Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder’s Reviews > Clown Town > Status Update

He wasn't one to brag - what you'd get if you google-imaged "the Rodmeister" would be a cross between Steve Rogers and Peter Parker, your boyish, modest, less swaggering superhero ... He had driven west for this final assault, as if being nearer would make a difference, and was parked on a meter off Ladbroke Grove, studying his laptop in the driving seat of his faithful steed, the Rodster roadster.

Roddy Ho looked up and around at the assembled company. The look on his face was familiar. He often wore it when making the transition from his screens to the real world. The kind you might see on a zoo animal, when its attention switched from its swing set, its plants, its own feet, and took in the staring humans.

"Your people were unlucky, but if they weren't unlucky to start with, they wouldn't have been your people. So let's write this off as a no-score draw, shall we?" She gave a faint smile. "I run a shop for serious people. You're in charge of a bunch of clowns. So you hurry back to Slough House and pull the blinds down and do your mourning,, but don't worry about winding your clocks any more."

"I mean, if she's decided to move on, who can blame her? She's been here longer than any of us."
"Except me," said Roddy.
"I wasn't counting you."
"Why not?"
"Because you don't count."

Ash was coming back up the stairs, preceded by the smell of warm food. Placing a tinfoil container in from of Lamb, she said, "I went for the steamed cauliflower option. Because I'm vegetarian."
"Yeah, Me too."
"... Really?"
"Well no. But I never eat anything cleverer than myself. So we've got the same boundaries." He peeled back the lid and peered at the contents.

Lamb, on the other hand, was still among the quick, and when she arrived at his door was bowed over his desk like a Francis Bacon study in onanism. It took a second for her to realize he was engaged in the act of darning his socks while still wearing them, except for "darning" read "applying duct tape."
"Adds years," he said, "You wouldn't believe the savings."
"I've often wondered how you fund your wardrobe."

Slough House, coming on midnight, and flickering screens were strobing Roddy Ho's form and throwing shapes-he looked like a disco king, if only there were an audience to admire him. But the way of the data warrior is a lonely one, and his keyboard his only companion. Still, it was a comfort to know there were others like him, out in the darkened city-men on their own, hunched over laptops, putting the world to rights

Truth was, he'd been meaning to get a tat for ages. It was today's art form, and with a gallery like Roddy, it'd be criminal to leave the walls bare. Besides it was a means of communication, and Roddy was all about the comms. Give a dude a tat, it saved you having to get to know him. One look gave you the lowdown, which in the Rodster's case came to three little words again: simple, classical, beautiful.

In a healthy democracy it is probably not desirable that the intelligence services be wholly efficient, or wholly admired. - John le Carré, A Private Spy, The Letters of John le Carré , edited by Tim Cornwell.

[used as the epigraph for Clown Town]