The Spy in the Bag
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
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Check out Foreo at foreo.se/ndzw and get 30% off UFO 3. For the first 50 people, get a 10% additional discount using the code DECODING10. Thank you FOREO for the sponsorship!
I haven’t watched the video yet but great job! Or do better I don’t know I haven’t watched the video. But based on track record good job! 👍🏻
Can we get a decoding the unknown on how it was possible for FOREO to have misinformed Simon so hard as to think they're a real product lol That's some woo-woo science for sure lol Might as well rub some ground up crocodile essence in your skin while you're at it.
@@jeffdroogCrocodile fat might actually be better for skin hydration.
@--enyo-- I haven't personally tried either,but,according to the "foreo science" I've looked into,you would achieve the same effect,or better,by just gently rubbing your face with your fingertips,in a circular motion,any chance you have throughout the day.Not sure why I'd pay for this,when I in fact,have fingertips lol
Yeah, it’s a pretty surprising sponsor. Usually Simon says he doesn’t do stuff that’s scammy or not real. They must be paying a lot. And I mean if it keeps the Whistlerverse videos coming I can watch Simon talk about a face vibrator for a few minutes.
I forgot I had even written it until Simon got to the line, but his reaction to "cracking codes and sucking chodes" made this all worthwhile.
I am waiting for that episode on one of these channels where one of Simon's writers writes the true story of the horror of writing a script for Simon.
no way its you
Thanks Kevin for this one. Definitely a new favourite of mine. I've listened to it many times over since it was uploaded. I also laughed at your trademark crass (but hilarious) line there. Haha. Would love similar to this. Maybe even a piece on Alexander Litvinenko. Anyway, keep at it. Your scripts are consistently great :)
Heyyy, you single? 😅
bro i had to pause to laugh lmao nice work
Ah! Clearances! I remember getting one for a particular area of a US Navy base. I am Canadian. The US sent two nice gentlemen in suits to chat with my neighbours. The Canadian government sent two nice men dressed in suits to accompany them. But men in suits are not allowed to investigate Canadians in Canada, so just to make sure that my rights were not violated they added a pair of uniformed RCMP and the Americans sent up two guys wearing FBI windbreakers. The politicians got involved, but they breed by spontaneous fission so only a single each Foreign Affairs/State department. So, in true Monty Python fashion this strange 20 legged creature travelled between houses asking questions about me without giving out any information as to why. This had several effects: 1) I received my clearance, 2) when I cross the US border and they scan my passport the agent does a spit take and stops asking questions, 3) Many of my neighbours have never spoken to me again and their kids bypassed my house at Halloween.
I wonder what the screen says when they scan your passport.
Sounds like a win-win-win situation!
Lmao, wtf did I read shit is hilarious “in true Monty Python fashion”🤣
I'm imagining them asking the same questions repeatedly until they get to *that* neighbour who gives them each a different answer.
@thomaswillard6267 it would be pure fun if each asked the same question . I would definitely be giving completely different answers to each .
Who ever was in charge of the investigation by the police probably got a visit in the middle of the night saying " this is your new report, I don't care if it sounds ridiculous "
I'm thinking more along the lines that they were given no help from the agencies whatsoever and decided to play hardball. Agencies typically don't give anything but will happily take or request whatever they can. So it may have boiled down to, "You want us to investigate this but don't want to help in any way? Fine. He locked himself in the bag, turned up the heat, and double-locked the door. Case closed. Don't like our conclusion? Figure it out for yourselves then."
Round of applause for this week's editor, the "not that there's anything wrong with that " running joke, 💋👩🍳 perfect!
❤❤❤
One dark note: the fact that he didn't move doesn't mean he was unconscious. There are drugs that cause paralysis while being fully conscious, one of which, succinylcholine, is famously hard to detect in corpses that aren't extremely fresh, which has been used in murders and even at least one Mossad assassination, so it's not like I'm pioneering the idea. It also causes the muscles to relax, which would make him easier to put in the bag. It also very commonly causes body core temperature to spike, which can be fatal, and would be worsened by the hot room. Paralysis doesn't usually last more than a few minutes, but it also makes the heart rate plummet and breathing to slow or stop, so unless the person is already in the process of being hooked up to a ventilator (which is what it's usually used for in a medical setting: placing ventilators), they're going to die very quickly.
Also I'm autistic and have actually done some amateur escapology, and it's really not recommended for anyone to practice it alone. It's an incredibly stupid thing to do. The most famous magicians might have done it in the past for the sake of secrecy (though usually not. I know Houdini's wife or siblings usually helped him), but it's very, very dangerous. Like, like Garreth, I avoid interacting with other people lol, and I doesn't try anything as dangerous as picking myself on a bag (I mostly did stuff involving just the arms), I at least had someone in the next room that could hear me yelling if I dropped the key and couldn't reach it (or if I left the key out of reach for stuff that didn't involve keys)
Packing yourself in a bag in a bathtub also seems like the worst idea of all time, because you couldn't even roll around to try to get into a position to work your way free.
