#cambridge spies
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It's like none of you guys even care about Cold War espionage 😭
#stop posting about some actor can we talk about the corruption of the west and how alienation leads to espionage and personal betrayals and—#cambridge spy ring#tinker tailor soldier spy#cambridge spies#a spy among friends#another country#george smiley#fuck off me
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finding hidden gems while going through toby stephens' filmography
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I named this file “fanservice”...
[image description: a gif from Cambridge Spies. The characters played by Toby Stephens and Rupert Penry-Jones are frantically disrobing.]
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On July 1st, 1963, the BBC reported that Harold ‘Kim’ Philby had been finally identified as ‘the third man’ of the Cambridge Spy Ring, which also included Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. Philby had been working for the Soviets during his entire time with the British Foreign Office, which included an assignment at the British Embassy in Washington, liaising with the CIA. Ironically, in the late 1940s, Philby had worked as Britain’s head of Anti-Communist Counterespionage.
Lord Privy Seal, Edward Heath, told the Commons that while working for MI6 in Washington (around 1950-51), Philby had used his inside knowledge to warn Burgess and Mclean that they had been rumbled, allowing them time to escape to the Soviet Union. At that time Philby’s involvement was suspected, although not proven, but he was ousted from the Foreign Office on the orders of then Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, and the investigation remained open.
According to BBC reporting in July 1963;
"…British authorities had always suspected there was a "third man"…Mr Philby, often known as Kim, had been working as a journalist in Beirut when he disappeared four months ago…"
Philby subsequently turned up in Moscow, from where he denied that he had tipped off Burgess and Mclean, and said that Maclean had actually been alerted to the fact that the security services were onto him when the M15 agents tailing him got a little carried away and accidently bumped into his car.
Philby became a Russian citizen, a KGB General, and was awarded the Order of Lenin. He died in 1988 and was buried with Soviet military honours.
The Cambridge Spy Ring consisted of a group of 1930s university students who were recruited by Soviet agents. The motivation, according to the BBC, was ideological rather than financial, prompted by the belief that capitalism was corrupt and life beyond the Iron Curtain offered a ‘better model for society’.
“…The Cambridge spy ring was informally led by Harold 'Kim' Philby. He and his friends later moved into jobs in British Intelligence and the Foreign Office where they had access to top secret information. They spent their working lives passing valuable information to the Soviet Union…”
The identities of the fourth and fifth Cambridge Spies were not revealed until much later. Anthony Blunt was named in 1979, and John Cairncross in 1990. Cairncross had tipped off the Soviets in time for them to change their codes before Bletchley Park had cracked them, and it was believed the information he passed on about British and US atomic weapons programmes laid the foundations for the Soviets' nuclear capabilities.
There’s a little more on the Cambridge Spies in this 1999 BBC Report ( a classic piece of vintage internet);
#social history#uk politics#uk government#Cambridge spies#kim philby#the third man#intelligence services#cold war#soviet union#british culture#modern history
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A Spy Among Friends (2022)
🎬In England in 1963, Nicholas Elliott works for MI6 as an intelligence officer but is left in turmoil when he learns his close friend and colleague, Kim Philby, had been secretly working as a double agent for the KGB, defecting to the Soviet Union.
📝A perfectly executed series that will have to you engaged from the beginning til the very end. Beautifully shot, acted and directed. Loved Guy Pearce but especially Damian Lewis who is just exceptional (as he normally is) in this show. He is so versatile. If you love your spy stories (this is based on Ben Macintyre's book of the same name) then you have to watch it.
It's just brilliant. I binge watched it in two days :-) Damian Lewis is taking a break from acting. We wish him a good time off and all the best and we hope he will return when he feels ready.
youtube
#a spy among friends#damian lewis#guy pearce#cambridge spies#cambridge five#kim philby#ussr#cold war#east berlin#east germany#spy story#thriller#spy thriller#good tv shows#shows to watch#anna maxwell martin#Youtube
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Gaslight gatekeep girlboss betray your country 🤔
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Late SSR/early SHIELD headcanon:
Peggy was originally slated to be the founding director, or at least in a much more prominent position, when the first drafts of SHIELD were drawn in the late 40s/early 50s. Unfortunately, the defection of the Cambridge Five spy ring happened at the same time, and America was like NUH UH like hell are we gonna let a Brit head up an intelligence agency on our soil. So to placate the government, they put Philips in charge, and Peggy didn't get the directorship until the late 60s.
