We were flying back from Moscow at exactly the same time as Edward Snowden was flying in the opposite direction.
A
week later, he's still stuck at the airport - I can vouch for the long
queues, complicated, expensive visas and overly fussy customs and
immigration processes, but a whole week is ridiculous!
But
then Julian Assange has been happily living in some 3rd Division
country's embasssy for a year now. Maybe these are the prices one pays
for a life of consciencious whistleblowing (or perhaps self-important
attention-seeking).
I thought this 'we're all being spied on 24/7' went out of the window years ago with the demise of
the old USSR, but apparently not. Maybe in some ways we're all still living there waving our hammers and sickles around, and I didn't actually need to visit Moscow after all?
Walking
past the mummified corpse of Lenin I made some throwaway comment about
how amusing it would be if he suddenly opened his eyes and sat bolt
upright... and a security guard angrily sidled up behind me before I'd
even finished the sentence.
Of course, I didn't notice
at the time because it was quite dark in there and I was already writing a
screenplay in my mind where Vladimir the Revolutionary Zombie gets into
all sorts of hilarious scrapes.
In my contended obliviousness I
didn't realise what was happening until Mrs B-V told me later on, long
after Mr. KGB had decreed that I wasn't a legitimate threat to his
great, deceased leader. And maybe we don't notice when our governments
back home are spying on us either?
