The Casual Observer

Sidney Reilly – The Greatest Spy in the annuals of Espionage

By Dean McCleland in History, Opinion Pieces 16 October 2014 4 Comments

Sidney Reilly has had few if any peers in the annuals of espionage. Born Georgi Rosenblum, a Jew, in Odessa in 1873, Sidney was an adventurer par excellence. His story is a testament to his laudable courage and overweening chutzpah. Like most spies, they are the only source of their often vaulting claims as the facts are mostly unsubstantiatable from other sources.

In spite of his Russian heritage, Sidney Reilly was imbued with a sense of duty to the British. Be that as it may but Sidney was an incorrigible rogue with perhaps a misguided sense of duty. Unlike the outdated British Secret Service, still wedded to a bygone era of chivalry and fair-play, Sidney obtained the results that they required through a ruthless uncompromising streak even if it meant breaking a number of female hearts or even killing in the process. Dubbed the Ace of Spies, Reilly’s sobriquet was apt.

What a really bad day looks like

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 15 October 2014 1 Comment

None of these photographs requires a title.

Satellite Pictures for a different Perspective of Earth

By Dean McCleland in Landscapes 14 October 2014 0 Comment

Astronauts regularly proclaim that the view of the earth from space endeared them with a different almost sublimely mystical perspective of earth. From a great height, both the fragility and interconnectedness of the world is exposed. Cynically or even prosaically this may be termed a kumbaya experience, but I concur with those space travellers in being overwhelmed by man’s insignificance in a cosmic scale.

Egyptian Modernity in the 1950s and 1960s

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Historical 11 October 2014 0 Comment

Egypt is paradigmatic of what has gone wrong over the past half century in Muslim countries. From creeping secularisation across the Arab world led by none other than Gamel Abdul Nasser of Egypt, the bête noir of the West, the modernisation of many of these countries continued apace including such countries as Afghanistan.

What happened since that momentous epoch?

During the 1950s and 1960s even that icon of secularisation and modernity, the bikini, made its appearance in these countries. It is not that these countries were becoming less religious, it was merely the acceptance that there would be a separation between temporal and religious affairs. Was this not the journey that Western Europe embarked upon after the Enlightenment?

Main picture: Sunbathers near the Port of Alexandria, 1955

The Spy who confused Fantasy and Real Life

By Dean McCleland in History, Opinion Pieces 10 October 2014 0 Comment

The most successful spies are those who live the role that is assigned to them: the fewer the lies, the less the chance of a mishap. In the case of Lotz, a Mossad spy in Cairo, he took the role too much to heart

The game of spy craft is not James Bondesque with glitz and glamour. Champagne breakfasts, socialising and the luxurious idyll do not normally form part of the Job Description. Rather one operates in the shadows being unrecognisable and unremembered little grey men.

Main picture: Wolfgang Lotz and Waltraud

Why I Love South Africa

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 8 October 2014 0 Comment

Do you experience the same conflicted emotions about South Africa on a daily basis that I do? I am continually enraged and enchanted in equal measure by South Africa every day. Today’s outburst by Gwede Mantashe at the Mining Indaba in Joburg about the ownership of the mines in South Africa made me realise why there is a “moratorium” on investment in new mines. Later as I walked across the carpark to the Spar at Retail Crossing, my spirits were buoyed when the Highveld sun streamed down onto my face, exhilarating me.

These photographs will show you why I love South Africa

Hermann Goering: “At Least I had 12 Decent Years”

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 7 October 2014 4 Comments

That is how Hermann Goering, the Reichsmarshal and Nazi Party number two, classified the years from 1933 when the Nazis ascended power to its demise in May 1945. This is an understatement. They could rather be referred to as his halcyon days.

Hermann Goering, the morphine addict, who required 5 shots per day to remain functional, was the archetypal playboy or “The Renaissance Man”as he liked to refer to himself. Even when the Third Reich faced a catastrophic situation such as at Stalingrad, his focus was elsewhere: buttressing his image as the Reich’s foremost jaegermeister [Hunting Master], topping-up his art and diamond collection or having more medals and awards bestowed upon himself.

Intriguing Photographs of the Past

By Dean McCleland in Historical 6 October 2014 0 Comment

My predilection in learning is experiental and by viewing pictures of things. As the well-known maxim states, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Why is this so? Partially by providing context and the emotions but not the stark facts of date & time. For without pictures, history is a uni-dimensional subject. Combined with prose, the pictures provide the full unembellished story.

Stalin’s Duplicity and Perfidy during WW2

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 5 October 2014 0 Comment

Stalin played a very cynical and cunning game during WW2. Having deliberately killed millions of kulaks in Russia what more could the West expect when dealing with this brute of a man, a murderer of more people – his own Russians – than the Germans in total.

The full extent of Stalin’s duplicity and perfidy during WW2 was purposely understated or even whitewashed during WW2 by the British and the Americans. The reason for attaching little importance to these heinous crimes, for that is what they were, was the need to defeat the Nazis.

2014 was the Coldest Winter on Record in parts of SA

By Dean McCleland in Miscellaneous Topics 3 October 2014 0 Comment

Per the South African Weather Service the winter of 2014 was the coldest on record for many parts of South Africa. From experience, the odd winter got snow on the Drakensberg as well as other isolated spots around the country too but NEVER before has the whole country engulfed in ice and snow at the same time!

The flip side is that this icy cold weather brings with it some beauty to behold in its wake. These photographs highlight that beauty.