Raymond
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We Are Not AmusedAn electric teapot given to the Queen as a present by Russia has reportedly been removed from Balmoral as a possible security threat.
The suspicious samovar was apparently sitting in a room at Balmoral
The samovar was identified as a potential bugging device following a recent sweep by the security services.
The ornate red and yellow urn was presented to the Queen by a Russian aerobatics team about 20 years ago, at the tail end of the Soviet era.
It reportedly became a favourite of the Queen Mother, who put it in a corner of a room in the Aberdeenshire estate and apparently showed it off to visitors.
Security services apparently suspected that the complicated eastern European wiring could have concealed a listening device.
If true, the teapot could have listened in to the Queen's conversations with prime ministers, world leaders and members of her family.
One retainer told the Daily Express: "The samovar was always a bit of an enigma. No one could work out what the Russians thought we were going to do with it.
"The wiring looked as if it came from a Second World War tank and it was not exactly pretty.
"No one ever considered it a security risk until a recent sweep by these spooks with their electronic devices. They swept everywhere imaginable, public and private rooms, and the first thing to go was the samovar."
During the Cold War, Western countries and their Eastern Bloc enemies went to great lengths to bug each other and to uncover each other's listening devices.
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Bravo
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If they wanted to bug the queen they'd just bring Timmy Mallet into the palace, surely?
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Raymond
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Ahhh, another viewer of IACGMOOH. 
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Bravo
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I can't not watch it. They've got to me. They implant a must watch this device into you at birth...
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Antnicuk
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A bit like Most Awful... sorry, I mean Most Haunted. It's SO bad, you can't help but watch it.
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Raymond
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It's so bad to watch,... yet still you look forwad to the live shows as much as any TV show you love to watch.
This has given me an idea for a new thread. I'll start it in 'chat' because this is the wrong section.
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david hobbs
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Excellent news.
The foreign Johnnies have not got the palace bugged.
I wonder how many listening devices the security boys fitted while they carried out the clean up operation
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