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The Feather Men
''The Feather Men'' is a 1991 novel by the British adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The book was initially published on 17 October 1991 by Bloomsbury Publishing. In 2011 it was loosely adapted into the film '' Killer Elite''. Plot introduction The book tells the story of four British Army soldiers, including two members of the Special Air Service, who are assassinated by a hit squad known as "The Clinic". The murders are carried out over a 17-year period, on the orders of a Dubai sheikh whose three sons were killed by British forces in Oman during a battle with Communist guerrillas. Fiennes claimed that he himself was targeted by the group, but was saved by a group of vigilantes calling themselves the "Feather Men". Controversy The novel caused considerable controversy over the claim that it was based on real events. Publisher Bloomsbury described it as a "true adventure" when it was published in 1991. Fiennes claimed that the Feather Men had shown him detailed dossiers on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ranulph Fiennes
Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet (born 7 March 1944), commonly known as Sir Ranulph Fiennes () and sometimes as Ran Fiennes, is a British explorer, writer and poet, who holds several endurance records. Fiennes served in the British Army for eight years, including a period on counter-insurgency service while attached to the Army of the Sultanate of Oman. He later undertook numerous expeditions and was the first person to visit both the North Pole and South Pole by surface means and the first to completely cross Antarctica on foot. In May 2009, at the age of 65, he climbed to the summit of Mount Everest. According to the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' in 1984, he was the world's greatest living explorer. Fiennes has written numerous books about his army service and his expeditions as well as books on explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. Early life and education Fiennes was born in Windsor, Berkshire on 7 March 1944, nearly four months af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bloomsbury Publishing
Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in New York City, an India publishing office in New Delhi, an Australia sales office in Sydney CBD and other publishing offices in the UK including in Oxford. The company's growth over the past two decades is primarily attributable to the ''Harry Potter'' series by J. K. Rowling and, from 2008, to the development of its academic and professional publishing division. The Bloomsbury Academic & Professional division won the Bookseller Industry Award for Academic, Educational & Professional Publisher of the Year in both 2013 and 2014. Divisions Bloomsbury Publishing group has two separate publishing divisions—the Consumer division and the Non-Consumer division—supported by group functions, namely Sales and Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Killer Elite (film)
''Killer Elite'' is a 2011 action thriller film starring Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro. The film is based on the 1991 novel ''The Feather Men'' by Sir Ranulph Fiennes and is directed by Gary McKendry. Plot In 1980, mercenaries Danny Bryce, Hunter, Davies and Meier are in Mexico to assassinate a man. Danny is shot when he becomes distracted after realising he has killed the man in front of the target's young child. Affected by this, Danny retires and returns to his native Australia. The following year, Danny is summoned to Oman to meet a handler known as The Agent. He learns that Hunter failed a $6 million job. If Danny does not complete Hunter's mission, Hunter will be executed. Sheikh Amr, a Sheikh and deposed king of a small region of Oman, wants Danny to kill three former SAS troopers—Steven Harris, Warwick Cregg, and Simon McCann —for killing his three eldest sons during the Dhofar Rebellion. Danny must videotape their confessions and make their deaths ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas, and 28,330 volunteer reserve personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term ''British Army'' was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Air Service
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, direct action and covert reconnaissance. Much of the information about the SAS is highly classified, and the unit is not commented on by either the British government or the Ministry of Defence due to the secrecy and sensitivity of its operations. The corps currently consists of the 22 Special Air Service Regiment, the regular component, as well as the 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve) and the 23 Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve), which are reserve units, all under the operational command of United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF). Its sister unit is the Royal Navy's Special Boat Service which specialises in maritime counter-terrorism. Both units are under the operational control of the Directo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oman
Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Oman shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, while sharing Maritime boundary, maritime borders with Iran and Pakistan. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam Governorate, Musandam exclaves are surrounded by the United Arab Emirates on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz (which it shares with Iran) and the Gulf of Oman forming Musandam's coastal boundaries. Muscat is the nation's capital and largest city. From the 17th century, the Omani Sultanate was Omani Empire, an empire, vying with the Portuguese Empire, Portuguese and British Empire, British empires for influence in the Persian Gulf and Indian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD or MoD) is the department responsible for implementing the defence policy set by His Majesty's Government, and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces. The MOD states that its principal objectives are to defend the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its interests and to strengthen international peace and stability. The MOD also manages day-to-day running of the armed forces, contingency planning and defence procurement. The expenditure, administration and policy of the MOD are scrutinised by the Defence Select Committee, except for Defence Intelligence which instead falls under the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. History During the 1920s and 1930s, British civil servants and politicians, looking back at the performance of the state during the First World War, concluded that there was a need for greater co-ordination between the three services that made up the armed forces of the United Kingdom: t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society Of Indexers
The Society of Indexers (SI) is a professional society of indexers based in the UK, with its offices in Sheffield, England, but has members worldwide. The society was established in 1957, while its quarterly journal, ''The Indexer'' has been published since 1958. History The Society of Indexers was formally constituted at the premises of the National Book League in the UK on 30 March 1957 by G. Norman Knight and approximately 60 other people. He "count dit as one of the achievements of the Society to have removed the intense feeling of solitude in which the indexer (of books and journals, at any rate) used to work." Later members in various areas of the world grouped together and formed societies which are now affiliated: *American Society for Indexing *Indexing Society of Canada *Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers *China Society of Indexers Description The Society of Indexers exists to promote indexing, the quality of indexes and the profession of indexing. It p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Kealy
Major Michael John Anthony Kealy, (29 May 1945 – 1 February 1979) was a British Army officer who served in the Special Air Service and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his role in the Battle of Mirbat in 1972. Kealy was the commander of a nine-member SAS squad, which came under attack from hundreds of Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf guerillas during the Dhofar Rebellion in Oman. Death Kealy died of hypothermia on 1 February 1979 when he joined SAS candidates on a selection march in the Brecon Beacons in deteriorating weather conditions. He was found alive (but in poor condition) by his fellow soldier John Watts, who stayed with him and attempted to keep him warm. It was later acknowledged by the coroner that one of the major contributory factors in his death was the delay in retrieving him from the hillside—a delay of some 19 hours due to inclement weather. Another factor was that Kealy had not packed cold weather gear, instead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brecon Beacons
The Brecon Beacons ( cy, Bannau Brycheiniog, ) are a mountain range in South Wales. In a narrow sense, the name refers to the range of Old Red Sandstone peaks which lie to the south of Brecon. Sometimes referred to as "the central Beacons" they include South Wales' highest mountain, Pen y Fan. The range forms the central section of the Brecon Beacons National Park (), a designation which also encompasses ranges both to the east and the west of "the central Beacons". This much wider area is also commonly referred to as "the Brecon Beacons", and it includes the Black Mountains to the east as well as the similarly named but quite distinct Black Mountain to the west. The highest peaks include Fan Brycheiniog to the west and Pen y Fan in the central part. They share the same basic geology as the central range, and so exhibit many similar features, such as the north-facing escarpment and glacial features such as lakes and cwms ( cirques). Geography The Brecon Beacons range, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hay Festival
The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, better known as the Hay Festival ( cy, Gŵyl Y Gelli), is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, for 10 days from May to June. Devised by Norman, Rhoda and Peter Florence in 1988, the festival was described by Bill Clinton in 2001 as "The Woodstock of the mind". Tony Benn said: "In my mind it's replaced Christmas". It has become a prominent festival in British culture, and sessions at the festival have been recorded for television and radio programmes such as ''The Readers' and Writers' Roadshow'' and ''The One Show''. All the BBC's national radio channels apart from Radio One have been involved in broadcasting from the festival, and Sky Arts showed highlights of the festival from 2010 until 2013, handing over the main coverage to the BBC for the 2014 event. History The festival was founded in 1988 by Peter Florence and his parents Rhoda and Norman. Hay-on-Wye was already well known for its many bookshops before ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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