1.
"Chase Those (Meal Time) Blues Away" by Bonnie Appetite and the Kitchen Krackpots

The Kitchen Krackpots band (containers of mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, a spinning bottle of mustard, etc.) played a boisterous ragtime intro, as Bonnie reappeared, now in entertainer or showbiz attire (tuxedo, for instance), to "Thank you all for coming to (her) kitchen." The only figure that did not feature articulated facial features was the mustard jar.
Act 2.
""The Stars of the Milky Way"" by Dairy Goods and his Stars of the Milky Way

Mr. Dairy Goods was a singing milk carton who emerged from a refrigerator holding an old-fashioned radio-style floor microphone close to his mouth, crooning introductions to three dairy products: Miss Cheese, Miss Yogurt, and Miss Ice Cream - in the style of 1930s costume extravaganzas. Each of the dairy products performed a brief cameo in a stylized manner (e.g., Miss Cheese sang like Mae West, Miss Yogurt sang like a European sex kitten, and Miss Ice Cream sang like Eartha Kitt). Every time they emerged, ice cold fog poured out of the freezer. The Cheese, Yogurt and Ice Cream bore a slight resemblance to the children from "It's a Small World".
Act 3.
"Boogie Woogie Bakery Boy" by The Cereal Sisters

The Cereal Sisters—Mairzy Oats, Rennie Rice, and Connie Corn—sang a parody of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy in the style of The Andrews Sisters, accompanied by a bugle-blowing bread slice. The bread slice wore glasses and was revealed when a kitchen cabinet was opened. He would reappear from the toaster for his second solo.
Act 4.
"Meat Ditties" by Hamm & Eggz

Hamm & Eggz was a vaudeville-style comic rendition of "The Meat Group Can Help You Keep Strong", in which Mr. Hamm and Mr. Eggz told jokes and sang a few short ditties. At the end, Mr. Hamm got angry because of Mr. Eggz's corny jokes, and decided to split from the group to join another protein group. Eventually, their bickering got out of hand and they had to retire into the oven for a fear of total meltdown.
There were also running gags in this part of the show. Mr. Eggz's bow moved if he was laughing, and at the end of their parts, smoke bellowed around them to keep these two from being seen moving into the ground.
Act 5.
"Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit" by Colander Combo and the Fiesta Fruit

Night sounds, Latin percussion, and low lighting set the mood for this number, as the produce (broccoli, tomatoes, bananas, etc.) began to chant "Veggie-Veggie-Fruit-Fruit! Veggie-Veggie-Fruit-Fruit!" Bonnie Appetite, now in a Carmen Miranda-style carnival outfit, and perched upon a crescent moon that descended from the ceiling, sang "I simply have to tell you that my friends who are singing are...delectable!" Here, another running gag was present. A broccoli piece said "cha cha cha!" at times while his glasses flipped off, but the glasses resumed their spot.
Finale.
"Kabaret Finale" by Bonnie Appetite and cast
Bonnie Appetite and the cast sang a medley of each of their songs. All of the cast came back out, and Bonnie said good bye, before the curtains with the Kraft logo cover the stage.
Other appearances.
Disney created merchandise with the Kitchen Kabaret characters, including coloring books, audio tapes / CDs, musical books, postcards and pins of the Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit group. Even after closing of the attraction, Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit reappeared as characters in the annual Epcot International Food and Wine Festival.
The Astuter Computer Revue and Backstage Magic in CommuniCore featured a guest appearance by Mr. Eggz highlighting how computers controlled audio-animatronic characters. An educational animated short, "Harold and his Amazing Green Plants" used slightly redesigned versions of the Colander Combo to explain how plants grow.
On August 17, 2007, Walt Disney World released a commemorative pin honoring this attraction as part of its White Glove Remember When series. Another White Glove (a part of the Retro Epcot) pin was released on July 1, 2008.
The song Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit appeared in the spectacular Epcot Forever.
At the 2021 Destination D23 (Disney) event, the characters of Kitchen Kabaret were featured in a panel on the park specific characters at Walt Disney World. The Kitchen Kabaret was then pitted against Food Rocks in the first ever Battle of the Food Bands. In a shocking upset, Food Rocks emerged victorious. A line of exclusive merchandise featuring the Battle of the Food Bands was released at the event, including a shirt, poster, and pin.
References.
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External links.
Complete Show:

