MI 6 is James Bond's fictional agency.

MI 5 is the actual British spy agency.

I think M16 is a rifle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle), whilst the British Agency is MI-6

MI-5 is military, like our DIA. MI-6 is civilian; it's real name is the SIS.

I just read "...but 10 Moneypennys say they’re still accepting resumes."

I may not be a natively fluent speaker of Mandarin, Arabic, etc.....but I do speak English, and I have no idea what "10 Moneypennys" means.

Can someone help me out with this?

And yes, I do agree that posing as an Avon Lady wouldn't "hurt" if a female spy were trying to seem unthreatening when she wanted to get into folks' houses and get them talking about themselves and their habits while purportedly discussing cosmetics. Sounds like a good idea to me. would it be more effective if the British Secret Service sent their female agents out "disguised" as feminist bloggers who wanted to come sit on your sofa and get you to spill information about yourself, your husband, etc?

Once again...Broadsheet manages to turn a non-topic into some supposedly "feminist" issue.

hmmmm....

No-Red-Star-of-David Terry

...M's secretary in the James Bond movies ("M" is his boss).

It makes sense that you don't want your spy to draw the attention of every man and woman in the room when they walk in the door, unless they have a reason that explains the flashiness, like being the wealthy spouse of a handsome ambassador.

Otherwise, my bet is you want the spy to be unassuming, under the radar. As the poster above said, completely unthreatening.

One of the last big spy cases here in the US involved a Chinese-American woman who was middle aged and looked like an accountant in face and fashion sense. She was a fundraiser for the Republican party in CA and even got invites to events that put her around V.P. Gore. She managed to have affairs with a couple of high ups including one in the FBI. If she looked like a bombshell they might have wondered what she saw in them, she didn't and was probably successful at getting a number of secrets from Lawrence Livermore to the Chinese. I guess that makes her a honeypot...but I doubt there are many tht could pull that kind of stuff off.

Super cougar secret agent

unless they have a reason that explains the flashiness, like being the wealthy spouse of a handsome ambassador.

umm, like Valerie Plame

It's MI6 not M16.

MI5 is domestic intelligence. MI6 is international.

What specific offense were we inherently supposed to acknowledge here? And is drudging up a story about a WWII female spy really a corollary to this? Lazy, ladies, just lazy.