Sunday, June 21, 2009

Green flowers mean...

Ludovic suggests a new signaling system.

...

Ludovic: The telephones are bugged and email is too dangerous. Cameras are everywhere. If I have a message I’ll leave a sign.


Marcus: A sign.


Ludovic: Yes. I’ll leave a plant on the stairs. If there is no message, there is no plant.


Marcus: What kind of a plant?


Ludovic: A discreet one. I am thinking of a small pot plant with green flowers.


Marcus: And where will the message be?


Ludovic: The usual place. Under the bridge.


Marcus: So I go to the staircase, and if there is a small plant with green flowers, then I go to the bridge?


Ludovic: Exactly.

______________
Voice-over

Just as spies need a protocol to pass information, so do we when we call a friend at the office.


Can you talk?

Important?

Life and death.

Urgent?

Level orange.

Bit busy. Got someone with me. 10 minutes.”


Such signals are helpful, but not foolproof, they can interpreted or intercepted.

...

2 comments:

Pencillist said...

I note with interest that in your blog, as on film, spies hev ekzents. In American movies they have British accents.In British movies they have German accents. (I must rent myself a German espionage drama to find out what accent they have in their movies.) In the real world spies do not have any accent at all, of course. Which makes it quite easy to spot one if you concentrate a little.

Lanthildis said...

My Auntie Heilswinda told me in wartime the resistance soldiers would test that someone was Dutch or really a German spy by making him pronounce the names of local places like Schevingen.This is one of few advantages of having a language that is so difficult to pronounce as native, I think.