Little Star (novel)
2010 novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Little Star () is a 2010 horror/drama novel written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It is named after "Lilla stjärna", the Swedish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 1958 held in Hilversum, the Netherlands.
The novel initially follows the life of the surrogate daughter of a musician, who kills her surrogate parents at the age of 12. The girl has a wonderful singing voice, but has trouble in starting a musical career due to her inability to engage the audience. She befriends an introverted female poet of similar age, and similar murderous tendencies. The two girls start a wolf-themed all-female cult which orchestrates a killing spree. When the other cult members are captured, the two girls manage to flee together.
Plot.
In 1992, a musician named Lennart finds in the woods an infant left for dead. He takes her to his wife, Laila, and the two raise the child in secrecy, believing that her catatonic and trance-like state will result in her being perceived as mentally ill. Their adult son, Jerry, frequently visits the child, whom he names Theres. Lennart becomes obsessed with Theres due to her angelic voice. He convinces her never to leave the house by telling her that the world is full of "big people" who want to eat up the "little people," like her. He begins to teach her about music and states that music and love are found in the heart and in the mind.
When Theres is approximately twelve, she violently dismembers both Lennart and Laila in an attempt to find the love inside their heads. Afterwards, Jerry whisks her away to Stockholm to start a new life. He ultimately enters her in the reality show, "Idol", where she dazzles the viewers with her voice, but eventually is voted off the show due to her inability to engage the audience.
In November 1992, a girl named Teresa Svensson is born. Her best childhood friend is a neighbor named Johannes. Teresa grows up to be an introverted girl, and as a teenager, begins to write poetry and post it online. Around this time, Teresa witnesses Theres' performance on "Idol", and is mesmerized. Discovering that the one commenting on her poetry is the same person she saw on television, Teresa believes that their friendship was fated from the beginning, and they form a deep connection. She visits Theres' apartment every weekend, where the two compose music with Theres singing and Teresa writing the lyrics.
Around the time when Theres first appears on "Idol", a middle-aged talent agent named Max Hansen also catches sight of the girl, and becomes infatuated with her. He contacts her with the intention of taking advantage of her voice as well as her body. Theres agrees to his offer due to wanting her own CD. In his hotel room, he attempts to perform oral sex on her, but Theres perceives this to be him trying to "eat her up" and stabs him in the back with the stem of a wine glass. He begins to develop a masochistic complex as a result.
Despite what happened, Theres still demands to have a CD made of her, and Hansen agrees due to the two not caring about the money or a signed legal document. They record a studio-enhanced version of their song; however, Theres and Teresa still prefer their homemade version, so they create a video of Theres lipsynching the song and post it online under the pseudonym "Tesla". The video quickly accumulates one million hits and Hansen is furious, but is unable to take legal action due to there being no legal documentation to begin with.
Soon afterwards, Teresa goes on a trip into the mountains with her family. While there, she comes across a newspaper article on the mysterious "Tesla", and becomes severely depressed knowing that no one realizes the lyrics are her work. Her parents check her into a mental institution and a while later, she is released, and returns to Theres' apartment to find her sharing their music with a number of other girls. Heartbroken, she returns home and refuses to answer any messages from Theres for some time, but the two eventually get back together. Theres takes her to the local convenience store where Teresa murders the owner in cold blood; the "life essence" inside the man is believed to make Teresa happy.
Ultimately, Theres, Teresa and the other girls form a cult they call "The Wolves of Skansen". Together, they kidnap Max Hansen and torture him to death with a power drill: a process he takes extreme sexual delight in. They then make plans to go on a killing spree at Sing Along at Skansen in order to obtain life. To make sure she is ready, Teresa goes to Johannes' house and beats him to death with a hammer. She and the rest of the girls then carry out their plan while Theres sings ABBA's "Thank You for the Music" on stage. The other girls murder thirty people but are all captured, while Theres and Teresa manage to escape the vicinity. Teresa reveals that she had earlier cut a hole in the fence surrounding the wolf enclosure, hoping they would join in the massacre, but Theres takes her hand and says that they will go to the wolves instead.
