Wednesday 4 March 2015

They eat nothing but offal cooked in rancid olive oil in Turkey

Bond sat down in a comfortable-armed chair and took the small tumbler the waiter offered him. He lifted it towards Kerim and tasted it. It [raki] was identical with ouzo. He drank it down. At once the waiter refilled his glass.

"And now to order your lunch. They eat nothing but offal cooked in rancid olive oil in Turkey. At least the offal in Misir Carsasi is the best."

I. Fleming, From Russia, with love (1957), 109

Tuesday 3 March 2015

A great deal of killing has to be done in the USSR

A great deal of killing has to be done in the USSR, not because the average Russian is a cruel man, though some of their races are among the cruellest peoples in the world, but as an instrument of policy. People who act against the State are enemies of the State, and the State has no room for enemies. There is too much to do for precious time to be allocated to them, and, if they are a persistent nuisance, they get killed. In a country with a population of 200,000,000, you can kill many thousands a year without missing them. ... The problem is the shortage of executioners.

I. Fleming, From Russia, with love (1957), 23