YesBut she was beautiful once - Part 1

For the photograph posted on YesBut’s Image on 21 May 2007, Ozlady suggested the caption - “Hag drags bag while havin' a fag!”

The photo graph suggested the following story to me:

Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Sophie Holstein-Gottorp, to be correct by the time she was born she wasn’t an Imperial Highness - the empire had ceased to exist with the Russian revolution. And being the youngest daughter of a Russian refugee family (albeit related to the Russian Royal family) living in 1950s Paris, she wasn’t much of a Grand Duchess. But there was something about her, not just her stunning beauty, but there was an air of sophistication, which drew men to her like bees to honey.

She was working in a bar when Doug met her. They exchanged a few words, he was intrigued by her accent - she might be the one he had been looking for. He sat sipping his bear till he had the opportunity to talk to her. Once he heard of her Russian ancestry he knew he was onto a winner. Over the next three weeks he took things very slowly, now that he had found her the last thing he wanted was to be scare her off. He took her to dinner, to the ballet - even though he was bored and nearly fell asleep.

It was only after he had slept with her, and was confident she was well and truly hooked, did he reveal he worked for the CIA. Up till then he had maintained his cover story of being a young footloose American writer in Paris. Slowly he nourished and coached her until he knew she was ready to do his bidding. She was to ingratiate herself with Aleksei Machitov, the 2nd Secretary at the USSR Embassy - and assumed by the CIA to be the KGB Head for Western Europe.

He orchestrated a meeting at a dance given by the British Embassy to celebrate a victory of their croquet team against the Argentinean Embassy. She was beautiful and he was charming and they soon became lovers. For months on her love bed Sophia extracted reams of top secret information. This she passed on to Doug using a shortwave radio he had given her.

(To be continued tomorrow - Bookmark this page).


Click here to submit your caption for todays photo on YesBut's Image

YesBut that was the second week of July

The week started with a sporting fiesta: Tennis at Wimbledon, Cycling, Le Tour De France in London and if that wasn’t enough F1, British Grand Prix from Silverston.

After two months of rain, thank goodness there was sunshine for the cycling - and a good time was had by all.

On Monday, it was nice to have some sunshine to walk along the Thames to Tower Bridge to see the Gibson Guitar Town London 2007 exhibition. Thirty 10 foot Gibson Les Paul guitars are displayed around More London, by Tower Bridge. Each guitar is signed by the associated musician to authenticate and endorse their own individual guitar. Click here to read more.

Both the Tour De France and the Gibson exhibition provided ample photo opportunities. Though cyclists passing at 30MPH doesn’t give much time to frame the shot, focus and shoot. Especially when using a digital camera you have to press the shutter button in advance in the hope cyclists will be in the frame when the shutter opens.

In the middle of the week Mrs YesBut gave me the traditional Indian dish dhal to eat, (made from split yellow peas). A very appropriate dish for this blog - the result was a cacophony of continuous farting. As a result I realised President Bush is correct; the answer to Global Warming isn’t through applying restrictions on the use of carbon based fuels in the West but by banning the Indians eating dhal.

Think about it, there are an estimated 1,129,866,154 (the figure comes from CIA - The World Factbook - India - why one thousand one hundred and twenty-nine million, eight hundred and sixty six thousand and one hundred and fifty four why not one thousand one hundred and twenty-nine million, eight hundred and sixty six thousand and one hundred and fifty five or one thousand one hundred and twenty-nine million, eight hundred and sixty six thousand and one hundred and fifty six?).

Back to Global Warming - there are over one billion Indians all eating dhal and as a result farting greenhouse gasses! Not only that - fact a cow emits more greenhouse gases in a day than a car!!

What do they have roaming all over India? Sacred cows! The combination of dhal and sacred cows must result in a massive hole in the ozone layer above India, which will inevitably result in an increase in temperature with the resultant melting of the Himalayan snow - disaster!

But to be even-handed if India is required to get rid of its sacred cows, then it has a right to demand a quid pro quo and America must stop making cowboy films.

And finally don't forget to vote for the Caption of the Week posted on YesBut’s Images on 7th to 13th July.