Reception.
"The Independent" wrote that "The early parts of "Little Star" are overwritten and [Lindqvist] sacrifices plot for characterisation a tad too much. Having said that, he builds a palpable sense of terror through the alienation of his main players, and he proves with the apocalyptic ending that he's up there with the best literary horror writers."
References.
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Mistakes (Brian McFadden song)
"Mistakes" is the third single released from Irish singer Brian McFadden's third studio album, "Wall of Soundz". The song was written by McFadden and Jez Ashurst, and was produced by McFadden and Robert Conley. The single was released on 17 September 2010 and features McFadden's then-fiancée, Delta Goodrem. The song appears to be about a dysfunctional and destructive relationship. "You keep dragging me down, you keep dragging me down/I'm drowning in you/Theres no hope for me now, theres no hope for me now/I should have walked away" sourced at the song lyrics pages.
Music video.
Filmed in Sydney during August 2010, the video for the song was directed by Dan Reisinger and is based on the film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith". The video starts off with a romantic dinner that triggers an explosive domestic dispute. Throughout the rest of the video, Goodrem is seen throwing a glass of red wine, aiming at McFadden's forehead and starts bleeding. She also throws his watch in a blender and smashes one of his platinum discs. She then uses the disc to slice his guitar while he retaliates by using the chainsaw to turn Goodrem's piano into firewood. McFadden is also seen putting Goodrem's teddy bear in the microwave to see how long it takes to heat it up, until it blows up the kitchen.
References.
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Year of the Rat (EP)
Year of the Rat is the debut extended play by Canadian grunge duo Softcult, released on April 16, 2021, through Easy Life Records.
Background and recording.
In 2017, Courage My Love released their second studio album, "Synesthesia". After the album's release, twin siblings Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn found themselves at crossroads with their record label over the band's creative direction; the Arn-Horn siblings spent the remaining years of Courage My Love's existence writing hundreds of songs to appease their label, which ultimately proved to be fruitless and discouraging. The band played their final show in March 2020, just prior to the COVID-19 lockdowns in Canada. In the summer of 2020, the Arn-Horn siblings decided to disband Courage My Love and pursue a new project together where they were free to pursue whatever direction that they wanted.
"Year of the Rat" was written and recorded during most of 2020 at the band's home studio in Kitchener, Ontario. The EP was produced and engineered by Phoenix Arn-Horn, and was mixed by Chris Perry. Owing to their negative experiences with their former label, Softcult were initially planning on self-releasing their music, until they were urged to sign with a label by their manager.
Composition and lyrics.
"Year of the Rat" has been described as grunge, shoegaze and riot grrrl.
Both Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn considers "Year of the Rat" to be less developed than the band's subsequent output. Speaking with "Rock Sound" in February 2022, Mercedes retrospectively described the EP as "dipping our toes in the water and seeing how it would go and how it felt", whilst Phoenix felt that the EP was primarily a homage to their musical influences. Mercedes felt that the EP's lyrics was primarily composed of "blanket statements about issues we were passionate about", and that it was less lyrically honed in than Softcult's later releases.
Title and artwork.
Mercedes has called the EP's title, which also refers to the zodiac year of the rat, a metaphor for the "rat-race". "The artwork for the EP on that one is a bunch of rats running in one direction with one red rat among all these white rats, so that’s supposed to symbolize the ‘rat race’ and how it just takes one person to be like “you know what? I’m doing things differently” to break up a pattern." Although the EP's songs were written during the zodiac year, "Year of the Rat" was released during the year of the ox.
Reception.
"Year of the Rat" received generally favourable reviews from critics.
Personnel.
Adapted from Tidal.
Softcult
Additional personnel

