As for the date of the recording: "I did not understand it. Squidgygate refers to the pre-1990 telephone conversations between Diana, Princess of Wales and a close friend, James Gilbey, and to the controversy surrounding how those conversations were recorded. She saw plots everywhere, [and] was obsessed with the thought that she was being bugged." High-level eavesdropping in British politics is not unprecedented. Now the excited hacks were being shown round Reenan's decidedly home-made eavesdropping studio: "Above the scanners was a 1960s-style tape recorder with a microphone dangling down above the scanning equipment so that the couple could tape 'interesting' conversations." During the calls, Gilbey affectionately called Diana by the names "Squidgy" and "Squidge". Throughout 1991 and into 1992, Diana had been involved in secret co-operation with a previously little-known court correspondent called Andrew Morton. The "Squidgygate" tape was intercepted two weeks later, and rebroadcast in Oxfordshire four days afterwards. You may wish to ask factual questions about Squidgygate at the Reference desk, discuss relevant Wikipedia policy at the Village pump, or ask for help at the Help desk. Cyril Reenan, a 70-year-old retired manager for the Trustee Savings Bank, regularly listened in on non-commercial radio frequencies for amusement with his wife, in much the same way that some people listen to police frequencies using household radio sets (a practice illegal in some jurisdictions). And the motorbike that disappeared. On one occasion, Jephson expressed his "polite mystification" - although he notes that "exasperation would have been nearer the mark" - that "none of these hidden microphones had actually been discovered." Microsoft Authorized Technical Education Centers (ATECs) provide customers with quality technical training on Microsoft products. Now, in 1992, there was the Squidgygate tape, conversations between Diana and James Gilbey. The circumstances surrounding the recording of the Royal tapes are still poorly understood, despite the "Squidgygate" and "Camillagate" tapes both having been analysed by experts. Moreover, it's a conspiracy that's real, proven, tells us more about the workings of the British state than we can comfortably live with, and which casts interesting light on Diana's death. Since Gilbey was known to have been speaking from a mobile phone, inside a parked car, this left Diana's telephone line at Sandringham as the source of the recording. Latterly, however, human nature prevailed: having thought on it "for a day, at least", Reenan decided that he "would not get to see Diana." Charles: Oh, God, I'll just live inside your trousers or something. Sign in to disable ALL ads. Nothing more and nothing less than that."[9]. During the calls, Gilbey affectionately called Diana by the names "Squidgy" and "Squidge". She was advised that she should forget about them [, Diana's careful efforts to make sure that Morton's revelations were not traceable directly to her - which included using a friend, James Coldhurst, to run Dictaphone recordings to Morton [, ] - paid off. The GCHQ denied this allegation. Unlikely as it may seem, the chance interception of high-level communication is not unknown: during the 1982 Falklands conflict, a radio ham in London had intercepted and taped a conversation between the Prime Minister's press secretary and the Assistant Director-General of the BBC, in which the BBC was pressurised into sharing war footage with commercial rivals ITN [. He's been banging on about his contempt for Dodi and how he is undesirable as a future stepfather to William and Harry. Complaints by staff at Clarence House, the official residence to the Prince of Wales, prompted the investigation that led to the arrests. In January 1990, two reporters from The Sun newspaper met Cyril Reenan in the parking bay of Didcot railway station, six miles from his home in the town of Abingdon, Oxfordshire. How do you say Squidgygate? Published in The Sun on 23 August 1992, "Squidgygate" (initially called "Dianagate") was the front-page revelation of the existence of a tape-recording of Diana, Princess of Wales talking to a close friend, who later turned out to be Gilbey, heir to the eponymous gin fortune. Post-Clinton, it may seem hard to believe that "Squidgygate" should have been regarded as so toxic, but the damage was done. Never had such an apparently simple case, in his experience, led into such a bewildering succession of blind alleys and creeks. Reenan was clearly rather jittery about his find. The Duke and Duchess of York had separated months before, and now all eyes were on the next King and Queen, whose marriage had been the subject of rumour for years. U.S. journalist Gerald Posner was played innocuous extracts from the NSA tapes of Diana's conversations in early 1999. Gilbey, who initially denied The Sun's charges, was a 33-year-old Lotus car-dealer who had been a friend of Diana's since childhood. This time, however, the rumours were true and "Squidgygate" burst upon us. The NSA's spokesman seems to have been deliberately vague by relying on the ambiguity of the phrase "British subjects", which - read one way -- means British "citizens" (for, as long as a Monarch rules, all Britons are subjects of the reigning King or Queen), and - read another - means "matters of interest to the British state" - after all, the UK and USA are political allies, and the NSA could hardly be suspicious of the private interests of the British state. Nothing more and nothing less than that [, But five days after Norgrove came forward, the, Barber remarked frankly that: "This is the first admission I've seen in print