I'm just back for a COMPLETELY NECESSARY trip to a supermarket.
And... something dramatic happened.
So, okay, looks like we're going to have a little bit of a THREAD.
Buckle up for an unbelievable anecdote that gets to the heart of London life in this nightmarish pandemic.
So. Yes. I was walking down the dairy aisle...
For the record: I know lots of northerners, I respect many of them, some are even friends.
Right, so, where was I?
I saw a northerner in the dairy aisle of a supermarket.
I recognised the accent. Manchester, or maybe Newcastle. Possibly even Geordie.
A bit of context.
Since the start of the pandemic the population of London has declined.
Yes, you've read that right. The rats have been leaving the sinking ship.
And it has really hit landlords such as myself.
Do we really want to go back to the bad old days where the city is hollowed out?
Do we really want to return to the 'expecting something for nothing' city of Ken Livingstone's unelectable hard left GLC?
Because that is what you'll get unless drastic action is taken.
I honestly believe the government must send in the army to force the covid-deserters back into the city.
How else was I supposed to react?
I lost control of myself. I glared at him at first, trembling with rage. I kept hissing to myself, "Let him finish the phone call first, Sarah."
"Let him finish the phone call first, Sarah."
"Let him finish the phone call first, Sarah."
THAT'S how polite I am, in case anyone is thinking of claiming what I did next was in some way unexpected or out of order.
I waited.
"How DARE you." He pretended to not hear.
"HOW DARE YOU!" I screamed. He turned round, feigning confusion.
By this point I was already sobbing uncontrollably. I tried to say "Have you seen the reports in the Financial Times?" but...
I gestured round at the sparsely peopled supermarket, usually so busy on a Saturday morning, and said in as composed a manner as I could: "You did this. You and your people."
Again he just - infuriatingly - looked at me blankly.
Now, I'm not sure if you've ever been in this sort of 'public altercation' situation,
So I continued screaming in his face. "YOU RAT", "YOU RODENT", "YOU'RE STEALING FOOD OUT MY MOUTH" etc.
It's an incredible wave of energy that you never realised you had.
Caught him unaware, flat-footed, he fell back, his head smashed a shelf full of of single cream and double cream, their cheap plastic packaging snapping and spilling.
He was panicking. His accent became stronger with each desperate yelp - which only drove me on. I felt like the star of a David Attenborough nature documentary.
For an incredible moment I realised with one flick of my finger I could send his eyeball shooting out across the supermarket aisle.
But at that exact point the adrenalin ran out...
I didn't want to go to prison (I'd miraculously avoided it after the kidnapping).
I picked myself up. A small crowd of gawping onlookers had gathered.
"HAPPY NOW YOU IDIOTS?!?!"
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— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
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In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
