There’s an interesting short piece in this week’s Polityka, which I have started reading again on account of how they seem to know what the government/state prosecution office is going to do – and to whom – a week or two in advance of events. Because of a shortage of recruits to the intelligence services, the standards have been lowered. They will now accept short people, for instance, and some asthmatics, fat people, people with tattoos etc. The question that comes to mind is: was it ever a good idea to exclude short people, fat people etc. from the business of spying? Isn’t the point of a spy that he (she) looks and sounds like an average Joe? How many elaborate stings, heists, hustles, entrapments and operations have been foiled in the past because someone got suspicious of the constant encounters with splendid specimens of manhood, untroubled by flat feet, epilepsy, missing fingers, kidney stones and all the ailments that flesh is heir to?