So we’re all loving Keanu Reeves’s appearance in cult game Cyberpunk 2077, am I right? Frankly I can’t think of a cooler cat to play a silver-handed cyber terrorist from the future. Can’t wait to find out more about what Johnny Silverhands has in store for my character. I’m sure it’s going to be a blast.
But why meet Reeves online when you can meet him in the flesh?
Fortunately enough, I meet Reeves in person once. It was at the premiere of The Matrix Revolutions at the Sydney Opera House in 2003. By a stroke of luck I had made my way past security into the VIP area where Reeves, Paris Hilton and her sister and uber-producer Joel Silver were ensconced.
I wasn’t actually supposed to be there – my press pass only allowed me to mingle among the hoi polloi – but I acted like I belonged with the VIPs when I flashed my pass, which, of course, is the secret to gatecrashing everywhere.
Like the gaming nerd I am, I took the chance to congratulate the beautiful Jada Pinkett-Smith on her role in The Matrix video game. She was pleased by the compliment, no doubt used to hearing more commentary on her role in the movies.
Then it was on to talk to Reeves, who was sitting on a couch.
Reeves looked pretty much exactly like he did on screen: handsome, chilled-out, with eyes that bespoke a deep intelligence. And believe me, not every Hollywood star looks the same as they do on screen. Some, in my experience, look radically different: almost unrecognisable (no names … but you know who you are).
Anyway, I went up to Keanu and shook his hand. His hand was soft and smooth (and in no way silver and metallic).
“Good movie,” I said.
“Thanks,” he replied.
Then he yawned.
But that was OK. It’s a 15-hour flight to Sydney from the US.
Anyway, it would be more than a decade before Reeves would find another great action franchise.
And I believe he has found one with the John Wick series.
The first installment was a welcome return to form for Reeves, a pacy shoot-’em-up that reminds me of the excitement and vigour of the first Taken movie. The shooting scenes are particularly interesting as Wick takes down Russian Mafiosko close up, almost using his pistol as a third hand or extra fist.
Yet what stuck out in my mind was Wick’s motivation for bringing the pain: the Russian mafia killed his dog. Or rather, they killed the dog that was the last gift from his late wife. But still … it’s all about the dog, whose collar Wick keeps on his bedstand as a reminder to keep his rage fresh. Several Russians can’t believe that Wick would go postal over a pooch. After all, who goes all Rambo over a dog?
Still, it’s a welcome twist from the usual tired themes of revenge movies. The “they killed/kidnapped his wife and family … and now it’s personal” gambit has been played out in everything from Taken to Commando.
Let’s hope Hollywood makes more “alt-revenge” movies in the John Wick vein. I’d like to see a revenge fantasy based on a burnt-out Italian hitman taking revenge on the Russian mob for a bad customer rating on eBay. I’d book early online to see a psychopathic version of Sideways where snobs go at each other hammer and tongs because someone brought merlot to dinner. I’d definitely tape Revenge For Flipper … and at least watch the first 10 minutes of The Artisanal Bread Massacre.
Missing cats, neglected goldfish, overgrown hedges, crude personal graffiti on toilet walls, disses on Facebook, poor service in stores and social exclusion in high school now writ large in the adult mind are all real-world fodder for alt-revenge … providing said revenge is exacted on tough, demanding, armed foes and not, say, innocent teen fry cooks.
Perhaps a gun-toting gluten-intolerant could take their intolerance out on the gluten-loving world at large in some bizarre remake of Falling Down (“at first he was gluten intolerant … now he can’t tolerate anything”). Perhaps a $10,000 Apple Watch could be the McGuffin in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction II, the item avaricious gangsters fight and die over. Maybe pimped-out grocery carts could be transformed into Mad Max-style battle vehicles as the apocalypse comes to the frozen food section of your local grocery store (“Everyone is checking out on aisle nine in Store Wars: Episode III”).
In the meantime, I can’t wait to see Reeves’s future achievements in John Wick 4, The Matrix 4 and beyond. I’d also love to learn more about Johnny Silverhands. Who is he? What motivates him? Where can we buy his music album? And will we ever get a 2077 prequel or sequel featuring Silverhands?
I await the gaming industry’s best efforts.
Check out more espionage, action and geopolitical intrigue with my book Game Of Killers: The Spartan, out now as an ebook or paperback.
The inside of the elite retirement home boasted the sort of wood-meets-marble-meets-money look that rich retirees and Bohemian Grovers drooled over. Judging by the level of comfort and the contented demeanor of its occupants, the casual observer would never think that the mighty USA was suffering outside. This was a port from the storm, an oasis of calm in the surrounding scorched earth.
Garin shuffled along the blond wood floor past patients, nurses and doctors, keeping his face hidden under his sailor hat, until he came close to the door he wanted. Checking to make sure no one was watching, he silently let himself in.
Inside, the room’s single, white male occupant – a man in his mid-80s – was sleeping lightly, snoring under the blankets, his nose making a whistling noise.
Looking at him, he seemed like just another old coot . . . hardly the man behind one of the 20th century’s most terrible crimes.
Garin recalled images he’d seen of his suspect: first as a vital young Turk, then as a middle-aged powerbroker with his face blacked out in secret photos, and finally as he was today, thinned out, face like sandpaper. Yes, it was him. Eyeball confirmation. Target is green.
The colonel pulled a chair from the corner and brought it near the bed, the chair complaining with a squeaking noise. As he moved closer, Garin looked at the cross above the patient’s bed. He smiled a wry smile, briefly remembering his own holier-than-thou youth. It had been a long time since he had heard His voice. And he probably never would again . . . regularly coveting his neighbor’s ass was the least of his trespasses against the 10 Commandments.
Meanwhile, the asshole in the bed kept snoring.
Garin grabbed the vase, threw out the flowers and tossed its water into the man’s face. A second or two later he spluttered. Joe Patient’s eyes came to life.
“What? What?”
“It’s time for your sponge bath, sir,” said Garin merrily.
“Who are you?” said the other man, eyes blinking rapidly. “What are you doing in here?”
“What, you’re not buying the sponge bath story?” said Garin conversationally, removing his hat, folding his legs and taking a seat. “Anyway, who am I is classified. I could tell you who I am, but then I’d have to kill you.”
The patient stared at Garin warily. “I don’t know you. Get the fuck out of here.”
“And here I thought all men were brothers.”
“To hell with this,” said the patient, reaching out for the control with the “nurse” button on it. Garin gently removed it from his liver-spotted grasp.
“Ah, ah. Don’t be naughty.”
“If you want money there’s some in the drawer,” said the man, now afraid.
“It’s not about money.”
“Then what do you want? Get to the point, then get out,” said the man in the bed, pointing his eyes at the door.
“No foreplay? Fine. Why am I here? JFK.” Three letters that hung in the air like an accusation. An accusation that travelled through the decades of history, begging for an answer that never came.
The man opposite looked like he’d just seen a ghost.
“JFK?” he croaked.
“Yes, John F. Kennedy, former President of the United States of America. Someone you know only too well.”
There was another long, fraught pause, interrupted only by the sound of the humming air-conditioner.
“Everybody knew JFK,” came the weak reply.
“Some better than others. Like you. Even if your name never came up during the Warren Commission. Even if your finger wasn’t on the trigger that day in Dallas.” Garin leaned in. “Only the rest are now horse glue. You’re the last. And I’m not about to let you get away clean.”
Garin then said the man’s real name. The patient made a strange, choked-off noise, as if he hadn’t heard those unfamiliar words in a long time. His hands shook. If it were another man, Garin might have placed a gentle hand on his to calm him. Yet he didn’t. Instead, he said: “You’re at the end of the road. So why not bare your soul?”
The man’s eyes lit up in panic again. Then, a certain acceptance came over them. Then calculation.
“You open the kimono first,” he said slowly. “Who are you?”
“My name is Colonel Garin. Lover, fighter, retweeter.”
“I’ve heard of you. What was it, special forces? SOCOM?” SOCOM being short for United States Special Operations Command.
“And Homeland Security, among other things.”
The patient fixed Garin with a malevolent look. “Are you like one of those assholes who never got over Vietnam?”
“Wrong war.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, colonel, but don’t you have better things to be doing right now? Have you looked outside the window? The country is godforsaken. FUBAR, even.”
Garin’s eyes were drawn to the window in the room, then back towards the patient. “I do have better things to do. But I thought you didn’t deserve to die peacefully in your sleep. You and your friends robbed the US of a great President.”
The patient shifted under the sheets. “Didn’t you hear? Oswald did it.”
“Very funny. But I do the jokes here.”
“Who sent you? I can’t imagine anyone giving you clearance for this.”
Garin laughed. “You’re the first person I ever met who hoped that red tape would save them. No, I sent myself. One of the benefits of giving orders. Occasionally you can give one to yourself.”
“You still can’t do this. This is America.”
“This was America.”
Garin’s target exhaled as the weight of a great secret left him. “I always wondered if someone like you was going to turn up on my door one day. For years, I used to check underneath my car for bombs. I watched for strange cars in the driver mirror. I woke up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat, expecting to find a hitman in the bedroom.”
Garin nodded. “Guilty conscience, eh?”
“But after so many decades, I realized no one was coming. So, I got on with living my life. A rich, full life I may add, asshole.” Garin didn’t react to the barb. “Now I suppose you want to know why. Like every other dime-store detective out there.”
Garin nodded.
The patient sneered. “Why is a child’s question. You already know why. Because it had to be done. JFK was soft on Communism. Hell, he let the Beard install nuclear weapons on Cuba. On our very doorstep!”
“Permit me to ‘Greedo’ you here . . .”
“What?”
“’Greedo’. It’s Star Wars speak for violently cutting someone off. Which is what I’m doing over your claim that the Commies unilaterally installed nukes in our backyard. Because we had our own Jupiter missiles in Turkey. Right on the USSR’s doorstep. So it was natural for the Russkies to respond by putting theirs in Cuba.”
The patient was unimpressed. “So what? That doesn’t mean Kennedy shouldn’t have backed our boys during the Bay of Pigs. JFK was losing the Cold War. The arrogant bastard was threatening our interests all over the world. He was going to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces. If we’d left it to him he would have cut off our balls and handed them to the Russians.
“So . . . we did what needed to be done. We acted. With the help of our friends.”
“Your friends . . . I know all about those ‘goodfellas’ of yours,” Garin said with disdain.
“You hypocrite,” spat the patient. “Are your hands clean? What have you done for God and country?”
Garin nodded his head slowly, finally agreeing with the cur on something. “You’re right. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of. But I’ve never had a President assassinated.”
“The world is full of sin,” came the reply. “Is this what you’ve been reduced to . . . avenging one sin at a time?”
Garin carefully considered this surprising riposte. Eventually he said: “In the end, every man draws a circle around himself and says, ‘Everything inside this circle, I accept. Everything outside this circle, I cannot accept.’” Garin pointed his finger at the other man. “And you, I cannot accept.” Garin then stood up, reached over and removed the man’s pillow from under his head. “Anyway, you seem uncomfortable. Let me fluff up your pillow.”
The JFK conspirator knew what was coming. In Garin’s experience, men could be divided into two categories at this point: those that attempted to beg, plead or rationalise at the end; and those that said “fuck you” in the face of oblivion.
The JFK conspirator was the latter.
“Damn you to hell!” he shouted. “It was 50 years ago! No one cares any more!”
“I care,” said Garin sadly.
“Who do you think you are, some kind of hero? Who will ever know what you’ve done here?”
“I’ll know. And in some strange way, history will know.”
The prone figure laughed bitterly. “History won’t know dick.” He laughed again, then shook his head. “Whacking a senior citizen in a retirement village . . . they’ll give you the Medal of Honor for sure!”
“Hush now.” Garin loomed over him, holding the pillow above the man’s head. “Incidentally, the pillow’s not for your benefit. It’s for the maid’s.”
“I regret nothing!” yelled the conspirator with his last ounce of strength. “I’m a patriot! I did my duty!”
“I’m doing my duty, too.” Garin bunched up the pillow, feeling feathers in his fingers and the rush that always came before the kill. “JFK sends his regards.”
The pillow descended.
Continue reading with Game Of Killers: The Spartan, out now as an ebook and paperback. Then read the first instalment, The Spartan, out now as an ebook.
For the Young Adult book market, the biggest event is the release of a new Harry Potter novel. For the adult literary market – particularly for those with a taste for the historical – the release of a new Hilary Mantel novel is perhaps its equivalent.
The Mirror and the Light, the third and final instalment to Mantel’s superb, million-selling Thomas Cromwell trilogy, was released last month. Critics are already enthused about the Booker winner’s latest offering, calling it a masterpiece.
I have already ordered my copy and blocked out time to pore through its 912 pages with glee. I regard Mantel’s story about the rise and fall of King Henry the Eighth’s Chief Minister as the most enthralling historical work since I, Claudius (or, as many a schoolboy called it, Roman letters included, “I, Clavdivs”). The TV series starring Claire Foy, Damian Lewis and Oscar winner Mark Rylance as Cromwell also rivals the television adaptation of I, Claudius.
Yes, I admit it: I have “Mantel mania”.
Yet is saddens me to think that others will turn their back on the new book, not only for the number of pages, but also because it is “historical”. I noticed a disdain way back in high school for modern and ancient history, a lack of interest in the tales of the Greeks, Tudors and Romans but also Australia’s own history. As for myself, I was so fascinated by the Spartans they have influenced my own books.
Sadly, this disdain has made its way into society. History is “fusty” and “boring”. Statues and memorials are Airbnbs for pigeons, not opportunities for reflection.
Yet without history, how do we understand where we are now? How will we appreciate the eternal battle between church and state? How will we mark the many wars, the many sacrifices, the many inventions that helped create today’s society? How will we avoid the mistakes of history if we don’t know what they are, such as “the Thucydides Trap”?
If we don’t read and understand history, we won’t appreciate it, either in books or in our landscape.
We will condemn our history to the wrecking ball, as we seem to be already doing in our major cities.
Then there is my current fear: that the terrible memories of the recent bushfires will be forgotten. That amid new events and catastrophes, COVID-19 or otherwise, we will forget the smoke in the cities, the terrible toll in the bush, and be surprised if and when it happens again.
For those who don’t learn history are in danger of being continually surprised.
Or, even worse: they are doomed to repeat it.
Keep the reading going with my military thriller The Spartan, out now as an ebook. Then enjoy the sequel, Game Of Killers: The Spartan, out now as an ebook and paperback.
The Chinese Premier had learnt how to handle unexpected phone calls from the US President. Typically his American opposite asked him to address the vast difference in their balance of trade, to let the yuan appreciate or to do something about Chinese protectionism. Or, most tiresome of all, he would lecture him about human rights like he was addressing the White House press gallery in public and not the Chinese Premier in private.
The premier would listen politely, promise to look into it – and then, just like the Japanese had done with the Americans decades before, when they were at the height of their powers, do nothing. He wasn’t about to hamstring China for winning at a game that the Americans themselves had help create. The Americans had forgotten one of the rules of international diplomacy: never ask for something you don’t have the strength to take.
The latest G20 summit, where the heads of Europe had offered him and China’s money a rock star welcome while the US President sat fuming on the sidelines, should have told the Americans everything they needed to know about the new global realpolitik.
Yet it was with great alarm that he heard the president rage about the presence of biological weapons of mass destruction on American soil. Worse, that he had proof of Chinese involvement in bringing them to the States, and plans to detonate them. The furious president said that if even one went off he would hold China responsible, and he couldn’t guarantee what would happen next. America had invaded Iraq on the strength of suspected weapons of mass destruction. They were stone-cold paranoid about WMDs. If they had proof of real ones on US soil …
Now coldly angry, both at the threat and the idea that someone had planned this attack behind his back – he would never have authorised something like this during China’s catch-up phase – the premier promised he would do everything in his power to assist the president. That as soon as he got off the phone he would launch an immediate investigation, starting with the background of the assailant that had been caught, now dead. (Did the Americans torture him to death, he wondered.) He would send some of his best men to assist in the investigation. The premier offered the US President China’s full co-operation, and he meant it. The president said he’d phone again soon and that he hoped they could avert catastrophe together.
