As founders of active resistance movements go, this isn’t Bin Laden or Fidel. I don’t suppose MI5 sit late into the night biting their nails, chain smoking and waiting for him to strike….” – Mad From Barking

Smiley started as the telephone on his desk rang – a short, jarring ring like the crunch of a heavy footfall on a midnight gravel drive.

He lifted the receiver and held it to his ear, cricking his neck as he did so to easy the stiffness brought on by that rainy October afternoon.

“George?” said the voice. It was Stephens, from the Bureau. This could not be good. He grunted his acknowledgement.

“The balloon has gone up George. The big one. We need you.”

Smiley leaned back in his chair as he gazed out over St James’s Park, watching the tourists and locals as they went about their ordinary little lives in the afternoon gloom, ignorant of the horror unfolding around them.

“ARM?” he asked, although he somehow already knew the answer.

“Yes. They’ve only…” Stephens’ voice cracked. Smiley swallowed hard. It took a lot to get to Stephens.

“They’ve only gone and changed the signs along the canal towpath in Melton Mowbrey, George. All of them. Every one. We’ve already had… damn it all George! – several… several people comment.”

Smiley felt a cold chill grip him, colder even than the London air which rattled the panes in his grimy office windows. The bastards! There were rules to this game – unspoken, unwritten rules that were nevertheless known by all the players. No families. No diplomats. And no signage required under the 1976 Rights of Way (Ammendment) Act. And now ARM had declared themselves above the game, above the rules. He would show them otherwise.

“On my way.” he sighed, already replacing the receiver as Stephens’ voice promised a car to pick him up at the usual place. The rattle of the handset in its cradle echoed around the bare office like the dying crunch of autumn leaves…

Natural selection could not possibly be how we got here because the sun hadn’t been there long enough for things to work that way.

Because the sun is made of burning coal.

So remind me again which one of them is British?”

Then step forward William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin…