Spy Vs. Spy

Friday evenings and the M25 can only mean one thing and that's exactly what happened. After a depressing average speed of 5mph for about 20 miles we got to Kerry's brother's place near Bicester about 8:45pm. Lucky the pizzas were ordered in time so we were blown away by Neil's enormous new HD-TV and Netgear media centre. Whether it was the hardwork of the week or the quadruple shots of vodka, I was wiped out by 11:30pm and stumbled into bed.

Although the weekend was about seeing Neil and Nikki before their Australian new life, I'd organised a Spy Games experience (through Lastminute.com) for Kerry which was an hour's drive near Hemel Hempstead. I'd booked this back in August before I knew Kerry was organising her work's Xmas bash to the same experience so I knew she'd be up for it. After cocking up the directions we arrived at the Scout's camp and was slightly shocked at how many people were taking part. Instead of the estimated handful of people there were around 50-60 wanna-be spies. I was hoping to get a few photos but there were no lockers for bags and valuables.

We were split into three teams with our first experience of gun-drawing and a laser gun battle. The first part involved strapping on a holster and drawing a banana-yellow gun making us look like a bunch of dicks. The second part was fun at first but for some us it ended in shambles as we got kitted up with a laser-gun and battled against others in the woods. There was no way of knowing who's side people were on plus a few of the guns shot themselves depleting you own live. Grrr!

The second experience was the weapons training which started automatic weapons. We were greeted by possibly the biggest bloke I've ever seen who'd double as Bond villain's thick bodyguard. The machine guns were slightly pathetic firing tiny white pellets and were used in an army exercise to stagger forward in pairs shooting targets shouting at each other. The guns kept jamming and the exercise was slightly confusing.

Next we tried sniper rifle shooting but for me the sights were all screwed up. We all had 12 shots of metal pellets to hit a target and tin can. The staff got their timings wrong and had to rush us through the exercise.

The final weapon was the axe throwing, and although so brief, was probably the most fun. Again, the experience was rushed along with only 3 throws at a target. I was one of two people to get 'wood'.

The third and final section of the day started with quite an interesting presentation on surveillance equipment like cameras, microphones and the scary and real equipment of mobilephones which could record every conversation, text etc. Employers have been known to use this technique and get away with it. The other half was unarmed combat techniques outside which gave us some valuable self-defence techniques including some nasty finger grabs near the neck and shoulders.

At the end of the day the self-defence session nearly redeemed the whole experience but would not really recommend it. Kerry took it as a practice for her staff Xmas and could chop out the worst bits like the machine gun part. Ok, so firing real machine guns would completely dangerous but according to someone we spoke to on the day you could trial real guns in the US.