Andy Mcnab
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>>By Just Jon (Wednesday, 31 Aug 2005 12:08)
Just visited Lisle's Watchmeman site and found a couple of good links, one is Ryan discussing the moral issues facing SAS men in the context of the London bombing investigation, an echo of the great sage Jon's concerns recently discussed. There is a further link on that page titled 'McNab exposed' which gives the first synopsis I have seen about his next book.
>>By camban (Thursday, 1 Sep 2005 15:33)
Did I ever tell you guys and galls about this other fab author ?
And I don't mean William Shakespeare but Duncan F.. he has agreed to a Q&A!! Isn't he nice to do so since he is working on his next book? I think he is very nice but that is just me. So Flork me anything usefull and I will pass it on.
Thanks people
Ninja
>>By Ninjawoman (Thursday, 1 Sep 2005 16:21)
Thanks, Cam, for mentioning that link to the McNab article, Cam. (*hangs head in shame* -- I'd missed it.) As a shortcut for others, here's the link: http://www.thebookseller.com/?pid=84&did=16807
Most appalling, tho, was this comment:
"The Stone series is film-optioned, but has been stuck in development hell in Hollywood for years. Clearly, the potential is there for the character to be a 21st-century Bond, slightly rougher than Fleming's creation, but recognisably a British hero in an uncertain world. However, the path to the silver screen is treacherous: McNab wisely vetoed one proposal which would have seen Stone transformed into a gay, black, wisecracking LA cop. Eddie Murphy in heels is too frightening even for him."
Psicosis referenced the following preview synopsis of Aggressor on page 245 (Su, 29 May 05), from Amazon UK:
Synopsis
Ex-deniable operator Nick Stone seems to be living his dream, not a care in the world as he steers his camper van round the surfing and parachuting centres of Australia, a board on the roof, free fall rig behind him, and a beautiful young backpacker at his side. But when he witnesses on TV the massacre of children in a terrorist siege the other side of the world, long-suppressed memories are triggered and Nick finds himself catapulted once more into working for the American secret services - only this time, of his own free will. As events unfold in the bleak, medieval villages of Azerbajhan and teeming streets of modern Istanbul, it isn't long before Nick discovers the true objective of the mission on which he has embarked. His talents are being misused by those who stalk the corridors of power.. and he is determined to make a stand. Hurtled at breakneck pace through a deadly landscape of greed, violence and ever-shifting allegiances, the reader will be left in no doubt that McNab is the master of the genre - and "Aggressor" is McNab at his searing, blockbusting best.
As to AM's availability for signing personal dedications, present status is: stand by...
>>By am-i-binned (Thursday, 1 Sep 2005 16:44)
Ah...at last, a spare moment of rupert-free air (..deep breath......), oh what rapture......
Have to say I am enjoying the recent readings very much. Just been on Lisle and her website........no, no, that came out wrong, I mean just been on Lisle's website. Phew !
Very good read, did not know much about CR before but now quite enlightened. In particular I was interested in his entry about Regiment soldiers in London liaising with the Met's SO19 firearms officers. I once knew a former SO19 officer some time ago and he explained that though "double taps" were part of the training regime, this procedure was seldom carried out as "the norm". Not sure why, perhaps they felt that the standard repetitive single shot was sufficient. I can understand why, as CR stated, the police, though well trained and experienced, are police and not primarily trained and geared towards military situations in general. In particular, with our detachments to NI in days gone by, we were consistently trained to adopt double-tap procedures as general usage. Today this still stands with us concerning small arms - as I understand, also in Hereford. Double-taps are more difficult to execute than one can imagine and to perform this procedure confidently takes a great deal of training. An experienced and confident double-tap can comprise of the first shot entering the central, upper part of the chest, with the second entering the head - both shots being fired in quick succession. The first (chest) shot is the most important where upon discharge, the firearm automatically recoils upwards slightly where it's line of sight naturally follows to the victim's head. In experienced use, the second (head) shot may not necessarily need to be purposely aimed for as the recoil automatically compensates for this. All said and done, one must stress that only with constant and familiar use of a particular firearm can such procedure be carried out in confidence.
Apologies for the ramble, just thought I'd make up for lost time.....
