Page 7

    I thought to use a different number for this page, well I find 6 is an overrated number, one can tire of it given enough time. And don’t you find it’s all about 6, ‘the Prisoner’ I mean, all that fuss simply because he’s chucked up a job. If he will answer one simple question....why did he resign? Perhaps it would have been much better had Number 6 told them from the start, but no, he would not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered his life was his own! Laughable isn’t it? No-one’s life is their own, we all belong to someone, share our lives with other people. And let us not forget Number 6 was engaged to be married, oh I know that’s not made clear until ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ and is something of a contrivance, but nevertheless an engagement is an engagement, and I bet old Sir Charles Portland couldn’t believe his luck when ZM73 asked him for his daughter’s hand in marriage, it’s no wonder he dropped his secateurs! And ZM73 he’s a rather conventional fellow, to go and ask Sir Charles for his daughter’s hand, after all those were the 1960’s when everyone seemed to be dropping out, hanging out, and enjoying free love. Women were liberated, they went about burning their bras, or so it appeared, although I imagine less of all that sort of thing actually went on outside London. And I couldn’t imagine Janet Portland having burned her bra, she far too conventional! Anyway it’s not about her, it’s all about that Number 6, everything in The Village seems to revolve around him, and when it doesn’t, there he is poking his nose in where it has no business. I bet no-one else had been given the opportunity to stand for election like Number 6 had, mind you they’ve not had a man of his calibre before, and there you go you see, no-one of Number 6’s calibre he’s just the kind of candidate they needed. And Number 6 fell for it, hook, line, and sinker, such was the overweening feeling of his self-importance! And we don’t even know his name. Peter Smith, it’s not a very imaginative name for an ex-Secret Agent. But then Secret Agents, spies, and counter Agents are supposed to be, look, and behave just like anyone else, trained not to break their cover. So Peter Smith is as good a name as any I suppose. I wonder if Peter was his real name? After all secret agents do use their real first name, it’s the one they’re most used to and more importantly it’s a name they respond to, so to use it saves any embarrassing situations. If using a false first name an agent might forget himself for a moment and respond to his real name by accident instead of his false name. Peter Smith, John Drake, Duval, Schmitt, ZM73, what’s in a name real or otherwise, it’s all about Number 6 everything revolves around him, and that goes for ‘Checkmate.’ He just had to take charge didn’t he, there’s something about Number 6 that’s really irritating, but that time he was hoisted by his own petard.....I had to smile!

Be seeing you