Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Real Estate Agent...

This is Anna Chapman. She's a spy... bollocks, I mean, she's an online real-estate magnate with a Master's in economics. Forget the spy thing... oh, alright, she is a spy. A spy for the Russkies.

Along with some middle-aged families and and a South American journalist, Chapman was (supposedly) planted by Moscow to infiltrate the policymaking circles of the US and send intel back to the Kremlin.

This is my favourite new story of the week. Essentially we are now living in a Len Deighton or John le Carre novel, in which the Russians have sneakily assimilated themselves into positions of power within America. If only Alec Guiness' George Smiley were here to see it all.

Unsurprisingly, Chapman has become the pin-up of this furore, presumably because people don't expect real life covert ops to look like that. But surely she should have some implausible moniker like Pussy Galore, Xenia Onatopp or Tits McGee? Well, yes, if this old world of ours was a touch more interesting, instead of a slow and painful march through encroaching bureaucracy to the grave, then she probably could have gone to Deed Poll and called herself Dr. Holly Goodhead. At least this kind of fun story is a step in the right direction.

Mature editorial comments that I've already spotted whilst trawling the web for material, include 'I'd let her spy on me any day' and 'they didn't look like that in the Cold War...'. Good to see that the media are dealing with this with the maturity required to deal with a potential 'diplomatic incident'. But it could all be brouhaha... alright, so Chapman's facing 20 years imprisonment for spying and money-laundering, but apart from that it could all be brouhaha, right?

Well, not necessarily. The Americans seem to be taking things pretty bloody seriously and what might seem like a ripping yarn of femme fatales and deep cover spying to us, constitutes a breach of trust and compromises the integrity of the highest echelons of the American governmental system.

But hey, at least it's keeping things lively.

To finish, a neat little Steve Bell from today's Guardian.