Songs from the Kitchen Disco
Songs from the Kitchen Disco is the first greatest hits album by English singer-songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor, released on 13 November 2020 by EGBG's, although it was previously announced for 23 October. It features singles from all her studio albums: "Read My Lips" (2001), "Shoot from the Hip" (2003), "Trip the Light Fantastic" (2007), "Make a Scene" (2011), "Wanderlust" (2014) and "Familia" (2016), as well as a number of cover versions of songs by other artists. "Songs from the Kitchen Disco" serves as the follow-up to her previous release, the 2019 orchestral compilation album "The Song Diaries".
Background.
In 2019 Ellis-Bextor released "The Song Diaries", her first compilation album. It consists primarily of orchestral versions of 15 of her solo singles, and a new track, a cover of Carol Williams's "Love Is You". The album was produced by Ed Harcourt (who also produced her two last studio albums), with additional production by Richard "Biff" Stannard and Ash Howes. During that same year she also embarked on The Song Diaries Tour within the UK with a full orchestra and her band; the tour consisted on 14 dates, grouped in two legs, one in late spring and the other one in autumn.
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Ellis-Bextor, her husband, The Feeling bassist Richard Jones and their kids hosted a number of live shows via Instagram called Kitchen Disco Live every Friday night for 10 weeks. During these shows, she performed some of her songs (including non-single tracks), and a bunch of covers.
Kitchen Disco shows.
Every Friday, for 10 weeks (from 27 March to 29 May), Ellis-Bextor performed a series of live shows via Instagram on her own house as a way of virtual escapism of the hard time she and her family were facing during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the UK. During these shows (named Kitchen Discos) she sang live, while her sons joined her, on the chaotic yet enjoyable performances. Additional shows were hosted on 17 July (celebrating the end of the term) and on 30 October (for Halloween). Ellis-Bextor also did a Christmas special and a further series of shows for the early 2021 lockdown.
The live transmissions lasted 30 minutes, and regular songs included her top-three singles "Take Me Home", "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" and "Murder on the Dancefloor". She also performed several of her singles and album tracks and a wide variety of covers. From the Kitchen Disco #6 onwards she did an encore session, called "The After Party", just after the end of the transmissions. During these after parties she sang songs less danceable and more relatable to musicals, like "My Favourite Things" (from "The Sound of Music") and "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" (from "Grease").
Ellis-Bextor began presenting a weekly programme under the same name ("Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Kitchen Disco") on BBC Radio 2 in May 2020.
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Original running
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Specials
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Critical reception.
"Songs from the Kitchen Disco" received positive reviews from music critics and fans alike, many of whom associated the album with the Instagram Live shows held by Ellis-Bextor during the pandemic lockdown, emphasising her 20 years of solo career and the fine selection of singles and covers included.
Lauren Murphy from "The Irish Times" wrote "if the mark of a great song is that it works in any setting – be it a kitchen surrounded by small children hanging off your leg or on the dance floor of an actual club in the wee hours – this collection is evidence that the perennially-underestimated Ellis-Bextor has amassed more than a few of them over the last two decades" Nick Smith from "musicOMH" called the collection "magnificent".
Additionally, "Clash"'s Robin Murray states: "Sophie Ellis-Bextor has shone fresh light on her inimitable pop approach, recasting these songs in her own manner. "Songs from the Kitchen Disco" is the ideal tonic for those winter blues."
References.
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Libby Prison escape
Richmond, Virginia Prison Escape
The Libby Prison escape was a prison escape from Libby Prison, a Confederate prison at Richmond, Virginia in February 1864 that saw over 100 Union prisoners-of-war escape from captivity. It was one of the most successful prison breaks of the American Civil War.
Led by Colonel Thomas E. Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania Infantry, the prisoners started tunnelling in a rat-infested zone which the Confederate guards were reluctant to enter. The tunnel emerged in a vacant lot beside a warehouse, from where the escapees could walk out through the gate without arousing suspicion. Since the prison was believed to be escape-proof, there was less vigilance by the authorities than in other camps, and the alarm was not raised for nearly 12 hours. Over half the prisoners were able to reach Union lines, helped by their familiarity with the terrain after serving in McClellan's Peninsula Campaign of 1862.
Background.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Luther Libby was running a ship supply shop from the corner of a large warehouse in Richmond, Virginia. In need of a new prison for captured Union officers, Confederate soldiers gave Libby 48 hours to evacuate his property. The sign over the north-west corner reading "L. Libby & Son, Ship Chandlers" was never removed, and consequently the building and prison bore his name. Since the Confederates believed the building inesc