#peggy carter#my stuff#surprisingly this is not from me listening to too much true spies podcast#...this is from british scandal podcast#their season on the cambridge five was pretty good it's on my relisten list#headcanon#for the uninitiated the cambridge five was a huge blow to usuk intelligence sharing#they stopped sharing nuclear secrets with the uk and it took years if not decades for that relationship to recover
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Who is that quote by?
(I watched Spooks the other night. I tried hard but I couldn't find Thomas H in Adam C - they don't even properly look alike somehow...! Still, RPJ is lovely to watch in any role:))
You mean this quote?
It's Jack Rackham telling that Flint.
Yeah the two characters don't have much in common and despite RPJ never changing his appearance much (except wigs in period dramas) I agree with you that they don't look much alike.
YES, it's always lovely and joy to watch him in any role.
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Stalin's Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess :: Andrew Lownie
View On WordPress
#978-1-4736-2736-9#anthony blunt#apostles society#autobiographies#books by andrew lownie#british spies#cambridge network#cambridge recruits#cold war#diaries#donald maclean#first edition books#harold kim philby#jack hunter#journals#julian bell#lockers park#memoirs#mi5#mi6#military intelligence#neville chamberlain#outram evennett#red army spies#russian spies#secret agents#secret service#secret societies#soviet espionnage#soviet political history
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Spy vs Spy by the book
#Cambridge#oligarchy#education#CIA#MI6#Magdalene College#spies#corruption#lawlessness#mediocrity#servility
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Extremely niche post for the me community. I've connected the dots!
#the parallels between his characters are so insane!!!!!!!#i do wish his portrayal of kim philby was more historically accurate but you cant have everything#toby stephens#black sails#jane eyre#jane eyre 2006#cambridge spies#cambridge spy ring#kim philby#fuck off me
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[image description: two gifs from the first episode of Cambridge Spies. Kim and Donald are striding quickly across campus. Kim says to Donald, "It's a simple, unavoidable choice, Donald. Communism or fascism. To fight fascism you have to be a communist. Anything else is appeasement." /end description]
#cambridge spies#cambridge spies gif#toby stephens#rupert penry-jones#i am hoooooome i can make gifs again#my nextcloud instance is on the fritz though so i can't provide any links just yet
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A guide through Toby Stephens’ filmography for Percy Jackson fans.
If you’ve only just discovered Toby as Poseidon and want more than 10 minutes of that face, here’s where to start!
If you’d be into Poseidon trying to make up for his absence and trying to win Sally and Percy back while fighting to survive in outer space, look no further! Watch Lost In Space on Netflix! It’s full of adventure, family, a but of angst and lots of DAD!
If you’d be more into Poseidon going full Odysseus on Zeus for taking everything from him and then calling him a monster while Medusa takes revenge, do yourself a favor and watch Black Sails! Peak TV. Queer af. Made by Jon Steinberg. [Trigger warnings]
If Sally and Poseidon pining is your thing and you love your Charlotte Brontë, watch the 2006 Jane Eyre with #RuthWilson and #TobyStephens! So much romance, angst and mutual eyefucking… warning: You WILL fall in love with a douchebag! Sorry for that!
Shakespeare Poseidon anyone? A very young and extremely pretty Toby Stephens as Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night. Lots of pining, genderfluidity, confusion and sparks. SPARKS! And a bathtub that will rewire your brain. Something something LGBT will definitely happen to you!
Finally if you love something face paced and modern with great teenage heroes, give Alex Rider on Prime a watch! Toby Stephens is a brilliant villain in S2 with loads of Elon Musk vibes. Poseidon the media mogul asshole? Maybe.
Other highly recommended things from Toby Stephens’ backlist: Cambridge Spies, Photographing Fairies, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Mangal Pandey and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.
#toby stephens#black sails#captain flint#james flint#captain james flint#toby stephens masterpost#masterpost#poseidon#pjo#pery jackson#percy jackson and the olympians#john robinson#lost in space#alex rider#mr rochester#edward rochester#jane eyre#jane eyre 2006#twelfth night
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Miss Marianne Oliver, nineteen years old and enjoying her first summer away from home, was wholly unprepared for her first glimpse of the sea. The path that led them from the cottage to the beach was winding, climbing for a way before sloping down, and upon reaching its highest point, Marianne found herself suddenly in view of a glittering horizon and an expanse of water the likes of which she could not compare with anything she had ever beheld. She halted, mesmerised, unable to walk on.