that the tabloids are willing to take a 'steer' from the Palace. Speculation in the media—and in court circles—reached fever pitch. [25], During the "Spycatcher" controversy of 1987, the British Conservative government sought to suppress the Australian publication of the memoirs of Peter Wright (a former deputy director of MI5). Since the motive could not have been financial, said the investigators—the only winners were the radio hams and the press—it must have been political. I just put the tape in a drawer. Jephson tried to reassure her that this was simply the result of the rewiring of all the Royal palaces, following the 1992 fire at Windsor Castle, but Diana, after gesturing for him to remain silent, was evidently unconvinced. Across the Channel, most of the British press was also about to be caught in the spotlight. Read Squidgygate book reviews & author details and more at Amazon.in. The Canadian officer who led the spying operation personally drove to GCHQ to deliver the fruits of the snooping: tape-recordings of the ministers' communications over a three-week period. ", In January 1991, after sitting on the tape for a year, Norgrove approached The Sun. "The balance of probability suggests something irregular about the recording which may indicate a rebroadcasting of the conversation some time after the conversation took place [. In a clear reference to the "Squidgygate" affair, he commented on "the stories which occasionally circulated in the press with regard to the interceptions by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ," stating that such stories were, in his experience, "without exception false, and gave an entirely misleading impression to the public both of the extent of official interception and of the targets against which interception is directed. Deliver. Diana expressed worries about whether a recent meeting with Gilbey would be discovered. Squidgygate Synonym of Dianagat The public always likes to believe that the Royal family and the press are at permanent loggerheads whereas they're as mutually dependent as a shepherd and his sheep. Diana expressed worries about whether a recent meeting with Gilbey would be discovered. His report stands revealed as either deliberate misinformation, or sheer guesswork by a layman, clad in pseudo-authority. This is a truly extraordinary revelation. Options must include exile, although that would be very difficult, as - when all is said and done - she is the mother of the future King of England [. Garrett Ziegler was a White House staffer during the Trump Administration. I love technology, so we’re talking about robots today, but not in the way you might expect. He had written in the paper's "Confidential" feature: "'It's absolutely outrageous,' says a woman friend who heard the tape last week, but was too polite to ask her hostess if she could make a copy for 'Confidential'. Ten days later his office was burgled.[18]). Matters became somewhat clearer still in February 2000, when Wayne Madsen, formerly an NSA operative for 20 years, revealed that "undisclosed material held in US government files on Princess Diana was collected because of her work with the international campaign to ban landmines." He was "so nervous I just want you to take the tape away. Labelled Squidgygate II, the tape is of a completely different conversation the Princess had with her sometime beau James Gilbey. "The most likely explanation is that MI5 did it to protect the Royal Family at a time of danger from the IRA. [20] Even Jephson was unaware of her actions till much later, stoutly defending her against whisperers: even though, as he adds, many in Palace circles went "half-mad" trying to prove her involvement. How to use squidgy in a sentence. Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. The media frenzy was at least partially justified. In 1997, it was revealed that the withheld section was a ten-minute discussion of masturbation or actual phone sex itself [, The national media, however, were racing ahead with their coverage of the developing Royal split, and had already dropped Reenan like a hot brick. [. Nelson's analysis, written after a visit to Mr Reenan and an examination of his unsophisticated receiving system (which consisted essentially of an Icom wideband scanning receiver and a conventional television antenna), showed that the recording was most likely to have been made as a result of a local tapping of the telephone line somewhere between the female party's telephone itself, and the local exchange. For instance, the famous Squidgygate tape that we all heard played. Within a week of the Times's announcement, a further independent analysis was carried out for the same newspaper by John Nelson of Crew Green Consulting Ltd, with assistance from Martin Colloms, audio analyst for Sony International. The "Camillagate" tape showed no signs of suspicious treatment, and appeared to be just what it was claimed to have been: a recording, "from air", of Prince Charles and Camilla talking privately on 18 December 1989. This document may contain some question types that would not appear on a test that has been adapted for various accessibility purposes. GCHQ, the government's listening post in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was to have been used to carry out this surveillance, but they approached the Canadian intelligence services, because the operation was too politically sensitive. ", Conservative MP Richard Shepherd called the official reports: "two old buffers saying that in their opinion the security services act with integrity." By 1995, claims her private secretary Patrick Jephson, Diana's "paranoia" had "reached new heights.