 For example, Lord Stansgate (Tony Benn) presides over the Holy Office, and Officers Paul Foot and Corin Redgrave are two of its feared operatives.Pope John XXIV is a thinly disguised Harold Wilson and his Secretary of State is Enrico Berlinguer.Other references are more obscure; opera-lovers with a good knowledge of Latin will, however, be able to identify the two castrati from the Vatican, Federicus Mirabilis and Lupigradus Viaventosa, as the German singers Fritz Wunderlich and Wolfgang Windgassen, both recently deceased when Amis was writing.