QUOTE : During the Second World War there was an interrogator for Army Counter-Intelligence by the name of Lieutenant Colonel Oreste Pinto. It was his task to break the cover of enemy spies, and he’s one of my weirder heroes. In 1942 Pinto had a man at the other side of his desk who instinct told him had to be an enemy agent. Before arriving at the Colonel’s office (just off The Strand in central London), this suspect had been through many searing investigations and survived them all. Notwithstanding that, the authorities continued to harbour suspicions; but nobody could break him. So what did Pinto think? Pinto interrogated his man over a period of days. The suspect had an impeccable Oxford accent, excellent socio-geographic knowledge, backed up by documentation that was as good as it gets. Down to the last little parochial nuance, he had an answer for everything, and seemed totally and utterly kosher. Even so, Pinto was convinced he was dealing with an exceptionally talented spy whose true provenance was Berlin. But he couldn’t crack him, so he invited him out to lunch. Ten minutes later they were walking up The Strand, about to cross it to go to the chosen restaurant when, as they stepped off the kerb, Pinto screamed, ‘Look out!’ – and he got his German because the bastard looked the wrong way. ‘We drive on the left in England, old boy.