Secrets of MI6 with Penguin author Ed Glinert

New Manchester Walks is led by Ed Glinert, Manchester's most energetic and entertaining tour guide, author of Penguin Books'Manchester Compendiumand  the forthcoming epic history,Manchester: The Biography.

New Manchester Walks

MI6: they're the ones who jet overseas with exploding fountain pens and golden guns. Our man in the Fedora and cravat explains all.

James Bond isn’t available to take this tour into the secret world of MI6, so you’ll just have to make do with our man in the Foreign Office with the poisoned fountain pen and bugged bow-tie.It’s a nasty world out there. Spies, spooks, saboteurs, stooges and stool pigeons. But here in MI6, the government’s intelligence wing devoted to Britain’s interest overseas, we’re on the look-out for terrorist plots, attempted assassinations of politicians and royals, and enemy agents who speak like Hood in Thunderbirds. You’ve seen Spooks? Pah, pussies! To devise this tour our guides had to break into Vauxhall Cross, home of MI6, when no one was looking, photocopy all the tasty documents, make our exit without being noticed, take said intel to a secret location to learn it, remember it, eat it and then burn it. We can however tell you what they don’t want you to know about:• How a maths whizz single-handedly won the War despite MI6’s best efforts. • Colonel Dansey’s “Z” network of spies.• How a Bulgarian dissident was eliminated by a poisoned umbrella in the middle of London.• The MI6 chief who cut off his own leg to rescue his son after a car crash.• The vital supplies you’ll need if you find yourself held a prisoner-of-war.Heed the advice of James Bond. If you are going to order a dry martini, shaken not stirred, make sure you add a Scotch Egg or you won’t get served.So join the man from MI7 (one up from MI6), briefed by legendary tour guide and Penguin author Ed Glinert, to discover what the security services wished they knew.