@@ladygrndr9424 That is part of the point of it I would think. I don't think anyone considering such things could fail to factor in how the bathtub affects ones chance of getting out of the situation. Particularly since the dude himself was a brainiac, I find it incredibly difficult to allow anything accidental into an event chain that explains what happened. For someone else in some particular sets of circumstances maybe but not him and where/when. Not sure if this makes sense...
Probably murder used a muscle relaxant.
Now that you mention that drug and the ventilators, it has come up in (at least) one episode of the Casual Criminalist. A nurse used it to kill his wife and he was so certain that he had come up with a perfect murder that he hinted at the murder to his coworkes and didn't bother getting rid of evidence.
Simon made a video about it. So naturally, he wouldn't remember.
I immediately thought of succinylcholine. I want to say a guy used it to paralyze his wife and then make it look like she hit her head falling off a horse.
As for murder theory 2 - the one about it possibly being MI6. You mention about the suspiciousness of his absence from work being ignored. But although you call out how odd it was at the start of the episode, this does not come again in this section - they phoned 999 to get someone to check on him. That for me is the most suspicious part. They didn't check on him themselves, they didn't get a team to check on him, they phoned 999 and got the ordinary police to check on him. If this was a drama, that's exactly what someone who already knew he was dead would do. And can we just mention that the idea that he had some sort of perversions, or that he was gay is ludicrous - as if the extremely extensive background checks he would have gone through wouldn't know every intimate detail of his life before he was offered a job to work there. As an autistic person, I can guarantee no matter how busy the office he worked in was, his absence would absolutely have been noticed - because the thing is when you have the ability to rapidly do some task that takes other people a lot longer, AND you have limited social skills - people will absolutely come to you all the time, for assistance to do their menial task for them. Gareth had not been at work for a week, and had not phoned up to explain why he was not at work - Gareth would absolutely require routine in his life to function properly, and MI6 would absolutely have been aware of that. MI6 definitely knew something well before the phone call asking if he was ok.
My thoughts exactly. Also the fact that he wanted to go back to his old job and get out of this one so badly to me indicates that he found out something that made him very uncomfortable and that's why he wanted to leave. Autistics typically have a very distinct sense of right and wrong but don't get confrontational about it preferring to just leave the situation. He found out something and was killed for it.
I allegedly think so too.
I fully believe he got the "loose end" treatment.
I don’t know if I believe MI6 is directly responsible, but I do believe they were fully aware of his death way before anyone else was.
I think leaving him to be found by “normal” means of discovery was deemed the safest route to take, either to avoid a controversy and maintain PR or to avoid compromising something more confidential. When that didn’t happen in a timely manner due to his lifestyle they called 999.
This whole case reeks of a coverup, but I don’t know if I can attribute his death itself to MI6. I think the controversy about his sexuality and recreational activities were seeded intentionally to draw the eye away from what he may have been getting up to that warranted an assassination.
@hollywilletts546 it just occurred to me, MI6 may not have killed him, but they may have cleaned the scene. They would have had a key to one of their safe houses. They would have checked on him within a day or two of him not coming to work, and since it was a short walk, they may not have bothered calling. They knock on his door, no one answers, they let themselves in, find him dead, find evidence of something or someone they don't want getting out, and decide to clean the place. Then they sit back and wait for someone, anyone to discover him. After a week, his sister calls, and they finally can set the next part of their plan in motion, and call 999.
My father was an intelligence agent who worked in espionage and when I asked about it he said, "I worked behind a desk. It's not like that James Bond bull****" lol
thats what a spy would say
That's why I liked the movie "Three Days of the Condor". He worked in intelligence but his job was just to read things. Lots of people in intelligence work at a desk.
Simon he's able to spend 50k on clothing because he didn't buy a fancy racecar unlike his co-workers
Plus, it's however many years worth of salary from working at the place before MI6 too. He possibly didn't even own a car at all, since he lived a 5 minute walk from work.
Plus, he didn't date or have a family to support.
Absolutely loving the amount of spy mystery content lately on the simonverse channels
Same! The Jennifer Fairgate at the Ozlo Plaza was great also!
The Simon verse is sucha g thing to say
"Simonverse". I love that XD
The police didnt really believe it was an accident. They were 100% being told by MI6 what to say
He was most likely murdered by one of his MI6 agent colleagues who he had evidence was a double agent and MI6 covered it up, possibly to not let on.
Not 100%
Watch the Stephen Port serial killer documentary, that was 4-5 years later and you know the metropolitan police "qulity" of investigation.
Please note that this commenter doesn't really believe that MI6 were telling the police what to say.
The CIA are 100% telling the commenter to post this
@@wingerdingI’d assume they don’t have a choice, so 100% is probably accurate
Simon should do a video on what incognito mode actually does. It's gonna be amazing to watch him find that out.