Reg
>>By Reginald (Thursday, 1 Sep 2005 19:24)
Sorry to butt in guys. But those of you that remember an up and coming author going by the name of Dean Francis will be interested in this. He has finally had an offer from an American publisher and his debut novel Fair Target will be processed and in print within the next 12 months. He hasn't yet decided whether to publish under his real name or Dean. 'Dean' is a friend of mine and has asked for my advice on more occasions than he has carried me home drunk! ;o) so I hope he does well, His web-site is now defunct but he has worked hard on becoming a writer so hopefully you guys will support him when his book finally hits the shelves/amazon et al.
I will keep you posted as and when with progress unless he decides to do so himself. Regards, old boy x
>>By gettingold (Thursday, 1 Sep 2005 21:46)
Good to hear about Dean, regards!
>>By Lynn (Thursday, 1 Sep 2005 22:55)
Important update...According to Fox News, Hurricane Katrina shall henceforth be referred to as "America's Challenge."
Update your bookmarks.
>>By Just Jon (Saturday, 3 Sep 2005 07:20)
Ah Deep Black in Dutch translation coming soon: Dag van Geweld.
Now we've had
Dag van Bevrijding (Day of Liberation = Liberation Day)
Dag van Terreur (Day of Terror = Dark Winter)
Dag van Geweld (Day of Violence = Deep Black)
Now let met take a wild guess...... next will be
Dag van Aggressie (Day of Aggression = Aggressor)???
Pity I'll have to wait one year to see if I won!
>>By Lynn (Saturday, 3 Sep 2005 14:42)
Damn, I like those titles better! I'd love to tell my friends I just got finished reading "Day of Violence." My guess is, Aggressor will be called "Afternoon of Quiet Contemplation."
>>By Just Jon (Monday, 5 Sep 2005 00:05)
Only after we got a title like Day of Tree Hugging
>>By Lynn (Monday, 5 Sep 2005 10:33)
Sunday September 4, 2005
The Observer
Paper pants and rose petals? Just don't tell the lads ...
He's more practised with hand grenades than bath bombs, but Andy McNab puts his macho image aside to face one of his biggest fears - getting tactile - at one of the world's best spas
After 18 years in the British army, most of it in the SAS, I'm used to being sent on tough missions. So when The Observer asked if I would consider an assignment in Taiwan, I mentally prepared myself for a gruelling trip. What did they want me to cover? How to survive in the rainforest on two cockroaches a day? Or maybe the Taiwanese were getting twitchy about Russian military exercises in China. Whatever it was, I was sure it would mean getting hot, sticky and bitten to death by mosquitoes. But that's the kind of thing I do, so I checked my mozzie net for holes and waited patiently for my mission.
When the orders finally arrived, they came as quite a shock, and it was much, much worse than I had imagined. 'We want you to spend a week in one of the world's ultimate spas,' my contact said, 'the Lalu Hotel on Sun Moon Lake.'
Full story on:
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/countries/
story/0,7451,1562188,00.html
Ouch ouch, he lost sort of credibility with his story here:
"A Taiwanese woman in a white coat came for me. I was tempted to cling on to my wife and beg her not to abandon me as I was led into a treatment room."
;-)) don't tell the lads indeed
>>By Lynn (Monday, 5 Sep 2005 17:26)
Thanks, Lynn. The article's funny, which is where McNab is at his best. A few complaints, though...
He mentions being held in "Abu Ghraib," without, apparently, realizing that it didn't become infamous for brutality until Westerners were running it. Yes, I know it was MORE brutal before we got there, but look in B20 for "Abu Ghraib" and you'll find it's never mentioned by name. It would be kind of like a white guy saying, "I was in jail in SELMA, ALABAMA! You know, where they did the lynchings..."
He praises the twelve-hour work day of the Taiwanese, who must just love all that time away from family. That's right, Andy, Brits would work twelve hours a day, only they love their families, unlike those idiotic orientals. I guess five-year-old Mexican children work because they're just born with a love of capitalism, right? I'm glad we've got you to explain racial differences to us, or I would have thought global economics had something to do with it.
Quote: "Taiwan only enters most Britons' consciousness when prefixed with 'made in' and stuck to the foot of a plastic doll." Actually, Andy, Taiwan's tech lead on you limeys is pretty much common knowledge the world over, including the U.K. Change "plastic doll" to "cell phone" and you might actually have a point.
Most of the article is funny, and makes fun of the "spa" thing, but his world-view, apparently formed from 19th-century textbooks, kind of ruined it for me. Christ, dude, grow up.
