You can be nerdy and geeky and boring about all manner of things, railway timetables, cricket, fine wine, Marvel comics, Beatles flipsides, the confectionary you used to scoff when you were little (ah the nostalgic sweetmeats of childhood, how much of a lump in your throat were they then and still are now), campy 70s sitcoms, Jean-Marie Straub movies, the best places to go backpacking in Andalucia, bootlegs of the Velvet Underground, and so on boringly and tediously.

Turns out you can be geeky and tedious about 9/11 too. But perhaps not too surprising, as 90% of this book is about that shadowy alphabet world of espionage, counter-espionage, counter-counter-espionage and lots of sweaty men trying to pluck the one shiny needle of truth from the haystack of rancid "intelligence" that the world of spy vs spy vs spy showers like golden rain bountifully, munificently, all over the place in this information-soaked fun-packed palace of stupefied over-eaters we call the western world. Three blind counter-terrorist agencies - see how they run - they all ran after the farmer's wife - which was a grave error as she knew very little about al-Qaeda, as it turned out, after some strenuous waterboarding.

Anyway, I couldn't hack it, it made me feel slightly ill. Too much stuff about two giant boys towns, one better dressed than the other one, but only slightly.

Dispiriting is not the word.

Disgusting may be.

This has been another bad-tempered rant from your friend Paul Bryant of Nottingham. He ought to know better, but he doesn't.

Thank you for your patience.