A Landing On The Sun is a 1991 novel by Michael Frayn, and was the Sunday Express Book of the Year. It was adapted into a 1994 TV movie with a screenplay written by the author.
A Landing On The Sun is a 1991 novel by Michael Frayn, and was the Sunday Express Book of the Year. It was adapted into a 1994 TV movie with a screenplay written by the author.
Jessel, a British civil servant working in the Cabinet Office, has been asked to investigate the unexplained death of Summerchild, also a civil servant, whose body was found outside the Admiralty some 15 years earlier, in 1974. His investigations reveal that Summerchild was involved in the setting up of a 'Strategy Unit' reporting directly to the Prime Minister Harold Wilson. (The book predates by 10 years the establishment by Tony Blair of his Strategy Unit in 2001.) [1]
Jessel combs through the Strategy Unit's files, and discovers that the Unit was supposed to advise the government on matters relating to "quality of life", and to this end an Oxford philosopher, Serafin, was appointed to lead it. But Wilson's intentions were not accurately conveyed to Serafin, who set out instead to investigate the nature of happiness, using the Socratic method in a series of tutorial-like discussions with Summerchild. Jessel begins to suspect that their discussions have led them in a quite different, more personal direction from what was intended.
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians including recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism, raids, petty warfare or hit-and-run tactics in a rebellion, in a violent conflict, in a war or in a civil war to fight against regular military, police or rival insurgent forces.
The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James which first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly. In October 1898, it was collected in The Two Magics, published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London. The novella follows a governess who, caring for two children at a remote country house, becomes convinced that they are haunted. The Turn of the Screw is considered a work of both Gothic and horror fiction.
The Number 10 Policy Unit is a body of policymakers based in 10 Downing Street, providing policy advice directly to the British Prime Minister. Originally set up to support Harold Wilson in 1974, it has gone through a series of guises to suit the needs of successive prime ministers, staffed variously by political advisers, civil servants and more recently a combination of both.
The Hong Kong Civil Service is managed by 13 policy bureaux in the Government Secretariat, and 67 departments and agencies, mostly staffed by civil servants. The Secretary for the Civil Service (SCS) is one of the Principal Officials appointed under the Accountability System and a Member of the Executive Council. He heads the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) of the Government Secretariat and is responsible to the Chief Executive (CE) for civil service policies as well as the overall management and development of the civil service. His primary role is to ensure that the civil service serves the best interests of the community and delivers various services in a trustworthy, efficient and cost effective manner. The CSB assumes overall policy responsibility for the management of the civil service, including such matters as appointment, pay and conditions of service, staff management, manpower planning, training, and discipline.
Buck Ruxton was an Indian-born physician convicted and subsequently hanged for the September 1935 murders of his common-law wife, Isabella Ruxton, and the family housemaid, Mary Jane Rogerson, at his home in Lancaster, England. These murders are informally known as the Bodies Under the Bridge and the Jigsaw Murders, while Ruxton himself became known as The Savage Surgeon.
The Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany is the federal investigative police agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. It is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Hesse, and maintains major branch offices in Berlin and Meckenheim near Bonn. It has been headed by Holger Münch since December 2014.
David Greenhalgh Jessel is a former British TV and radio news presenter, author, and campaigner against miscarriages of justice. From 2000 to 2010, he was also a commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
The Wuzi is a classic Chinese work on military strategy attributed to Wu Qi. It is considered one of China's Seven Military Classics.
The Six Secret Teachings, is a treatise on civil and military strategy traditionally attributed to Lü Shang, a top general of King Wen of Zhou, founder of the Zhou dynasty, at around the eleventh century BC. Modern historians nominally date its final composition to the Warring States period, but some scholars believe that it preserves at least vestiges of ancient Qi political and military thought. Because it is written from the perspective of a statesman attempting to overthrow the ruling Shang dynasty, it is the only one of the Seven Military Classics explicitly written from a revolutionary perspective.
Jon Graham Burge was an American convicted felon police detective and commander in the Chicago Police Department who was found guilty of having "directly participated in or implicitly approved the torture" of at least 118 people in police custody in order to force false confessions.
Sir James Wilson Robertson, was a British civil servant who served as the last colonial governor-general of Nigeria from 1955 to 1960.
The Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), nicknamed the "Think-Tank", was an independent unit within the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom tasked with developing long term strategy and co-ordinating policy across government departments. It was established by Edward Heath in February 1971 but was later disbanded by Margaret Thatcher following the 1983 general election.
C. T. Wilson is an American politician and attorney who has represented District 28 in the Maryland House of Delegates since 2011.
The Old Court House is a Grade II* listed house located off Hampton Court Green in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames; its origins date back to 1536. The architect Sir Christopher Wren, who lived there from 1708 to 1723, was given a 50-year lease on the property by Queen Anne in lieu of overdue payments for his work on St Paul's Cathedral. The lease passed from Wren's son to his grandson. It was purchased from the Crown Estate in 1984.
Thom Serafin is a public affairs consultant specializing in politics and media. He is the founder and CEO of Serafin & Associates, Inc., a Chicago-based firm specializing in crisis communication. Thom is active at his local parish, St. Francis Xavier in La Grange, and is a volunteer usher for Sunday mass. Crain's Chicago Business has included him in their list of Illinois' 20 most powerful political insiders.
Simon Case is a British civil servant who is the current Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service since 9 September 2020, succeeding Sir Mark Sedwill.
Michael Wernick is a Canadian retired public servant who served as the 23rd clerk of the Privy Council for Canada from 2016 to 2019. Following his tenure as clerk, Wernick joined the University of Ottawa, where he was named Jarislowsky chair of public sector management.
Jonathan Slater is a former high ranking British civil servant. From May 2016, he was Permanent Secretary of the Department for Education until his abrupt dismissal on 26 August 2020 following a controversy over national school examination grades.
Mona Wilson was a British public servant and author. After voluntary social work, seeking to improve the conditions of working women in deprived industrial areas, she joined the civil service in 1911, and became one of the first women in Britain to earn equal pay with her male colleagues. She left the civil service in 1919 and pursued a literary career.
Rudolf Bailović was a Serbo-Croatian interpreter and cryptographer, of Austrian descent, who was head of the Balkan Referat of General der Nachrichtenaufklärung during World War II. Bailović held the civil service rank of civil servant and was promoted to senior civil servant or Oberregierungsrat in 1944. Bailović was considered an anti-Nazi, who held anti-Nazi views, and refused to wear German decorations when in uniform. Bailović was also a Turkish interpreter and spent significant time in evaluation, providing intelligence.
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