In Stephen Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (2015) the character of Rudolf Abel – birth name William Fisher – played by Mark Rylance with a Scottish accent, might have been more accurately depicted with a Geordie lilt. Fisher was in fact born in Benwell, Newcastle in 1903 and later served in a traditional north eastern industry – not in the mines (which would have made the pun in the title more fitting), but in Wallsend, at the Swan Hunter shipyard, as an apprentice draughtsman. In fact, Fisher’s true accent is shrouded in mystery, and none of his New York contemporaries reported that he had a Geordie accent – but it is not clear if any would have recognised it even if he had. Accent or no accent, how did a Geordie lad end up being exchanged for the US spy plane operative, Gary Powers, shot down in May 1960? Why was…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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