When the call was ended, the Chinese Premier slammed his fist on his desk. He did not need this kind of headache. He did not want any disruption to the status quo, anything that might make the people restive and question their leaders. He did not want an Arab Spring sweeping his country, where the West hypocritically turned on its former partners and installed new leaders. The lesson of Colonel Gaddafi, that strutting buffoon, was that any country without weapons of mass destruction could be invaded and overthrown by the West. China would never make that mistake. Its leaders would never allow themselves to be pulled out of a drain pipe and shot in the head by rebels like the late Libyan dictator. They would not die suspiciously of “exhaustion” on military trains like the late Kim Jong-il. There would be no Chinese Spring.
He knew that some of his generals had talked about war with America – seemingly welcomed it, even, yearning to embrace China’s glorious military heritage. The military was always pushing the civilian establishment, jostling for position, seeing how far it could go and how much ground it could win from the soft civilians. The premier knew how the military thought: they viewed politicians as weak, corruptible. Yet the premier and his cohorts were far from weak. And corruption was a country-wide problem, from the lowest villager to the most powerful general.
The Communist Party as a principle was firmly against such a war with the US. Not until China’s economy rivalled America’s, along with its army, would they consider such a step. And it wouldn’t be a full-scale war: more like a lesson. Such as seizing the recalcitrant Taiwan and fending off the inevitable US response. Or discouraging American warships in Asia with patrols of their own. No, with trillions of Chinese yuan pumped into the US economy and millions of Chinese working in factories making products to sell to the US, China didn’t want to destroy the US. You don’t destroy your best customer. But China did hope to supplant it, in Asia, in Europe, in Africa.
The Chinese Premier picked up the phone. “Get me everyone,” he said.
Continue reading with The Spartan, out now as an ebook. Then keep reading with the sequel, Game Of Killers: The Spartan, out now as an ebook and paperback.
I MET Keanu Reeves once. It was at the premiere of The Matrix Revolutions at the Sydney Opera House in 2003. By a stroke of luck I had made my way past security into the VIP area where Reeves, Paris Hilton and her sister and uber-producer Joel Silver were ensconced.
I wasn’t actually supposed to be there – my press pass only allowed me to mingle among the hoi polloi – but I acted like I belonged with the VIPs when I flashed my pass, which, of course, is the secret to gatecrashing everywhere.
Like the gaming nerd I am, I took the chance to congratulate the beautiful Jada Pinkett-Smith on her role in The Matrix video game. She was pleased by the compliment, no doubt used to hearing more commentary on her role in the movies.
Then it was on to talk to Reeves, who was sitting on a couch.
Reeves looked pretty much exactly like he did on screen: handsome, chilled-out, with eyes that bespoke a deep intelligence. And believe me, not every Hollywood star looks the same as they do on screen. Some, in my experience, look radically different: almost unrecognisable (no names … but you know who you are).
Anyway, I went up to Keanu and shook his hand.
“Good movie,” I said.
“Thanks,” he replied.
Then he yawned.
But that was OK. It’s a 16-hour flight to Sydney from the US.
Anyway, it would be more than a decade before Reeves would find another great action franchise.
And I believe he has found one with John Wick.
Described as one of the best action films of 2014, it’s a welcome return to form for Reeves, a pacy shoot-’em-up that reminds me of the excitement and vigour of the first Taken movie. The shooting scenes are particularly interesting as Wick takes down Russian Mafiosko close up, almost using his pistol as a third hand or extra fist.
Yet what stuck out in my mind was Wick’s motivation for bringing the pain: the Russian mafia killed his dog. Or rather, they killed the dog that was the last gift from his late wife. But still … it’s all about the dog, whose collar Wick keeps on his bedstand as a reminder to keep his rage fresh. Several Russians can’t believe that Wick would go postal over a pooch. After all, who goes all Rambo over a dog?
