Here is my Holiday Report

Here is my holiday report:
We went to London, mostly to get away from my Aunt Caroline and The Unspeakable Cousins. My Aunt is madder than a wet cat and that is pretty mad. We are still traumatised from the last visit (more later). For now here is the best bit.

We went to the wondrous Science Museum and I am now stuffed full of important spying knowledge. I still have my plastic security card and it has a magnetic strip and everything. So, now it is true that I am officially a trainee Spymaker agent; even though it says I only have temporary security clearance and my supercomputer rating is untested (not true, I actually scored 82% on my data retrieval from the supercomputer which is a lot better than Dad who scored a rubbish 23% and Mum who was having a coffee in the cafe, so gets -0%). My official spy number is 007, no not really, that was a joke, it is 2237. I am therefore only 2230 plastic security cards away from having a licence to kill people.
Cool.
My trainee Spymaker agent card says "Carry this Agent ID with you at all times. Never let it out of your sight". This is all very well but I do not have a pocket in my pyjamas and even if I did, I'm not sure I would be able to use it because then my ID card would be out of my sight and who knows what might happen.



Anyway, this is how becoming a spy works:
a. recruitment - practice getting embarrassing information about people at home and school e.g. go through the drawers in Mrs Trundle's office to find exotic hodliday brochures which she will try and pass off as 'edcuational exchange visits'. Then pass this info on to anybody willing to pay for it, e.g Mrs Trundle. That is a good start OR you can check out the MI5 and MI6 websites (which is a bit more boring)
b.training -are you cunning and resourceful? Can you spot a liar? Can you rumage around in rubbish and find non-smelly important stuff. If so, you are either dead right for a spy or you are my cat, Serena (that's not right, she likes smelly).
c.technology - this makes a spy's life easier. Frankly it makes anyone's life easier. Who needs school when you can absorb information through a chip under your skin designed to let you suck up important but boring lessons like, 'The Romans at Homes' or 'The Water Cycle - let's learn!'. Or you could use a micro air vehicle, an insect spy (I knew that one) or leave intelligent water just lying around ready to absorb your enemy's fingerprints or get your face scanned in a facial recognition system so that no door (except ordinary ones with locks and keys) is closed to you. My favourite is the super-powered spy leg and I have to tell you about this in more detail later, so do not run away (ha ha).
d. mission - it's up to you really but here are mine. e.g. find out what Mrs Next-Door is up to with all that concrete; find a way of keeping Aunt Caroline from ever visiting again; solve forever the mysteries of alien crop circles (wait, I think I have done that).

Anyway, the holiday was too short and now it is back to the prison of school and it is vegetable medley tonight.

The Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge

During the second world war there was a lot of worry about Britain being invaded by German spies. Someone came up with a grand plan to identify the German secret agents. This was to make them believe that British secret agents always painted one foot blue (which of course they did not). So all anyone had to do to trap a German spy was to casually try and get their socks off. It did not catch on.

My plan is much simpler than the blue-foot plan which would have taken alot of time and effort and paint.
Here is phase one of my Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge.
TARGET: Miranda.
OBJECTIVE: With the application of cool cunning get her to agree to a meeting.

'Have you seen James Bond?' I ask Dexter as we step out of the jet-black Aston Martin going undercover as a bus.
'Where?' asks Dexter, looking around the playground.
'No! I mean the film, James Bond! The spy one.'
He shrugs. 'Yeah. Got it at home; it's all right - not enough action.'
I goggle for a bit and then turn my eagle-eyed attention to the target. Miranda. Double crosser, double agent. She is mooching around near Mrs Trundle's office. I can see Mrs Trundle is even now on the phone, probably agreeing to more work in her role as part-time government assassin. The Bug Club girls gaggle round Miranda. They make me uncomfortable with their talk of wasp spiders and pink stuff.
'You know what to do then,' I tell Dexter. I put one hand in my dinner jacket (school coat) pocket and we stroll in a casual sort of way in their direction. 'Just play it cool.'
I smile to myself. She will not suspect a thing.
'Oi!' shouts Dexter at Miranda and he waves his arms about as though he is drowning. 'I WANT TO SEE YOUR STICK INSECTS!'
Oh smooth.
I slip out of Bond mode and punch him. 'Phase one!'
He punches me back, quite hard.
I notice Miranda and the Bug Club sniggering at us. I push him. He pushes me back.
'STOP FIGHTING!' Mrs Trundle, the headteacher and part-time assassin, has spotted our delinquent behaviour. She has somehow apparated out of her office and clean into the playground and is bearing down on us like a guided missile.
'That was your fault! How are we supposed to get her to agree to a meeting now!' I tell Dexter. 'You've blown Phase One!'
'Do you want to come over after school then?' bellows Miranda. 'You can see some BIG stick insects!' They are outright laughing now.
At a distance of one metre, The Trundle has her killer whistle up to her thin lips. This could be the end.
Dexter nudges me. 'Phase one complete.'
I want to reply but I am thrown off my feet by the force of The Trundle's explosive whistling.

Fascinating Invention No. 8 - The Bee Plane

with a length under 9.5 ft (2.9 m) and a wingspan of just 6.5 ft (2 m) the Guinness Book of World Records considered the Bumble Bee to be the smallest plane in the world following its first successful flight on 28 January 1984 but STOP PRESS that is nothing. Just read what the excited Professor Gursal, a mechanical engineer at the University of Bath, has just said-

"Our work will make the goal of tiny aircraft, perhaps eventually the size of bees, a step closer."

Everyone would like a plane the size of a bee, that is what he is saying and I can absolutely see why. I think this is completely brilliant and I really really want one of these little planes. Apparantly the big important difference which makes it all possible is, NOT having fixed wings, like on ordinary aeroplanes. The smaller you go, the better it is to copy nature and make the wings flap up and down; so the team studied insects' wings as part of a programme to develop tidgy aircraft with cameras and sensors built in.
What can you do with these teeny tiny aircraft? You have to ask???

-spyplane. It could whizz into secret meetings and find stuff out although the danger of swatting is high
-scout. I am not talking about Baden-Powell's boy scouts because he did not send his scouts ahead into battles to find out military information for the army commanders. That sort of scout would be killed on a regular basis, unlike the boy scouts, hopefully. Actually Baden-Powell was a scout in the Boer war as well as being chief scout of the world and he survived until he was 90.
-fire and rescue operations. Apart from Hollywood film stars or mad delinquents, if you ask for volunteers to go into places which are on fire or falling down, not many hands will go up. The bee plane would go in, no problem.
-transport for really tiny insects; air ambulance for injured or elderly insects, luxury aircraft for rich insects or just plain transport for lazy insects.
Beeline - let the plane take the strain.

It makes me ponder, that maybe stick insects could be adapted to make excellent spies. Not only can they climb like James Bond but they would be invisible; attach a motor to them and they would be perfect. Hmmm...