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.

Fascinating Inventions No. 9 – Night vision goggles

If soldiers had to fight in the nightime, things got difficult because they could not see much. So, maybe someone would light a fire or switch on a torch and OOOPS! Bit of a giveaway. Night-vision goggles developed out of second world war technology and became the brilliantly useful bits of kit they are today
- Look! I can see my yacht!
- Look! There's an owl!
- Look! Watch out for that wild cat!

Course, somewhere in Dexter's bedroom is a pair of night-vision goggles. The trouble is, he cannot find them because of all the other high-tech toys he has lying around. If he could find them, he would have no trouble getting to the loo at night or spying on his tankful of exotic fish in the dark or even reading a book without the light on because night vision goggles take all the hassle out of darkness. The way they work is like this:
They boost up the light already around and collect it to focus on an image intensifier. This is amazing because then inside this intensifier the light particles get over-excited and bump into a sort of green TV screen and then give you an image.
BUT I hear you shout. What happens when I go caving or need to have a quick spy round a derelict warehouse where there is no light at all? The answer is get an infra-red illuminator as this will generate enough light to give you an image. During world war two when infrared sight was a baby, the army made an infrared sniper scope BUT it needed an infrared searchlight that was so big it had to be carried on a flatbed truck. Luckily things have got a lot smaller since then.

I have my doubts about using night-vision goggles during the day (see picture) because

a. It makes you look a bit mad e.g. like you might just have run away from having your eyes tested/you could just have had major brain surgery and should still actually be in hospital/ somebody is testing the latest scaffolding technique on your face. None of the above looks cool.
AND then there is
b. if you are doing a bit of spying it sort of gives the game away

On the plus side you do get to look like a human-robot-cyborg, so maybe it is not all bad.

Anyway, the greatest place in the universe is having a science of spying exhibtion until September. I am definitely off to get some tips.