Still, it’s a welcome twist from the usual tired themes of revenge movies. The “they killed/kidnapped his wife and family … and now it’s personal” gambit has been played out in everything from Taken to Commando.
Let’s hope Hollywood makes more “alt-revenge” movies in the John Wick vein. I’d like to see a revenge fantasy based on a burnt-out Italian hitman taking revenge on the Russian mob for a bad customer rating on eBay. I’d book early online to see a psychopathic version of Sideways where snobs go at each other hammer and tongs because someone brought merlot to dinner. I’d definitely tape Revenge For Flipper … and at least watch the first 10 minutes of The Artisanal Bread Massacre.
Missing cats, neglected goldfish, overgrown hedges, crude personal graffiti on toilet walls, disses on Facebook, poor service in stores and social exclusion in high school now writ large in the adult mind are all real-world fodder for alt-revenge … providing said revenge is exacted on tough, demanding, armed foes and not, say, innocent teen fry cooks.
Perhaps a gun-toting gluten-intolerant could take their intolerance out on the gluten-loving world at large in some bizarre remake of Falling Down (“at first he was gluten intolerant … now he can’t tolerate anything”). Perhaps a $10,000 Apple Watch could be the McGuffin in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction II, the item avaricious gangsters fight and die over. Maybe pimped-out grocery carts could be transformed into Mad Max-style battle vehicles as the apocalypse comes to the frozen food section of your local grocery store (“Everyone is checking out on aisle nine in Store Wars: Episode III”).
I await Hollywood’s best efforts.
My new military thriller Game Of Killers is out now on Amazon.
WOOF, Australia’s peak body for domesticated dogs, today demanded an apology from humans everywhere for decades of leaving half-empty water bottles on lawns.
Dubbing the move cruel and unusual, Doctor Canine Rex, spokesdog for WOOF, said it was about time humans apologised for their long-held practice of preventing dogs from relieving themselves on lawns.
Doctor Rex claimed many of its members remained traumatized over the sight of water bottles taunting them on their morning walks and forcing many to hold on in agony before they could relieve themselves on home soil.
“Humans have long policed dog’s bodies with leads, tags and Star Wars cosplay uniforms,” said Rex. “Attempting to police our very bowel movements with plastic instruments of terror is going too far.
“Seeing one’s reflection glinting back at oneself during mid-poo is enough to put anyone off their ablutions.
“Even those who overcome their terror end up leaving strange faeces. Where do you think all that weird white poo comes from?”
While many homeowners have long since given up the practice, there still remains a stubborn segment of the population that leaves half-empty 1.2 litre bottles of soft drink and mineral water on their lawns in what Rex calls a “retrograde act of anti-canine prejudice”.
“It’s 2018,” he barked. “Surely we’re past this by now.”
Critics claim that the practice is essentially an old wives’ tale and that only the meekest of dogs would be put off over such superstition.
However, Rex says such comments stigmatise dogs and play into notions of “bow-wow body shaming”.
“Now pat me and tell me what a good boy I am,” said Rex.
In related news, the nation’s peak feline body, CATS, also demanded an apology, claiming those same bottles had prevented many of its members from spraying foul-smelling piss everywhere.
Pictured above … a dog that still remembers the half-empty VB you left on your lawn.
My new military thriller Game Of Killers: The Spartan is out now as an ebook or paperback.
Forget about season eight of Game of Thrones.
The real battle in Sydney featuring majestic flying creatures is the Game Of Bins.
And the players? The legendary “bin chickens” you see every day: on uni campuses, in public parks, on the streets of our fair city.
Only one ibis will ultimately sit on the Iron Bin.
As the Battle of the Bin Chickens heats up, we take a look at the front-running ibises that just might one day perch on the Iron Bin.
Which noble house will you support?
