Just Looking

In keeping with the best traditions of British intelligence, Her Majesty's Ministry of Wog-Bombing has informed the beastly Russians that it intends to spy on them a bit. A reconnaissance aircraft is scheduled to take a route which will pass over Russian territory, and given the present situation in eastern Europe Her Majesty's Government naturally expected that the fiend Putin would do the decent thing and say spasibo nicely. Alas, the Russian bear has reacted just as sore-headedly to this latest poke as to the many others administered since the comfortable resumption of Cold War relations. "All possible consequences of this deliberate provocation will lie entirely with the British side," growled the Russian defence ministry, whose allies among the Nazi-Soviet Strasbrussels bureaucrats have evidently neglected to pass on Whitehall's position vis-à-vis taking responsibility for one's actions. On the bright side, the Boeing RC-135 reconnaissance plane is an American import rather than a home-contracted design, so there is at least a chance of its being able to detect Russia.