007 association gives MI6 recruitment headache

The success of the James Bond movies has given the British Secret Intelligence Service a recruitment headache – too many cranks want to join MI6.

"I think it gives people a false impression of what working for the organisation is actually like," the head of MI6 recruitment – named only as "Mark" – told BBC Radio One's Newsbeat programme on Monday.

"So it does tend to turn up quite a lot of thrill seekers and fantasists and we're really not interested in them".

As well as dismissing the notion that spying was a never-ending life of fast cars, fast women and shaken not stirred Martini cocktails, "Mark" was keen to demolish another myth surrounding MI6.

"We don't have a licence to kill – we don't carry Berettas – that's simply not true."

- Reuters