In an earlier persona, Johnson once wrote of a certain large-wigged Law Lord that he plainly thought the press too big for its boots and unfit to black his.

ECONOMIST: Johnson

By the same token, a Mossad source says that cloak-and-dagger operations still have their uses, even though ultra-modern electronic and biometric skills, used with surprising efficiency (in Israeli eyes) by Dubai's police, make such operations, involving wigged disguises and old-style skulduggery, harder to pull off.

ECONOMIST: Israel's controversial intelligence service: Does Mossad really make Israel safer? | The