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Penthouse In The Love Of Spies

Eyewear has been biting its tongue, biding its time, and being mum, on the topic of the American-Russian spy scandal that has gripped certain sections of the media and public this past week.  Given the relative ineptitude of these Rocky and Bullwinkle-style spooks, and the lack of any atom-smashing-secrets purloined, the focus of the story has increasingly been on the pneumatic young Russian, Anna Chapman, pictured, formerly married to a British chap, who described her as the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on.  This red-haired 21st Century Fox, with her Wonder Woman physique (described in the Guardian, tactlessly, as "bowling balls") - or, as one paper gushed, "Victoria's Secret figure" - seems to have raised eyebrows merely by fulfilling a casting couch need for a Russian Spy - in short, she is a Central Casting wet dream.

But drop those arched brows, lads and ladettes - and stop licking thy lips.  Many -perhaps most - women are attractive, and smart, and many are youthful, and hail from Eastern Europe and beyond.  SMERSH aside, or Lara Croft, this fantasy is just that - a heavily-accented she-killer, a voluptuous Mata Hari, the deadliest of the species - who does not exist in other than pulp fiction and seedy dreams of men-as-boys - I could go on and on.  Move on - nothing to see here, guys.  Just Hefner stuff.  Very Camelot-era.  JFK would have bedded Chapman, we suspect, at the White House Pool.  The one Nixon has drained and bricked up.  He had a dry sense of humour, did our Quaker Tricky Dick.  But as the Shadow knew, men's minds harbour evil thoughts, and wicked deeds are done dirt cheap - even if for love of country, country above all else.

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