A breeze carrying a fresh, unfamiliar scent touched her cheeks and she felt a peculiar, directionless joy she had never felt before. Who had ever imagined such a view!
“Oh Peter,” Marianne exclaimed. “Isn’t it beautiful. I must bring my watercolours next time.”
But her brother had no patience for admiring anything from afar and urged her to walk on, running ahead without waiting for an answer. “It will be better down at the water, I am sure!”
Marianne complied and continued down the path. She approached the beach with the happy solemnity that many others might bestow on a chapel, and Marianne had not walked there five minutes before declaring that there was no place she admired more. Her desire to visit Bath was all forgot, Thirrup, with its glittering waves and distant cliffs could do no wrong.
The weather, which had started fair, grew only fairer still, determined to add its lustre to the scene. Brother and sister both delighted in the sea breeze and the warming air; and while Peter spoiled his stockings by running at the advancing tides, Marianne abandoned her pelisse on a conveniently large piece of rock and let the wind muss the ribbons on her bonnet.
It was a long time before she was sensible of anything but the sky and the waves, but after a while she spied two figures walking quite some distance away. Two gentlemen, walking very close to the shoreline, whose twin, dark shapes seemed peculiarly enigmatic in the bright weather. One of the gentlemen was dressed in what she believed to be the blue coat of a naval officer, the other wore black, but both, she saw in surprise as they slowly moved in their general direction, were wearing a heavy fur cape about their shoulders. It was their capes, she realised, which had given their silhouettes their peculiarity. The two gentlemen walked as one, in perfect time with one another, seemingly not in talk but in perfect, silent agreement.
She watched them progress across the beach until one of them suddenly lifted his head and seemed to look directly at her. He was too far to discern the features of his face, but they were in full view of one another and Marianne turned hastily away, and, feeling she must say something after looking at them for so considerable a time, remarked:
“Look there! Did you ever see such a thing? Gentlemen wearing furs in summer!”
Perhaps it was a foreign custom? It was certainly a very strange one to adhere to in such fine weather, but how striking it looked.
“When I go to university,” said Peter, who had spoken of very little else since James had gone to Cambridge, “I shall wear just such boots!”
“When you go to university, you would do well to be less concerned with your boots and more with your books,” teased Marianne.
Peter paid her no mind whatsoever and having tired of running, not daring to go any nearer to the water, and knowing his sister would never be persuaded to walk into town unattended, declared that he wanted to back to the cottage. Marianne agreed with great reluctance and she hung back a little, walking slowly while her brother bounded ahead.
She had not yet reached the path, when a voice called out behind her and she turned to see, to her great confusion, the gentleman who had looked at her when walking the shoreline. He was a young man, looking rather breathless at that time, but with a pleasant, round face and the darkest eyes that Marianne had ever seen. He was holding out to her, draped over the sleeve of his black coat, her forgotten pelisse.
“Your coat, ma’am.” His voice was as pleasant as his face, and as breathless as his appearance.
“Thank you, sir!” she blushed, and as she took it back from him she noted that they were almost of a height. The fur coat, she saw, was not as bulky as she had thought; it was an almost sleek, grey-brown fur drawn close around broad shoulders.
The gentleman bowed, somewhat hastily, and quickly turned back to his companion in the Navy blue, who was standing back and looking very much amused.
“Come along, Marianne!” Peter called out from atop a great stone and Marianne, her cheeks red and her mind alive with curiosity, followed.
[Read the rest of this Regency Selkie Romance on AO3~]
#regency#regency romance#selkie#selkies#a seaside reel#laura drabbles#wlm romance#male selkie#selkie romance#historical romance
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Peak babygirl material ,
#Cambridge spies#bbc Cambridge spies#Cambridge spies 2003#Toby Stephens#rupert penry jones#own work#crarb doodle#hi again Cambridge spies fandom#blood cw
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The beauty of the Cold War AU is that it could go either way for who is the MI5/MI6 and who is the Soviet, but I like Aziraphale as the Soviet (he went to Oxford and believes that’s why he’s never been caught as opposed to those clumsy Cambridge 5 men)
Exactly. I love that it can really do both ways. There’s added comedy to aziraphale being sooo British even though he’s Russian and throwing shade on the Cambridge spies. Also Crowley is constantly like “at least I KNOW my side is bad” and aziraphale is constantly like “my dear when we win and unite every worker in the world and topple capitalism then You Will Realize” and Crowley is like “yeah when you win we’ll have government rationed milk and no more ritz” and aziraphale would be like “my dear” *pained expression*
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