What does it do?
@@--enyo-- not a lot, mostly just doesnt save your history locally and doesnt have you automatically logged in to sites that you have logged in on your usual browser.
@@--enyo-- just to expand on what Michael said, what Incognito mode DOESN'T do is stop your ISP or logging software from tracking your web activity. In the UK ISPs are actually legally required to do exactly that, and keep those records for a minimum of 3 years. At any point the police can just ask for them and they get turned over.
@@--enyo-- Incognito is just for when you don't want a friend or family member to log into your computer's browser & see what you've been looking up.
They had this brilliant kid skip multiple grades so that he could be a wage slave sooner, only to become stuck in a junior position because he lacked the required social skills for career advancement - likely in part as a result of having skipped all those grades. Please let kids be kids even if they’re geniuses.
Yeah, but he also didn't have friends in elementary school. He was just always going to be awkward.
Very smart children are frequently socially awkward whether they are around people their age or not. You're either around people that you can't talk to because they can't understand what you're saying, or you're around older people that can understand what you're saying but are more mature so social bonding doesn't happen. It kind of sucks either way.
There's pros and cons to both sides, I think. My older brother wasn't a genius by this guy's standards but he was identified as being ahead of the curve when he was in primary school and the teachers wanted to bump him up three grades. But Mom wanted him to be with children his own age and decided to keep him in his age-grade. This worked out for him in that he was popular at school and was able to excel in sports with his school peers. The downside was that he had zero engagement in his school work because he was bored and understimulated literally all day, every day. This was fine through most of public school until the couple years of highschool when it became a became a huge issue because they finally pushed into stuff he needed to actually apply himself to and he had none of the skills needed for it. He didn't know how to take notes, didn't know how to study, he didn't know how to buckle down and apply himself: he'd never had to do any of it ever before. He ended up dropping out of high school and never got his high school diploma until he was well into his late-20's, which caused all sorts of other issues I won't get into here. My mom has explicitly stated that she regrets not pushing him to take that grade jump because he might've been able to succeed academically and been able to keep his life way more on track if he'd stayed challenged from the beginning.
@@TheKgr320 I sympathise with him. I wasn't at genius levels either, but definitely could have benefitted from being bumped up a grade or two. It never happened and forcing an autistic person to try to socialise with their agemates obviously can't actually fix anything because, hello, autism. All I got from the whole experience was severe mental illnesses including but not limited to PTSD, and as an adult I now live on a disability pension because being held back to try to magically cure my social difficulties left me with no useful life skills and a truckload of trauma from the ways I got treated by everyone. If they'd just played to my strengths I could have skipped some grades and thrived, finding a niche as a weirdly smart kid who graduated early - no one minds when someone like that can't hold a normal conversation! You'll get bullied occasionally, but since that will happen either way it is not a valid reason. When you are forced to graduate with your own agemates they see you unable to hold a normal conversation and assume you must be dumb in every sense instead of just socially, and they punish you accordingly.
I don't know,it sure sounded like he had a fun life.I haven't had the chance to even see a single drag queen show,and this guy had tickets for MULTIPLE drag queen shows.Thats top tier in my books!
16:58 reminds me of the time back in the early 00's where I was volunteering at my church/school one summer for their bible school and they told me that I couldn't volunteer for them anymore because they had implemented fingerprinting and background checks for anyone working with kids over the age of 18 and I was 18 and needed that done, at my own expense, to resume volunteering. It was too expensive for me obviously. This was how the church responded to a national scandal involving Priests abusing children. I refused as I told them "I went to school here, you literally ALREADY have my entire background in the school office..." I ended up leaving the church because of a bunch of BS my now much older self could see through.
Simon's difficulty with Slavic surnames, despite having lived in Czechia for years now, never ceased to amuse.
Me, an American, quietly saying "It's Panto, Simon! It's pantomime."
I'm an Aussie and I found myself yelling it like it was a panto😄
It's quite rare for an American to say something quietly.
@@jamescordingley8123 IMO not rare at all, just drowned out by the noisy A-hats.
How many Danny Devitos long was the bag?
😂😂😂
😅
I was enjoying how Katie has used this measure so much Simon now just sort of accepts it.
That's the real question, here. Katie, can you do the math on that and tell us what it is?
Hundreds
I once went to Harrod's on vacation. I decided to go roaming through the bathroom section and stumbled across an entire gold-plated set of things for the bathroom. Everything from the bathtub to the towel warmer to the toilet brush. All I remember is the toilet brush was £1000. That's what I like to tell people about Harrod's.
I would make a bet that 99.9% of visitors to the store are tourists. I imagine that the only regular customers are Russian oligarchs, oil-rich Arabs and the wives of Middle Eastern dictators. I haven’t seen much on display that someone with both wealth and taste would ever buy!
