I write this week from deep within the bowels of my Fortress of Power, a cavernous Xanadu of evil located directly below Super Netto in Plavnieki – the last place my Nemesis will possibly think of looking.
While my army of jumpsuited technicians makes the final yet somehow interminable adjustments to the Doomsday Device I will soon unleash in your midst, I have a few moments to reflect upon the last couple of weeks when my master plan for world domination was very nearly ruined by super-agent MFF, friend of Queen Elizabeth and licensed to Photoshop.
It was he, the meddlesome pain, who exposed my true identity via his own website, revealing that in fact I am Modest Kolerov, Soviet super-spy and former boss of the Regnum news agency. He brilliantly noticed that we are both bald with beards and if that wasn't proof enough, also noticed that our names sound quite similar if you slur a bit while you say them. Not that I'm saying he was plastered on Dry Martinis when the idea occurred to him.
Note to SMERSH: next time we choose a fake identity, shave off beard and choose quite different name.
Naturally, being a 'Double F' agent in every sense of the phrase, he didn't need to provide any actual evidence that I am Kolerov and was unconvinced by the fake Modest Kolerov I grew from genetic tissue and which has been running around for the last eight years in Russia while I hatched my evil plots here in Latvia under cover of being a 'journalist'.
Yes, these last eight years have been hard, posing as a hack, writing lots of generally supportive things about Latvia and working diligently to transform my fluent Russian language skills into merely an ability to ask for adzika with my pelmeni.
Most bothersome of all has been having to work to internationally accepted norms of journalistic research, providing evidence, facts and the like to back up stories I have written. I am almost glad he nearly blew my cover as it would have meant I could revert to writing any old nonsense I wanted, preferably the more fantastical and far-fetched the better. That seems to be the way to get people on your side round here.
I thought this thorn in my side might try to ascertain the truth of his accusation by calling Kolerov (or perhaps his wife) on the telephone while I was in Latvia but – curses! - they were not so easily thrown off the scent.
Even more worryingly, the revelation of my true identity started to circulate via social media, a development that threatened my entire plan to enslave humanity and one day colonise the Moon with bald, bearded copies of myself. Some Latvian MPs such as Karlis Serzants retweeted MFF's rock-solid evidence, much to my chagrin.
Hitherto, Serzants had given me the impression that he would be out of his depth in a finger bowl but clearly I had underestimated him. Now I suspect he is really Jason Bourne and his own previous pose as a 'journalist' on Latvian TV, reading out news reports about muggings in Ziepniekalns and fires in Ilguciems while his head wobbled like a potato on a knitting needle was in fact a brilliant CIA-inspired anticipation of my own charade.
I have a very special fate prepared for him involving an egg timer, a stick of celery and a pool of crocodiles.
Credit must also go to the Latvian Foreign Ministry who cleverly ignored my warning that their associate was a liar, a genocidal maniac and a plagiarist. They have staunchly defended him as a true and worthy voice of freedom. I thought setting up all those websites in his name and filling them with the most hateful drivel, obtaining testimony from photographers saying their work had been stolen and furnishing them with other so-called “facts” might make them consider whether the causes of freedom, tolerance and journalistic integrity were best served by allying themselves with this too-good-to-be-true savior of the western world.
I almost admire their loyalty towards him. But it won't stop me scooping up the entire Foreign Ministry building in the beak of a Godzilla-like mutant pelican I have secreted in the reeds of Randu meadows near Salacgriva and then depositing it in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Open your journalistic center of excellence there, Mr Rinkevics, I'm sure the penguins will find it most interesting!
So nothing remains now but to execute Plan Omega. In the manner of all good villains I will tell you all about it as I am super-confident there is nothing you can do to stop it, except by cutting the blue wire (not the red one), though you would never think of that.
As you may have noticed, the griki (buckwheat) harvest has been pretty poor during the last few years. Or has it? No. I have been stockpiling billions of tonnes of the infernal Latvian grain in my Fortress of Power. That's why you can never seem to find it in Super Netto.
When the first snows of winter come – oh this is so poetic – my planes will circle overhead shoveling out vast quantities of griki over the entire surface of Latvia. Absorbing the moisture, the griki will swell and get heavy, eventually causing Latvia to crash through the earth's crust into the smouldering magma of the subterranean core. There will be nothing left behind but a vast, slightly nutty porridge.
Look out for me in the new Bond film. I'm in the background stroking a cat.