Lord Eddard Aark
– Stupid but honourable
– Favoured among Arts students
– On the rugby union team
– Notorious for “dad jokes”
Jon Crow
– Constantly surrounded by the hottest women on campus
– Super brave: will eat a hot chip right out of your hand
– Always watching from on top of a wall
– Went to a public school and slightly ashamed of the fact
Cersei Bannister
– Hits the “bin juice” pretty hard
– Coined the phrase “you bin or you die”
– Surrounded on all uni quads by enemies
– Her inexplicably hot brother is always hanging around
Prancer Aark
– Used to be besties with Cersei until they had a fight over a necklace
– Will have those lemon cakes or cheeky Nando’s you’re eating if you’re finished with them, ta
– Member of House Jacaranda, eternal enemy of House Flametree
Daenerys Faarkgaryen
– Queen of the Law students
– Strong sense of entitlement because she grew up on the North Shore
– First boyfriend was a “westie”
– Untrustworthy around a Webber
Littlebeak
– Creepy mature-age student who always sits up the back during lectures
– Studies economics or engineering: his answers are always cryptic
– Always running for Students’ Representative Council but never elected
– Hasn’t moved for a while
Gendry Barhoppean
– On the rowing team
– Says his dad used to be a “king” or an investment banker: “same thing”
– Never around when it’s his time to buy a round
Tyrion Bannister
– Rich dad
– The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads – they all adore him
– Fellow “bin juice” connoisseur
– Who you really want to sit on the Iron Bin but won’t because reasons
My new thriller Game Of Killers: The Spartan is out now as an ebook and paperback.
No one throws a sub-editor through a window, either … even when they take a red pencil to the very first line of an earth-shattering exposé”
There is no real estate lift-out featured with the headline “why it’s never been a better time to buy”
No one is asked to file 1000 words for page one and 500 “for the website”
No one is stabbed with a newspaper spike
It is journalistic tradition to ring a giant bell when you finish a story
There is no furious debate over whether to drop the cartoons to make more room for bigger stories
Hot type and Xerox machines became obsolete in journalism at least a year ago
There is way too little smoking in the office
No one is pictured wearing a hat with a “press” card stuck in the brim
No intern is forced to do a Starbucks run for pumpkin lattes
Journalists never succumb to random monologuing
There are no car chases or action montages
Tom Hanks makes editors seem “dangerously likeable”
Bob Odenkirk is pictured using something called a “pay phone”
No one rolls up their sleeves to reveal a tattoo in an edgy German newspaper font
No one sits around trying to make puns out of the names of Thai restaurants
In one scene, you can clearly see that someone has managed to solve the daily Sudoku
The Pentagon Papers are unveiled through cloak-and-dagger journalism rather than being discovered in a cabinet in a second-hand shop
My new thriller Game Of Killers: The Spartan is out now as an ebook and paperback.
Think you’ve got what it takes to be a spy?
The Australian Secret Intelligence Service is looking for a few good men and women.
Confidently dubbed “The Most Interesting Job Interview”, its online quiz will ask you a series of questions about the qualities needed to become an ASIS operative.
We reckon the interview needs a few tweaks. Here’s the questions they should be asking.
Being an intelligence officer is an exciting profession that requires a very specific skill set. What do you think the phrase “very specific skill set” means?
a) I’m good at recognising faces in a crowd
b) I can repeat overheard conversations verbatim
c) I’m a good communicator
d) I’m like Liam Neeson’s character from Taken
Did you really think we were referring to Liam Neeson’s character from Taken?
a) Yes
b) No
c) “If you let my daughter go now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”
There was a clock on the wall when you came in. Did you see what time it was?
a) Noon
b) Zero Dark Thirty
c) Quitting Time
d) That was a trick question. In the age of the iPhone, no one uses clocks any more
As an intelligence officer most of your assignments will take place in the airport. Do you find that knowledge depressing?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Yes
We need you to persuade this flight attendant to give you an aisle seat. How will you do it?
a) Tell her you work for ASIS
b) Talk to her and read her facial reactions until she smiles at you, suggesting sympathy to your plight. Then ask her
c) Beg
d) Throw a hissy fit and threaten to put your tantrum online so it will go viral and shame the company
Now we’re on the plane. Please try to spot the terrorist on the plane. Is it?
