tim wright: digital writer

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: 'Curiously Specific' is back in the real world

To celebrate the fact that Lloyd and I are allowed to meet in the open air, we took to our bikes and took a trip across London in search of locations associated with Le Carré's classic spy novel 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'. It was a lovely sunny day for a bike ride and it was exhilarating to be out on the town with a pal. And it turns out that this book is satisfyingly (and curiously) specific about dates and locations.

Curiously Specific · Curiously Specific Book Club Podcast 15: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Lloyd and Tim take on the ‘holy scripture’ of spy novels, John Le Carré’s classic tale of 1970s Cold War intrigue and betrayal; the book that established George Smiley as one of the all-time great fictional characters – ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy‘.

The adventure starts on home turf: Smiley’s home, to be precise, on Bywater Street in Chelsea. From there, we cycled off to Sussex Gardens.

The Hotel Islay in Sussex Gardens – where, on the day after his visit to Ascot, George Smiley under the name of Barraclough had set up his operational headquarters – was a very quiet place considering its position, and perfectly suited to his needs. It lay a hundred yards south of Paddington Station, one of a terrace of elderly mansions cut off from the main avenue by a line of plane trees and a parking patch.

We very much liked the look of one particular hotel on this stretch – the Castleton. From there it was off to Lexham Gardens in search of the safe house where Smiley and Guillam interrogate Toby Esterhase, and following our re-enactment of a simple tracking operation down Marloes Road, it becomes clear to use that this is very likely to be the most curiously specific book we have encountered so far concerning dates and locations.

Go to https://curiouslyspecific.com/ for the full report.

Slow Horses: A Curiously Specific Podcast in Lockdown

Lloyd and I have been very frustrated that we haven't been able to get out and about during lockdown, so we decided to make a Curiously Specific podcast without either of us leaving our homes.  It's not the same as getting out into the real world, but it turned out we could still have a lot of fun over Zoom. Enjoy!

Curiously Specific · Curiously Specific Book Club Podcast 14: Slow Horses

 

In the middle of the third Covid-19 lockdown, Lloyd and Tim get together virtually for a Zoom around London’s Aldersgate Street and key points north and west of Slough House, the headquarters for Mick Herron’s titular 'Slow Horses'.

They spy on Slough House itself, uncovering countless off-the-shelf companies which might be fronts for unseen agents, but probably aren’t. Not to mention watchful owls which might be hints of a conspiracy or might just be there to scare off the pigeons.

Rummaging around in the Companies House website they find out more than they possibly should have done about Mick Herron himself, and seek to put themselves in the writer’s own shoes as he travels from Oxford to the Barbican to Moorgate via Bunhill Fields.

Curiously Specific Podcast: The Ipcress File

Curiously Specific · Curiously Specific Book Club Podcast 13: The Ipcress File

A plan to brain-wash the entire framework of the nation,’ said Jean, over the coffee and croissants. ‘It’s hardly credible.’

After a long hiatus, Tim and Lloyd are back with the (unlucky-for-some) 13^th Curiously Specific Book Club podcast.

They start the new series with something that comes easy to them both – a leisurely stroll around Soho. Who knew Len Deighton’s classic 1962 spy novel The Ipcress File was the perfect excuse for a long lunch and a general loaf?

Each month we road test a work of fiction that appears to be curiously specific about dates and locations. We go to the places mentioned and see if descriptions are accurate, journey times credible, dates and days all in order. Along the way, we learn things, about the book, and its author.

For more details go to http://www.curiouslyspecific.com

The Curiously Specific Book Club Podcast

Welcome to the Curiously  Specific Book Club (or what Lloyd Shepherd and I decided to do next after the demise of The Riddle of the Sands Adventure Book Club).

Each month we’re going to road-test a work of fiction that appears to be curiously specific about dates and locations. We go to the places mentioned and see if descriptions are accurate, journey-times credible, dates and days all in order.

It’s our way of getting under the bonnet of a book and inside the head of a writer to see how much of a work is… well… made up!

It’s always a great day out each time, and a chance to go to places one might otherwise never visit – in the company of great writers and their works.

First up - The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Is Charles Dickens’s last unfinished novel curiously specific about dates and locations? Well… kinda.

Curiously Specific · Curiously Specific Book Club Podcast 1: Drood & All The Devils

We start in Wapping at Princess Puffer’s opium den, and we end up in the Kent countryside at a pub that could be the model for The Tilted Wagon. In between, Lloyd uses his knowledge of trains and timetables to work out the year in which the book is set (kinda).

We take a walk Dickens made many times down the Richard Dadd Path in search of a gruesome murder site. We turn up in Rochester, fortuitously on the day of the somewhat odd Dickens festival and locate all the main buildings of ‘Cloisterham’. We search in vain for the weir where the Reverend Crisparkle enjoys a midwinter skinny-dip.

Conversations include a debate about the merits of David Bowie’s ‘Earthling’, the hell that would be a weekend stay with Dickens, the difference between being ‘curiously specific’ (us) and ‘locally vague’ (Dickens), and why we should thank our lucky stars that David Lean never directed a ‘Mission Impossible’ movie.

Join us at www.curiouslyspecific.com