🕵️ This Financial Times piece (gift link) about a cab driver who started the first spy store and espionage empire is borderline unbelievable. This man’s life was an actual movie:
Inspired by 007, Jamil invented an “olive-in-a-martini transmitter” that eavesdropped on cocktail conversations (the antenna was the toothpick). Like Bond’s “Q”, he hid cameras in cigarette packets and microphones in sugar cubes… an electronic hanky that turned a woman’s voice into a man’s, a wristwatch that squirted tear gas, and bulletproof underwear.
The ’60s were just a different time, I guess? Please do read.