>>By Just Jon (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 01:19)
Yeah, yeah, he mentions the big buildings...with awe! Those little monkeys actually built a big building! Must be that damned work ethic!
>>By Just Jon (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 01:26)
Yes, I'm gonna post again...I don't know if you've noticed, but I've now tried every single tactic I can think of to get AM's attention. You'll notice, being nice didn't bring him here to say hi to his fans. I then tried aiming for a "fuck off" just so we know he's still alive. Still no luck.
Go to clancyfaq, go to any author's site...AM has reached new heights when it comes to feeling superior to one's readers. I personally don't care, really...My AM site is a place for me to play, he's kind of there as an afterthought now, but this is by FAR the most active board here, and how many times has the "great one" stopped by to interrupt your constant praise with a hello? You may feel he's so important and busy he can't be bothered, but I don't buy into that.
I'm gonna go the way of some others...Not leaving Flork, but I'm done here. Don't ya'll applaud all at once, that would hurt my feelings.
Bye.
>>By Just Jon (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 01:42)
He's just playing hard to get Jon ;-)
Anything that comes easy and without effort isn't really worth that much.
Or.... to (sort of) quote Roosevelt:
Happiness is not in the mere possession of Andy; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
Oh and your request for resignation was denied. Sorry.
>>By Lynn (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 09:21)
PS about the article.. I got to give it to him, any criticism he gets he must think 'so what' - I had a free holiday in a great place.
Travel magazines usually don't contain sad stuff such as child labour. They're supposed to attract visitors, not repulse them. I'm afraid if we were to ban those countries it would ruin a lot of already extremely poor local people who count on the tourists to buy some of their stuff.
It's the big companies who buy their merchandise on large scale, for very cheap and sell for plenty that should be forced to buy for more reasonable prices........blah blah blah blah........
>>By Lynn (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 09:31)
Question: Jon, didn't you just say you were never coming back?
Answer: Yes
Question: Are you like, bipolar?
Answer: Yes
Question: Should we keep tolerating your puerile outbursts?
Answer: Probably not.
>>By Just Jon (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 17:04)
Or maybe we think at a puerile outburst.. ahh that's just Jon ;-)
>>By Lynn (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 17:11)
In this weeks zoo magazine well could be last weeks as not sure waht day it comes out on i got mine sept 6th, there is a good article couple of pages of Q and A with Andy McNab if you can get one its a good read.
>>By brianBJJ (Tuesday, 6 Sep 2005 20:40)
Thanks for the heads-up, Bri, re: the ZOO article. I tried accessing online but they don't seem to have the actual articles available, only promos. Instead, I emailed to ask if there's a way to purchase that particular issue, seeing as copies of ZOO are a bit hard to come by here in the States... :o\
>>By am-i-binned (Thursday, 8 Sep 2005 15:39)
Katie Adie (remember that name?) apparently wrote a book: Nobody's Child
"Nobody's Child has many case histories. Some involve the famous, such as the athlete Fatima Whitbread and the writer Andy McNab. But most are simply ordinary people with extraordinary tales; people abandoned at birth in telephone boxes or cars or outside hospitals; people who grew up to ask the most fundamental of human questions. Who am I? And where do I come from? Her own search now behind her, Adie had "no great nagging, gnawing thing" about her own identity. But she did, she says, understand fully the enormous power of those questions"
http://news.scotsman.com/
features.cfm?id=1910322005
>>By Lynn (Monday, 12 Sep 2005 10:43)
Talk about Cockney glibness...!
http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/745.html
Deep Black
http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/746.html
Boy Soldier
:o)
>>By am-i-binned (Monday, 12 Sep 2005 16:11)
Hmmm, very strange....
That "meettheauthor" site's search feature seems to have some serious glitches, cuz here's another AM clip that didn't show up initially:
http://www.meettheauthor.com/bookbites/269.html
Liberation Day
In fact, I just tried re-searching for the clips I just posted for AM (and also for Duncan Falconer) and they were NOT listed?!?
Oh well, at least the links work....