Hearing how casually those UK police dismissed even the possibility of foul play in two separate and very sus-sounding deaths is like having a defendant argue their six-shot revolver accidentally discharged into the victim... 24 times -- and the judge is like "meh, sounds legit!" 🤣
...or a determination that a right-handed person, shot twice in the left side of their head and no firearm was found at the scene, had "committed suicide".
Oh yeah it's only a UK problem... Because Epstein definitely killed himself...
Yep I’ve got a feeling they were told to back off. Reminds me of a Blackadder quote of how his election opponent “accidentally brutally cut his head off while combing is his hair”!
For someone with no close friends/social life having that kind of spare cash is not surprising. People don't realize how much is spent/wasted on stuff like dinners, drinks, movies, clubs, etc. Also considering how much he travelled he would have had his food and lodging paid for during his long times away on secondments.
definitely. I don't drink or go to clubs so my expenses are pretty low, I prefer spending time with people in a more relaxed setting (walks, talks over coffee, crafting etc). I've spent thousands on crafting supplies but I can because I don't have any other expensive hobbies or habits. He was also unmarried and without children so plenty of spare income compared to someone with dependents.
doesnt seem like it would be a very low paying job to begin with
As an antisocial workaholic this is a serious problem for us. Ya end up sitting around like “okay we did the economic thing pretty decent….what now….” 😂
Also, it doesn’t sound like he spent his money on anything else so he probably had quite the abundance of it: no TV, no music, no movies, no expensive car from the sound of it.
He was also a computer savy math genious, crypto,stocks etc also he was brittish beans on toast was like 30p in 2010
_Choose the 101st poison_
It's nice to start getting tips to pull off my perfect crime on Decoding the Unknown too
Allegedly 😉😊
You forgot some very important rules from the handbook... Don't write down your crime/don't tell anyone about your crimes. Now that you told the internet about it how can it be perfect?
For what its worth, about them background checking his childhood... They pretty likely did. I used to hold a US security clearance, and it took about 2 years for all that paperwork to clear. I put it in when I was 17 years old. I remember my friend coming to me at school one morning and asked "Hey, the hell did you do?! The FBI called my dad yesterday asking about you."
Don't you have to fill something out that's basically like, every time you ever did any drug, including weed?
@@hannahp1108 Something like that yes, or at least it used to be like that more than a decade ago. I don't remember exactly how it was formulated but it was about "coming in contact with" drugs, ie not necessarily ingesting/smoking them in person but being present when they were consumed either by you or someone else there in your party/immediate vicinity while you were aware of it happening. It was formulated such that admitting to it did not constitute admitting to committing a crime in states where consuming drugs is illegal, strictly speaking. I wish I could remember how it was worded because it was a brilliant example of incredibly precise language.
@@noth606It is more about wanting to know if someone could get leverage on you through blackmail than wether or not you dance with Mary Jane. If you are up front about it, it makes it less likely someone could use it to blackmail you since you would be very likely to report the blackmailer since they already know about the incident so you have nothing to lose by reporting it.
I used to do that once a year working at an airport.
@@logansmall5148 That could very well be, there were that sort of documents also when I was in the army and later working for a contractor where we had regular briefings with friendly people from 3 letter agencies. Not related to drugs but other stuff. But I do think those questions are more about whether you'd lie to them than the actual thing they are asking about. There were questions that were about other things that were sort of personal but I don't remember any more detail than that they were embarrassing.
I was really sick this morning. I live alone. I barely managed to text my boss and coworker. You best believe they both continued to check in on me. One even offered to drive me to the hospital. It blows my mind that his boss never bothered to look into his disappearance earlier.
@@applegal3058 what kind of place do you work at? I'd maybe get a 'feel better soon' when I called in, if that.
@@JordyValentine oh well...I work for the Provincial government. It's an administrative office.
I had a 6 month relationship with a woman who I'm 100% certain was a spy. She was a Cambridge graduate fluent in 8 languages, and she was always really vague about what her job actually was. All I know is that it involved her travelling the world, never staying in the same country for more than a week, and her linguistic skills were vital to whatever it was she did. I'd see her whenever she was back in the UK and visited her a few times in the Netherlands, but it ended up becoming impossible to keep the relationship going.
Linguist translator for high profile political people would prob be more likely than spy. But with the same rules about "can't talk about it."
I'm sure it's more a case of her skills lying, your gullibility or a mix of the two
I NEED to know what anime character he was planning to be for Halloween. How can you include a Mob Psycho simile at the beginning and leave us hanging on who this guy is cosplaying??
I recently got a friend into watching casual criminalist. He just messaged me letting me know this was the first decoding the unknown he's watched 😂
Great episode and I'm glad a good peek someone's interest in it
My dad's friend retired with the CIA and all we know is he worked with satellites. To this day he can't talk about work even with his family. They thought he worked for the FBI until he retired.
i love how decoding the unknown and casual Criminalist crossover a lot of times
A Casual Criminalist is really just a Decoding the Unknown where the murder/disappearance/heist was solved, the culprits are known, and the loot was located.
