The Warrior Chode

Thunderball
Ian Fleming
Appraised by: Adrian Harrington

Book Owner Comments: First Edition with dustjacket

Appraiser Comments: Jonathan Cape first editions (not stated as firsts, but they do state ‘first published’ and later impressions, generally only first printings are properly collectable). Not necessarily rare, in fact mass produced but rare in fine condition, Thunderball not being one of the difficult ones, although the spine has a tendency to fade. It has a rather attractive Richard Chopping dustwrapper featuring a skeletal hand, a design that is repeated on the cloth of the book. Part of the ‘few hundred pounds’ rather than ‘few thousand pound’ Bonds. In fine condition probably worth about £500. A good basis for collecting first editions of Fleming, although you should anticipate problems somewhere around From Russia With Love (1957), and bear in mind that a fine Casino Royale (1953) without a dustwrapper is still a thousand pound book in a wrapper £12000 or so . Always popular, the Bond firsts tend to suffer from being read (which might sound odd) but they were purchased and enjoyed and passed around, splashed with martinis and covered in suntan oil, definitely not the kind of books that would only be read once. The rarity value therefore stems from the fact that most copies of the Bond firsts look like they’ve just lost a tussle with a shark and been launched from an ejector seat.

Estimated Appraisal: £500

• Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.

• Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.

• Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.

• Abolish the flawed control orders regime.

• Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.

• Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.

• Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.

• Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the information commissioner and reducing exemptions.

• Stop criminalising trespass.

• Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.

• Prevent allegations of “bad character” from being used in court.

• Restore the right to silence when accused in court.

• Prevent bailiffs from using force.

• Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.

• Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.

• Remove innocent people from the DNA database.

• Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.

• Scrap the ministerial veto that allowed the government to block the release of cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.

• Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.

• Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.

Here’s What I Like:

1. A direct style: use blunt, short words. Most resumes are scanned, not read.
2. Looks: like a middle-aged man’s apartment. Nice and tidy.
3. Objective: be direct; your objective is the job you’re applying for.
4. Verbs ending in “d”: shipped, launched, built, sold.
5. Results: not responsibilities or experience — but what responsibilities and experience helped you accomplish.
6. Bullets: 3 ñ 4 results per job.
7. Numbers: increased traffic from Google 230%, decreased ad spending 40%.
8. Grades: your GPA, even if it was ten years ago, if it’s over 3.5.
9. Reviews: ratings from your last review, especially useful if you worked for a tough grader like Microsoft
10. Honors: we’ll interview an employee-of-the-quarter, every time.
11. Promotions: if your role changes, highlight that as two jobs.
12. LinkedIn endorsements: persuasive, even from your friends; excerpted & linked.
13. A link to your blog: a blog gives you online street cred. For some, it is your resume .
14. Themes: whether you care about customer service or agile software, tell a consistent story from job to job.
15. Hobbies: I always want to meet people with fun hobbies. And that’s all a resume is: a request for a meeting. At Plumtree, we received a resume from a Playboy model. A colleague forwarded it to me with a note reading, “I’ve never asked you for anything beforeÖ” I feel the same way about cyclists.
16. Two pages, max: if you’re under 30, one page.
17. Anything you did that showed initiative or passion. Eagle Scout. Math Olympics.
18. Email to the CEO: it takes chutzpah & resourcefulness to go straight to the top. The email address is easy to guess.
19. Customization: tailor your resume & especially the cover letter to the job.
20. Completed degrees: I’ve hired plenty of folks a few credits shy of a degree. Some were great; many couldn’t finish what they started. If you have time now, finish your degree.
21. Gmail address: or your own domain. Nothing says “totally out of it” like an AOL address.

Here’s What I Don’t Like:

1. Churn: stints at two or more employers of less than two years.
2. List of generic skills: just show what you actually accomplished at each job.
3. Typos or misspellings: About half the resumes I get are addressed to “RedFin.” For the other words, spell-check!
4. Photos: my favorite was of a candidate in tennis whites with a racket.
5. “Proven”: as in “proven leadership.” We all still have something to prove.
6. Printed resumes: email a Word document, web page or PDF.
7. Buzzwords: search bots love it, actual people don’t.
8. Wordiness: yes, this is the pot calling the kettle black…