>>By am-i-binned (Monday, 12 Sep 2005 16:44)
I've been reading up on the Falklands conflict, in particular the large number of Falklands vets who have committed suicide. Of course, ex-SAS seem to have a propensity for riding the midnight train to slab city as well, and the "solution" suggested is always the same--support our troops while at war (I still don't know what this means--am I supposed to write them fan letters?) and treat their PTSD when they get back. I've a better idea, though. How about we tell these guys that, if they participate in killing and they know there's no reason for it, they're gonna end up fucked in the head? I've heard a definition of insanity as "repeating the same actions and expecting different results." Well, look at all those vets, soldier boys, and use your heads. You're not fighting for your country when most of the citizens of your country think you shouldn't be fighting at all. You're "proving" yourself to a bunch of amoral pricks who don't care about you. My stance now is--if you want the medals so damned bad, go get 'em, but don't ask me to care when your conscience gets to you and you end up dining on exhaust fumes.
>>By Just Jon (Friday, 16 Sep 2005 20:43)
<< ... if they participate in killing and they know there's no reason for it... don't ask me to care when your conscience gets to you and you end up dining on exhaust fumes... >>
Hmmm...
Is it your contention then, Just Jon, that the high rate of suicides is due merely to guilty consciences?
>>By am-i-binned (Saturday, 17 Sep 2005 20:03)
Hi everyone - great board. I can only chip in occasionally, and this first post is just to say that the locations are wrong in the synopsis for Aggressor (on the Amazon site and elsewhere). It should read: "As events unfold in the bleak, medieval villages of Georgia and teeming streets of modern Istanbul"
Keep up the good work!
>>By fastball (Saturday, 17 Sep 2005 22:12)
AIB asks if I really think the high number of Spec Ops/military suicides is caused by guilty concience. No, I don't. I was giving them too much credit. I think the main reason is that they leave the military and find out that being completely incapable of thinking for one's self isn't really a "job skill." On top of that, while they're at war, they're told how much everyone loves and supports them--then they get out and find that their militaristic, hateful views aren't actually appreciated by most people. Should I go on? No, but I will. They also discover, upon leaving the military, that not all women are prostitutes, and that working at Wal-Mart ain't gonna pull the chicks. And then, the very, very worst part...People like me can laugh at them, with impunity. In the military, they could just beat up anyone who disagreed, in civvy life, alas, they cannot.
There's no reason to argue about this, though--I am an enemy of the United States, in fact I'm an enemy of The State, period. I think man is at his lowest when he submits his will to that of an oligarchy of wealthy elites, which is exactly what you're doing when you join the military. I know no one here agrees with me, and that's fine. I'll keep posting until I'm banned. Blame it on my lack of military experience, but--I speak because I think I'm right.
>>By Just Jon (Sunday, 18 Sep 2005 00:20)
Sorry, ladies, I forgot to add...I know it's difficult being infatuated with the military and yet too wealthy to actually live near a crack-whore-infested, pawn-shop-ringed military base...There's a solution. Go to McDonald's. You'll meet plenty of ex-military working there, and they'll still be in a uniform of sorts. Pretend the sizzle of South American meat is the burning flesh of Arabs, and the fry guys will seem just as appealing to you as they did when they wore camo.
Yeah, I know, without the guns they just don't seem as cool...Work on it girls. If you really support our troops, sleep with them--I'm sure they're getting tired of nailing fat trailer trash.
C'mon now, tell me how horrible I am. I know my words are more hurtful than sending these dudes off to die is. Wave that flag. Stand up for Halliburton. Support our troops by supporting their right to die for no reason. Tell me how noble it is to let another man slap you around so you can get a patch on your sleeve.
This board's gotten boring, and we can't have that. Tell me why I should respect hired killers. Call me a coward. Do something, for God's sake, other than drooling over grown men who dress like boy scouts. After 251 pages, it's clear we like McNab. Great. How about actually reconsidering your views for a second? Believe me when I say, this board will die if people like me don't show up and question you. Hate me all you want--hate's like love, and I appreciate that. Just fucking say something. Anything. Really. Please.
>>By Just Jon (Sunday, 18 Sep 2005 03:09)
Dude.... Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to demand that we jump to attention for you ("Do something, for God's sake... Just fucking say something.") when you criticize military personnel for doing just that for following orders?
But okay, I'll say something: Welcome fastball. Thanks for the heads up on Aggressor. I'm kinda glad the wording was changed.... For some reason I kept thinking of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the first time I read that synopsis.
>>By Majorette (Sunday, 18 Sep 2005 03:59)
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