How To Be a Good Spy: 10 tip-top tips

How To Be a Good Spy: 10 tip-top tips

Pamela's Handy Guidebook to Spying

1920sxfashionxstyle.tumblr.com The Roaring Twenties

The first edition front cover art for the book Smiley's People written by John le Carré. 

First, and most important,

Be underestimated: it is important that your spy 'persona' is targeted a bit under the preconceptions of your intended audience. You can then be laughed at and generally dismissed. Cold War spies like Smiley and Karla in novels like John Carre's 'Smiley's People' are generally regarded as having high IQs. Instead, be, not exactly dumb, but a bit naive. That way your targets can smirk with self-assurance and consider themselves superior and more adept than you. You will be the one laughing in the end....

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay 

2. Develop high empathy: people will warm to you and share.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

3. Have a social media presence: spies can't be all over social media can they, surely?

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

4. Have good intent: well, spying is for everyone. Cannot guarantee this!

A John Ryan panel from the 1959 Eagle Annual No. 8: Harris Tweed, Extra Special Agent - Man Eater! 

5. Fit in: blend into the environment you are in. Standing out only works if No.1. is working. If it is, you can then be dismissed as a bit eccentric and lovable. Dress like Iris Apfel if you are an elderly woman spy. If you are an elderly male spy wear casual clothes (comfy cardies and specs holders) but NOT windbreakers or chinos! If you are middle-aged, do NOT under any circumstances wear a suit or Harris Tweed. Do NOT grow a beard or wear Groucho Marx glasses! Wear something just below tasteful signalling low intelligence. Tuck your polo shirt into your jeans.

An example of a tie-dyed T-shirt; the original uploader was MpegMan at English Wikipedia. 

If you are a young fledgling spy do NOT copy the clothing of rockers or older spies. Wear a plain white T-shirt and black skinny jeans. Or maybe a funky 'in-group' IT outfit, maybe a Steve Jobs outfit, black T and jeans and glasses. Take advice on this from your teenage brother or sister in her 20's. Do NOT dress like a university student - a dead giveaway!

Whatever you do, do not dress like a teenager and look like Will Farrell! Guys, wear something bland and blend in.

Women, do NOT wear chic brands or couture- another giveaway! Just wear (I know, yuck!) some drab ordinary chain-store dress with cheap boots. Do NOT look like someone out of Zero Dark Thirty!

DickyDickieDuck - Own work

The typical New Zealand formal 'Walk Shorts and Walk Socks' look, popular from the 50's till the late 70's mid 80's, then seeing a steady decline as a more casual and unkempt appearance swept the nation. NZ Walk Shorts and Socks in Cream & Green.

6. Develop a back-story: forget the one they give you. Be much more creative. It might be important to have a traumatic past. Perhaps a career that goes in a straight line. We all know that spies are recruited from the losers of the world!

7. Do NOT tell your family you are a spy: this is Spy 101. They will tell everyone on social media and you will be immediately blocked!

When you get to be an experienced spy, you can practise telling everyone, or even implying subtly, you are a spy yourself. No one will believe you!!

?8. Go places in the real world: Yes, this is getting more difficult with Covid-19 but nevertheless there are several essential worker jobs which might provide good cover. Get a job as a pizza delivery or internet repair person. Or, if this is maybe too predictable (the usual job for spies), try getting a job as a donkey groomer or, say, yacht painter. Spies tend to hang out around yachts, airports, park benches and they enjoy patting and feeding carrots and apples to nice quiet animals. It's a relief from their day job and provides work-life balance. Maybe a zookeeper job? Some zoos are re-opening.....meeting other spies near the lion or tiger enclosures is a dead giveaway but maybe near the parrots? On second thoughts, they may repeat what you say and be able to tell other spies who come around to find out what's been said. You cannot be too careful!

Coco Chanel at the Hotel Ritz Paris where she lived during WWII and spied for Germany

9. Be careful what you say or leave in hotels: it goes without saying that it will be bugged and searched. So, misdirect other spies: carry burner phones to fake numbers; leave a scrap of paper with a strange useless mobile number in a bottom drawer in the closet or an exotic address somewhere like Costa Rica or Panama, good spy clues for the uninitiated - they will spend hours looking for the number or, even better, the code; or leave a scent bottle with a particular fragrance known to be used by German spy Coco Chanel and young female spies - like Chanel Coco Mademoiselle if you are an elderly spy. According to the blurb: "COCO MADEMOISELLE. A double name, a dual personality. Free and endearing, mischievous and provocative, lighthearted and excessive.The olfactory echo of a woman free to reinvent herself day after day." Ideal!

Coco remains an icon however since for women fashion is more important than being a traitor! Clue: turn women using good clothing!

Perfume bottle, Lalique for Ambre Antique.

Davidmadelena - Own work

René Lalique sepia stained Glass 'Ambre Antique' Perfume for Coty bottle

Mata Hari, exotic dancer and convicted spy, made her name synonymous with femme fatale during World War I.

Lucien Walery -

 https://www.bikiniscience.com/

Postcard of Mata Hari in Paris

Or, if you are a middle-aged spy go vintage and use Mata Hari's favourite by Coty; if you are a young spy, try Joy by Jean Patou (very old-fashioned; good in its day but not really cool enough for young modern spies!)

Or Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue, eau du parfum, a spy perfume of the 1920s and 30s. The blue hour is when lovers and spies meet: "The sun has set, but night has not yet fallen. It’s the suspended hour… The hour when one finally finds oneself in renewed harmony with the world and the light," Jacques Guerlain liked to say. He was referring to his favourite moment, when "the night has not yet found its star".

?These tips will confuse and misdirect other spies as they carry perfume detectors and will write you off as the opposite age of what you really are. They will never locate you!

Modell 1908, issued from 1908 to 1951[33] User:Sandstein - Own work

Swiss Army pocket knife, 1900. Collection of the Bern barracks

10. Have good stuff: forget the binoculars and fancy watches, use what the professionals use to spy on other spies.

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Pamela is an Auckland writer, researcher, analyst and synthesiser of knowledge with a Masters in Conflict and Terrorism Studies from the University of Auckland. She is a former lawyer, psychotherapist and executive coach. Sky Canopy Consulting is where she hangs out...

She loves owls, ballet, black cats, hot air balloons, witches and wizards, Shakespeare, metaphors, memes, magical realism, reading, walking around lakes, carnivals, carousels, circuses, bals masque, Fiat cars, surrealism, Mozart, opera, dragons, cheongsams, sky rockets, turkish delight, spider brooches, mosaics, museums, hot baths, beer, bedtime stories, Christmases, holidays, native birds and their habitats, riding on her broomstick and travelling in her imagination.