Except Casual Criminalist doesn't mention dragons, I guess.
Simon is literally one of my favorite RUclips personalities ever. Always makes me laugh, even when I've had a bad day. Thanks for cheering me up Whistle Boy.
You’d have thought the police would have had this case in the bag 🤣
0:35 - Mid roll ads
1:50 - Back to the video
5:15 - Chapter 1 - The discovery of the body
12:35 - Chapter 2 - The smartest kid in school
20:45 - Chapter 3 - The investigation & media confusion
47:45 - Chapter 4 - Theory n°1 ; suicide
49:05 - Chapter 5 - Theory n°2 ; gareth got in the bag willingly because reasons
55:00 - Chapter 6 - Theory n°3 ; it was murder
1:04:04 - Wrap up
Shaken martini would mean greater ice dilution... perhaps JB needs the extra hydration, with all the running and fighting! 🎉🍸💥
Or it could be a way to stay sober enough to handle himself, whilst not looking out of place in a bar or whatever.
@@comettamer or it could be a freaking story and a cool thing to say with not one thing mentioning anything you're both claiming....
Another great episode.
Allegedly.
In my opinion.
I absolutly love how the editor put the face of the detective that drew that ridiculous conclusion at @11:27 It's so much deserved lol
Love the channel. Keep it up!
I work in residential building codes in the US. The 2018 International Residential Code we use doesn’t allow exit door locks that need a key to open from the inside. (It could interfere with exiting in a fire.)
Mercifully it's now proscribed in any building with more than one household (apartment blocks, HMOs, houses converted into multiple dwellings) for several years now.
We have deadbolts on the inside that you can't open from the outside at all. UK seems to have just the opposite, ones that don't have a component on the inside.
That would be some brutal post-nut clarity. "welp I'm in a bag, now what?"
Underrated comment right here 😂
simon throughout this video: "where's all this money from??"
me, screaming at my computer: SIMON HE'S A FUCKING SPY HE GETS PAID HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
The intelligence services etc do not pay big bucks like that, it would be stupid and counterproductive for them to pay outsized salaries for a huge number of reasons, first of them being that having tons of money leads to spending tons of money, which will automatically lead to attention not just to the person themselves but their occupation in particular.
Paying what is considered a "comfortable" salary is in their specific interest, because if it is too low, the temptation to sell information or influence becomes very great, potentially pushed for by a spouse or family etc as well. But certainly not plural "hundreds", I very much doubt anyone in intelligence work makes 200k or more. I'd be surprised if anyone makes 100k+ except managers who have worked for 10+yrs. My former occupation has similarities to intelligence work in that sort of aspects. Too much or too little are both bad when you want to retain personnel long term.
I think it’s more that in a lot of jobs like government, military, heck even 100% travel in the private sector. Your boss foots the bill for everything for you so you don’t have to get paid a lot to end up with a lot of money.
@@TQFMTradingStrategies I mean how much money does a single man really need?. He doesnt drive or socialise a lot so its hardly surprising he's got a large amount spare to spend on gifts. If his rent was 30k a year with almost no more expense and he earned only 100k that would still leave a lot in the bank.
@@JungleTunes94 particularly if he spent a lot of time traveling for work assuming they cover spy’s food lol.
I agree, $25,000 isn't that much to spend on a special interest if you're making a good salary. Especially if you rarely socialize or go anywhere, you've got to spend your money on something! Why not a hobby like fashion?
My parents used to work for NSA and I never knew what they did and my husband finds that so strange, but it's just how I grew up and I don't have any curiosity about it. My dad even got deployed one time and I had no idea where he was for like 6 months
I saw somewhere that Bond has his drink shaken, not stirred because that way the water rises to the top of the drink…therefore he looks like he’s drinking alcohol, but he only ever drinks the water off the top! I’ve got no idea exactly how true it is though!
Oh now thats fun, but the alcohol is less dense than the water and thats how distillation works. I dont think thats right, friend.
@@musewinter9369if it’s tonic water, or sparkling water, would that maybe make any difference? Tbh it was a guy (can’t remember who) on a comedy/quiz panel show who said it, so it’s not exactly a reliable source!
Okay so I paused the video and did a little dive on this because I thought the same thing, that it would seperate and leave tonic on top. However, according to the Guardian and Reddit (so trust worthy I know) it does dilute the drink but it also crushes the ice and leaves the drink cloudy, so would be pretty obvious to anyone who knows that drink what you've been up to lol. I think it could just be a clever line to say whenever someone brings it up haha which is very Bond, but there is a very slight smidge of truth to it, even if it is an ineffective tactic to drink and stay sober lol
As I understand it the real reason is that Connery got his line wrong and they kept it in ever since. But I like your theory better. :)
Wrong
Wow. I definitely thought this was going to be about Jamal Kashoggi, but this was an interesting story. Gareth must have been very important at MI6 to have made so much money, and that does explain why he randomly decided to climax, then probably hurt himself, get in a bag, lock it, magically lock his own bathroom door from the outside, and crank up the heat in his home, while definitely alone and definitely not being murdered. Fantastic job, police.
