You know, it occurs to me that one effect of the Petraeus scandal is to rehabilitate any number of scriptwriters. The next time we feel like complaining that spy x and General Y behave in ways unrealistic for their jobs, or that a twist in a political story was far too soapish, there is always the rejoinder: But what about Petraeus? Here is a handy guide to that real life soap opera, which thankfully also avoids the sexist slant focused on in this article. As a veteran of The X-Files, Alias and other shows, I have been thoroughly indocrinated to the view that when a story has FBI agents as heroes, the CIA agents are the incompetent and/or interfering and or/corrupt villains, whereas when a show has the CIA agents as heroes, the reverse applies, so given this story has the FBI investigating something that leads them to bringing down the director of the CIA, I await the movie and tv versions with baited breath. Well, not really. But were it not for the fact that half the cast of this particular soap gives orders on which lives and deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the world depend, it would be impossible to take seriously. (A shared email account with drafts as a way of communication? I'm imaging Jack Bristow looking profoundly unimpressed, Marshall facepalming and Arvin Sloane commenting that it should be obvious now why he defected and went into the evil overlord business to begin with.)

From real spymasters to fictional ones, infinitely cooler: this review of Skyfall has the following to say about M and her relationship with Bond (which includes a spoiler that's in the trailer and the first five minutes of the film, so I won't spoiler cut):

"Mummy was very bad," says Silva.

"She never lied to me," asserts Bond.

(...) Of course, she tells lies to him all the time. But that's not the point.

From the very beginning, the relationship between M and Bond, that is between this M and this Bond, has been characterised by deception. He has repeatedly shown the ability to penetrate her defences, to her flat, to her computer, to her real meaning behind the words she uses. His talent is either impossible or something in which she has connived. Similarly, she has repeatedly given him orders to do one thing while anticipating that he will do what she really wants instead. She gives him purpose. He gives her deniability. What Bond is saying is that there is a deeper truth to his relationship with M, one they have not, possibly cannot have, acknowledged. M has never misused Bond. Not even when she gives the order – "take the bloody shot!" – that sees him knocked off a train and believed drowned. He's aggrieved that she didn't trust him to do the job on his own, but he also implicitly understands that "licence to kill" means "licence to be in the line of fire".

While this wonderfully M centric review asserts:

Whatever the filmmakers try to make her stand in for – Queen, Country, Mother, Lover, Rosebud – the best part of M and Bond’s relationship is what exists just beyond their mutual snarking. (...) They had shared something notably missing from their interactions with the other characters: a deep abiding respect and trust.

...I don't think we get an exact date for the events of Skyfall, so I declare they happen a bit later than just now, and feel free to imagine Ms face when when hearing the news about the cousins. And poor Felix Leiter telling Bond, the next time they meet, saying wearily: "Don't even start. Or I'll drag up Kim Philby."