a) Tom
b) Dick
c) Harry
d) The only person on the plane not hunched down over a smartphone. Clearly they’re an oddball
ISIS officers are good at noticing small details. Did you recognise which flight was cancelled back at the airport?
a) New York
b) London
c) Canberra
d) Bali. Totally gutted
In intelligence, it’s important to have sharp ears as well as sharp eyes. Listen to this crowded conversation and tell us what the woman on the left ordered.
a) It was too difficult to follow
b) She had linguine on Bourke Street
c) She had penne arrabiata on the Death Star
d) No need. I’ll just read her Yelp review
Can you do us a quick impression of Sean Connery as James Bond?
a) No
b) No
c) “Morning, Mish Moneypenny.”
Results
We can’t actually tell you which answers you got right or wrong (except for when you answered D – that was always right). But our overall results suggest that being a spy might be right for you. Now if you can just figure out where to send your application …
My new thriller Game Of Killers: The Spartan is out now as an ebook and a paperback.
Ever since the publication of Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People in 1936, the business community has been obsessed with books whose olde-worlde wisdom could allegedly be used in real-life situations.
Everything from Machiavelli’s The Prince to Sun Tzu’s Art Of War, the Tao Te Ching and even the Bible have been examined ad nauseum in the belief that it would give today’s business leaders some vague edge over the competition.
And yet, perhaps for a few faint gems of wisdom (“all warfare is based on deception”) these books have had little practical wisdom to offer a 21st-century full of office workers rather than, say, rival Chinese warlords.
With this in mind, Mark Corrigan’s first book, Business Secrets Of The Pharaohs, can best be described as “brave”.
The first warning that Corrigan’s tome might be problematic was the fact that the publisher – who we had never heard of, and whom none of our colleagues in the publishing industry had heard of, either – spelt Mark’s surname wrong on the cover (along with the word “Pharaohs”).
Nor was it a good sign that this review copy was left in the private bathroom of our main reviewer, with a note asking if we would kindly look at this “promising author’s new wrok”.
After such an inauspicious beginning, it is perhaps not surprising that Corrigan himself doubts the power of his own words, seemingly naysaying the whole enterprise with a self-negating quote on the inside front cover.
“The first thing is to acknowledge that the ancient Egyptian era is so completely different from our own that any cultural, political and business parallels that we draw between the two eras are, by their nature, almost bound to be wrong,” he writes.
Full marks, at least, for Mark’s honesty.
Sadly, Mark lacks the confidence of other blaggers in the business self-help industry, continuing to shoot down each argument with some self-effacing, hopelessly middle-class British remark.
It’s almost as if he doesn’t believe in his heart that there really are any cultural, political and business parallels to be drawn between an agrarian civilisation ruled by godkings and a modern Britain governed by EU rules.
How else to explain his assertion that Egyptian hieroglyphics are an “ancient form of emoji?” Or that business managers should be worshipped as a type of living god?
The comparison between the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Millennium Dome in the chapter entitled “Build Something Really Big To Awe The Proletariat” can only be regarded as tongue firmly in cheek.
We sense a kind of envy in Mark at the autocratic power of the pharaohs. They knew how to “get things done”, unshackled by “Brussels bureaucracy”. Certainly, there would have been no Brexit under Ramesses I. Or unions. (He also makes unflattering comparisons with the British Government and Rommel.)
The fact that the last third of the book is written in all caps – and by all indications, in some sort of frenzied state, as if chasing some self-imposed deadline – further removes any enjoyment for the reader. (One sentence is interrupted by the comment “get out of the room and leave me alone, Jez”. Was that some flawed reference to Sedge and Bee, the symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt?).
We can’t also escape the impression that the book consists entirely of cheap-quality printouts.
Business Secrets Of The Pharaohs would have benefitted from a better editor – or, indeed, sign of any type of editor.
Still, despite everything, we detect a sliver of potential in Mark Corrigan’s work.
My military thriller Game Of Killers: The Spartan is out now as an ebook and paperback.
charlespurcellblog 