I, an American, was most surprised that a lot of European bathrooms have light switches on the outside of the door. One night My drunk friends kept turning the lights off when I was peeing, it got old fast 😂 grateful for my light switches
It's a safety regulation. Water and electricity love each other, especially if there's a nice easily conductive human there.
@@steveb6386it's called a gfci. They cost a whopping $3... nobody ever said brits were smart.
@@PositiveOnly-dm3rx Maybe they're smart enough to avoid a solution in search a problem that didn't need to be there? Yeah, that'll be it. And as for not being smart: Brits invented nearly everything you use on a regular basis. What does your car have on the outside of the wheels? Stainless steel sink? You used penicilin ever? Had an MRI? Toughened glass? Electric kettle. The electric light bulb (Joseph Swan, working model, before Edison), Telephone, Photography, ..Then there's Kingdom Brunell's engineering. But you get the idea.
I have been WAITING for Simon to cover this one!!!
As far as I've read, nobody actually does the James Bond stuff, the closest it gets is somebody pretending to be a diplomat's assistant handling locals who are actually doing the spying. And Jack Ryan is total BS, the smart guys in offices stay in their offices, they have the diplomats with a side hustle in the field, and if there's shooting it's done by shooty bois with plausible deniability. Like, that guy that died in shady circumstances Over There helping a spy defect totally wasn't one of ours, just a coincidence that an SAS trooper/Green Beret died in a training accident in his home country on the same day, y'know how dangerous working around helicopters is ...
My neighbor growing up was retired FBI and was recruited immediately out of his master's program because he had the apparently rare combination of a masters in accounting and being able to speak/read some uncommon languages fluently. He used to tell the neighborhood kids that he spent the first eight years of his career doing occasionally exciting things, and the last twenty going through shady Paypal transactions and bank statements. He retired, moved to the middle of nowhere West Virginia, and immediately took a position as a Vice President at a local bank out of boredom - a job he said was infinitely more interesting than being in the FBI.
The spy's are actually handlers who hire local people (with things to hide) often using blackmail and get them to do the spying.
Why is nobody else upset that Simon has clearly never known anyone called Sian 😂😂😂 who the fuck is Cyan
I only know this from a former boss. She was always called Cyan not Sean.
As a fellow Sian this upset me too
@@settame1and it would be Shaan
I thought I knew all there is about this case. How wrong I was. Not only was this case a fascinating one, but I learnt things about the channel creators that earnt them a new level of respect. This was easily my favourite episode. As much as I found past episodes to lack imagination and the kind of life experience needed to sort the impossible from the likely, plausible and definitely doable in some circles, this episode demonstrated a deep understanding of psychology, procedures, culture, etc.
Keep up the good work - more like this ❤
This reminds me of Mark Middleton. Everyone knows he hung himself from a tree by an extension cord and then shot himself twice in the chest with a shotgun and then threw the gun 30 feet away.
Just thinking about the inside of that bag gives me the worst anxiety
Keep in mind that he didn't go to bars, have a TV, radio, (they have licenseing fees in the UK dont they?) or have a very active social life.
To me, it sounds like he didn't spend a lot of money on things my friends, and I piss away our disposable income on in a weekend at the bar.
So if he saved up to buy expensive presents for his few friends it doesn't seem too impossible.
John Jenner Weir, who corresponded with Darwin about his work and influenced his final theory was a civil servant.
He had a collection of thousands of specimens collected around the world on trips that he took during his allotted vacation time financed with his own savings. You can do a lot if you're single minded.
I'm a psychotherapist and work a lot with autistic and LGBT clients. Yes, it sounds like Gareth was likely autistic, as far as I can say without ever meeting him. As far as the women's clothes and the drag shows, it could possibly be that he was transgender, which doesn't say anything about his sexual orientation. There's a very large proportion of autistic individuals who are also trans. It could have been harder to come out to trusted loved ones about gender status, as it isn't as accepted to be trans as it is to be gay, even today. And keeping in mind this happened in 2010, it was even less acceptable to be trans, and back then there's even a possibility if he were trans, he might have not fully understood it, as the explosion of information about being transgender hadn't quite happened yet. Rest in peace, Gareth. You sound like you were an incredible person.
