I can't take the Alexander Litvinenko saga seriously. For some reason it seems entirely anachronistic, when I'm scanning the news online, to read about an ex-Russian spy being poisoned with radioactive material. It's too... 80's... or something.

But I don't know if anyone else feels that way, and it's one of those things that seems like it ought to be mutual. How do I know if something stands out against the zeitgeist if I'm not tapped in? As it stands, everyone I know who's mentioned it has found it odd and amusing, in a general way, but that could just be the novelty of it -- it's not as if spies turn up dead and radioactive every day.

I've got The Guardian's back, and The Guardian's got mine.