Dear Tom Quinn — of the BBC spy-drama series “Spooks”, as it’s known in its home country, or “MI-5” as it’s known in the US:
I realize that you’re a fictional character in a television show, and therefore unlikely to see or respond to anything I say here. Still, I couldn’t think of any other way to reach you. Something you said once has been bothering me, for a few days now, and I just want to set some things straight. It’s a friendly letter though, I promise.
This will be old news to you, but I’ve only just heard it myself — might have been Friday night, while waiting for The Venture Brothers to come on. Anyway, you’ll recall the episode “Without Incident” from Season 2, where you and the rest of the crack MI-5 team are having endless conflicts with agents of the US CIA and Secret Service, as President Bush pays a surprise visit to the UK. I don’t blame you a bit for being surly in this episode, and speaking most of the time through clenched teeth. Lord knows you had enough to deal with already, what with the president visiting and a scheming therapist sowing seeds of paranoia among the rank and file and Vicky, your ex-girlfriend, that witch, making your life hell.
But then to top it off there’s all these overbearing, coffee-breathed Yanks waltzing through your offices, ordering your underlings around, and generally acting like they own the place. Ugh! Typical American arrogance, yeh? Outrageous! I was with you, Tom. I couldn’t wait for them to leave either — and they’re my countrymen. Well, fictionally. So I sympathized with you entirely, at least until the moment when, during a heated argument with Christine (the dishy blond CIA agent in charge), you spat the following lines at her:
*
You know, I looked up our country in your CIA World Factbook. It calls us, “slightly smaller than Oregon”. That’s what you think of us!
*
Gosh, is the CIA getting away with that kind of libel? Really? Let’s look it up. Well sure enough, on the “United Kingdom” page, under the heading “Geography”, subheading “Area - comparative”, we find: slightly smaller than Oregon.
So your second sentence is incontestably true. That is what the Factbook says. And I’m pretty sure the underlying geometrical fact itself is equally true. I think the quibble I have with you Tom, or the English pinhead who wrote your lines, is over the fishy conclusion you’ve drawn from your sneaky intelligence gathering.
You see I’m pretty sure the Factbook entry is not saying, “slightly smaller than Oregon; therefore pretty much equivalent.” I rather think it’s just making a neutral and pretty objective statement about relative area sizes. In fact you might have noticed, had you taken the time, that every nation in the Factbook has its area compared to that of the US, or a US state, or some other part of the country, and it isn’t anything more than that. For example, we also find:
[ul]
[li]Russia: “approximately 1.8 times the size of the US”[/li][li]Denmark: “slightly less than twice the size of Massachusetts”[/li][li]Liechtenstein: “about 0.9 times the size of Washington, DC”[/li][/ul]
I think I can safely say that neither the CIA nor the American public as a whole consider Liechtenstein to be 90% as important on the world stage as the city of Washington. (But best not to say so when you’re visiting Liechtensteintown, in the larger cities.)
I hope I’ve put your mind at ease Tom, on this score at least. There are plenty of real American offenses to take umbrage over, but this just isn’t one of them. In closing, I’ll leave you with these additional cheerful thoughts:
[ul]
[li]You got something against Oregon? It’s quite lovely, I hear. Trust me, we could have linked your country to a much more tawdry area of the same size.[/li][li]I notice you get some fine American nookie at the end of the episode, with the aforementioned Christine. So the “special relationship” isn’t always a hard slog, is it? Have fun, you lovebirds![/li][/ul]