The MI6 theory immediately makes me think of the show "Burn Notice" for some reason 😂
That's a good show!~
FYI, re 14:35, cum laude (“with praise”) is a designation of academic achievement at American (and other?) universities. At my Alma mater, cum laude means a grade point average =>3.7 (4pt scale). Magna cum laude (“with great praise”) requires a 3.8 GPA, and summa cum laude (“with highest praise”) requires 3.9 GPA…
we don't do GPA in the UK so that has always confused me a bit, but this has helped me get a bit better of an understanding. In UK universities what constitutes a first (ie the top grade you can get) varies quite a bit, so a first from Oxbridge (Oxford / Cambridge) or St Andrews would mean something different than a first from our version of a local community college. Is it the same in the US or is GPA more uniform? I always thought GPA sounds like a good idea because everything counts towards your grade, so you've got less all or nothing moments (as in single exams making up your grade like we can have here). But then I've heard all sorts of "credits" stories from the states like you being present in class can impact your grade regardless of how you do in tests, which is bonkers to me.
And hilariously, I'm in Australia and we use a GPA system here, but a GPA of 3.9 is absolutely tragic here because our highest GPA is 7.0. If you learned that your surgeon had a GPA of 3.9, you'd run out of the hospital screaming - even if you were there in the first place for a broken spine!
@@fuzzymurdermittens omg the plot thickens, I had no idea Australia had a 7 point GPA system!
@@fuzzymurdermittens then you get the genius aussie that very carefully gets exactly 4.0 before moving to america
I thought "laud" was praise (as in applaud) & "laude" meant honours, specifically...
The bag had a zipper. Grab your nearest bag with a zipper, and the key. Close and lock the bag. Take the key and push into the zipper. It will split open, you can climb in and then just run the zipper backwards. That will reseal the bag with you and the key inside. Still it was a spy thing.
I remember at the time someone figured out how he could do it. But as you say, still way more likely to be a spy thing.
Purely because he didn't try and fight his way out.
Nononono! He definitely brought a knife into the bag with him so he could escape. That’s where the stab wound came from. Just an oopsie-doodle! The knife was made of ice and melted away while he decomposed, obviously! 😂😂😂
I can relate with simon's tangent about skipping ahead in school. I already knew how to read and write before i went to kindergarten. so the school offered my parent's the option of skipping me ahead by one year. and if i still wasn't challenged, they would be willing to skip a second year. my parents decided that keeping me with my friends and socializing with peers my own age was too important. imagine if i had skipped into a grade with students two years older than me, already having established friends.. i would have had a really hard time, been a loner and grow up totally messed up in the head. so school was wayyy too easy for me. in highschool i got mostly A's. I did zero homework, aced most of my tests, and answered correctly when put on the spot by a teacher who thought I wasn't listening. it was a joke. i literally didnt have to try. US public education is slacking.
Simon talks about how MI6 members drive fast, _expensive_ cars in the beginning, then spends the rest of the episode being shocked at Gareth's purchases. 😂
A love of bondage....James Bondage
52:06 Being on the Autism Spectrum myself, it is VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to be bored.
Secondment, in the USA we call that being "farmed out".
DAVID DUTCH OVENY 😂😂
When it comes to skipping grades, I think it is a good idea to determine that on where your child is at. For me, I was eligible to skip 2 grades. I could never relate to my peers though. I had older friends up until high school. In my case, UT would have been beneficial in more than one way. I can see where Simon and my parent was coming from but it was obvious to the rest of my family that I needed to. They told her it would ve better for me. Unfortunately, for my case, it was detrimental to my développement when I was kept on track.
I was testing out if every class around 9, was ready for GED at 11 but my aunt talked my parents out of allowing me to graduate early because she’d gone to college at 14 and it was a terrible experience. My dad was ready around 14 and his parents kept him back with his class. Instead I kept studying whatever I wanted and got 2 years of college for free due to programs the public school system has.
i like drag shows for the personality and the spectacle. the time and effort put into developing a character: the hair, the makeup, the constructing outfits. it’s a whole production. my college roommate was a drag queen and it really gave me an appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into it
Awesome episode and a truly stellar script, Kevin!! 10/10 ❤
What luck!!! Just finished Sideprojects hour long vid and this one shows up. Well done Laser Eyes. Cheers
49:02 This tale reminds me of that episode of Friends where Joey got into the entertainment center to prove to someone he could fit inside, then got locked inside it while that person robbed the apartment.
Is this the same Metropolitan Police who decided to take no further action regarding a Saudi billionaire who was accused of offering a 7-figure donation to the Princes Trust in return for help with his UK visa application?
I think so LOL
According to the Waldorf Astoria bar guide, Bond’s martini is actually known as a vesper. (Based on the recipe in the book the first time he orders one.) As such, the drink is effectively a double. The supposed reasoning for shaking it is specifically to dilute it.
Simon really underestimates how good government jobs pay 😅
backdrop looking exceptionally sharp this vid :)
I feel like anyone being placed in a bag is just horrible. And the fact he was alive when it happened? That's terrifying. That poor man, despite everything that probably happened, didn't deserve it. No one does.
