The Rock

The cold war is over, but rock in a park suggests the spying game still thrives:

Electronic equipment concealed in a rock, allegedly used by four British embassy workers to receive intelligence information provided by Russian agents, in an image from a television documentary shown on Rossiya television. Photograph: RTR Russian Channel/AP
Four employees of the British Embassy have been fingered on Russian TV:

The state TV documentary broadcast on Sunday showed Christopher Pirt, 30, a secretary archivist in the embassy, walking past the rock, his eyes shifting wildly as he is secretly filmed by FSB [Federal Security Service, as the KGB is known now] counter-intelligence. Mr Crompton [third secretary (political affairs)] was also named as having repeatedly visited the rock, as did Marc Doe, 27, the second secretary (political affairs). Andy Fleming, 32, another secretary archivist, was filmed picking up the rock after kicking it with his foot. The men were dressed in tracksuits and woolly hats and carried rucksacks.

In working my way back to church, I found that even when the hymns, scripture texts, and sermons served to welcome me, the Creed that we recited each week often seemed a barrier, reminding me that I was still struggling with the feeling that I did not belong. Of all the elements in a Christian worship service, the Creed, by compressing the wide range of faith and belief into a few words, can feel like a verbal strait jacket.
--Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, 1998