A college friend/brief boyfriend of mine did a summer internship for the NSA, and noted that being gay was a disqualifier ... not for the orientation itself, but for the blackmail potential. So, while the 2010s was more enlightened in such respects than the 90s, it seems like being a "gay transvestite" with "bondage gear" -- and, especially, *not* being out/open about those things -- would have made it hard for Gareth to keep his job. Again, not because GCHQ or MI6 necessarily cares about his sex life, but because having *secrets* like that opens you up to threats from people who want to suborn an intelligence officer.
I was what you would consider a "genius" child, and when they wanted to advance me early,my mom said no, and I'll always be grateful
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - someone clearly needs to teach this to the Met
Simon is puzzled how Gareth was able to afford all the women’s clothing, but just a few sentences earlier, Kevin stated that Gareth had few personal belongings in his apartment, other than his cell phone and laptop. If his friends and family describe him as generous, that would imply that he preferred to spend his money on them, rather than himself. Some men live very simply, and prefer to take care of other people in their lives.
Worked in bars all my life, martini’s if shaken seperate and the alcohol sinks to the bottom. Pretty sure in The Lore™️ he drinks them like that to sip off the top and stay sober with the appearance of drinking a cocktail
I feel like it's also worth mentioning that this case was the direct inspiration for the BBC thriller "London Spy".
Fun fact about bond. When the drink is shaken it doesn't mix all the way so the water rises to the top and the drink looks like an alcoholic one bond remains sober to do his job.
I don't think that anyone actually believes this wasn't murder they've all just been hushed up
People good in mathematics are often good in art. His art may have been fashion.
Same side of the brain...IIRC left-handed people as well (body & brain are opposite sides, lefties stimulate that side more...but they also will naturally die sooner than righties)
I almost enjoy when simon points out strange differences between us and uk more than the story, i never would have guessed you can lock pick lock people into their homes in the uk...
lol "he's a spy and he's never heard of incognito mode?" after google getting in trouble for collecting incognito data
The edit of Simon being a spy 😂😂😂
...allegedly...
I liked the Bond intro where Simon looked genuinely distressed after firing, lol~
Not me thinking my internet is dying because Simon is completely out of focus
Camera focused on the lamp before he sat down 😂
What terrifies me is how often countries are unable to protect people. I don't know if it's carelessness or impossible to do, but it's a nerve-wracking fact.
Bond’s drink tastes watery, so he can taste if someone messes with it.
He fell down a lift shaft.... onto 6 bulliets!!!!!!
God i love that movie
thank you kevin for either granting my request super quickly! or more more likely thinking of it at least 3 months before i did. lmao
Bro .... The revelation Ive had where the authorities are like ... Hey no one else was involved in some of the most OBVIOUSLY DEFINITELY SOMEONE DID IT is mind blowing
This was an excellent episode! X
I remember surprise room inspections in the military. Anyone who knew ahead of time would usually leak it. Ocassionally, we'd all get caught off guard. Those were bad days, since none of us really cleaned up drunk the night before and certainly didn't before shuffling off to PT in the morning. All of this made one guy stand out, because he pretty much had a laptop and almost nothing else, and his room was always spotless. So naturally, we accused him constantly of being a spy. It was a running joke. (He wasn't. Actually a great soldier. But every new recruit earns some sort of label when they get to their first unit.)
My dad was a radio operator in the Marines and got recruited into the CIA. I was only able to learn some details until the end of his life.
Lol Simon, your surprise at spooky stuff is funny. Welcome to the real world of spooks.
The spy who bagged me
I agree that MI6 doing basically nothing and not bothering to talk with a high level dude for a week or more of missing work and meetings is insanely suspicious. If I miss work one day without calling anyone, I'll have two or three people calling me.
Not saying this as meaning they killed him, but they may have been aware of his demise prior to it officially being found.
I miss the magical whimsical sound for the transisions
I love how this turned into an episode of into the shadows at the end. I actually went looking if Simon has done a full video on Russias assassinations
Re: the money.
If he was staying in MI6 housing, he’s probably not paying the rent and that’s a large amount of money saved each month.
Also, if he spread it out over a few months the numbers aren’t crazy.
Well my RUclips ads are now completely messed up. I'm getting adds about meditating so that you make more money, and for ugh...Gaia (streaming service for tinfoil hats). Binging this channel has been an experience. All in all great content as always from Simon and his incredible writers. 10/10 Would rabbit hole again.
I agree with others here that the police know that they’re all murders, but are told to say that they’re not because doing so would make the public extremely nervous.
Maybe they weren’t paid off but we’re told not to push it or look too deep or they’d die 🤷🏻♀️
“Scheduled for a meeting” could be something simple like a standup or department meeting type thing where it’s common for a lot of people to simply not show up even if they’re present. I’ve had a clearance and had meetings like that on my calendar. Missing a couple wouldn’t have set off alarm bells.