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How to Lie to Me: Exercises to Get in Their Faces
Welcome back, in the previous post, Get in Their Faces, we discussed the need to be able to observe other people’s reactions more effectively and how we often need to overcome our learned aversion to looking people directly in the face (especially difficult for men it seems, even though Cal Lightman makes it look easy). The fundamental learned dynamic in Q&A scenarios or general chit-chat is: 1. Ask a question -> 2. Avert gaze until a change in the person being questioned’s voice tells us it’s time to -> 3. Look...
read moreHow to Lie to Me: Get in their faces
Viewers of Lie to Me will have noticed how Cal Lightman is always getting right up people’s noses, I mean literally. Part of Tim Roth’s excellent characterization is that Lightman always looks directly at them, even the baddest scariest guys in life-threatening situations. And, after reading more on Paul Ekman’s work, there’s a damn good reason for this. Most of us don’t look at people’s faces when they’re talking, we think we do but really we don’t. When I trained with Dr Ekman’s...
read moreAgent’s Manifesto (more than the usual bend over and take it?)
I applaud Jonny Geller of Curtis Brown for trying to up his game in the new world of publishing, here’s the original article. What follows are my own individual writer responses to Jonny’s manifesto in a Q&A format: The Agent’s Manifesto JG: It feels like a perfect storm is brewing; publishers battening down the hatches, retailers at war with one another, e-tailers deactivating “buy” buttons as if it’s a game of Call of Duty. One person has been forgotten in this unholy maelstrom: the author. Remember, we don’t...
read moreHow to Lie to Me: Real-world Microexpressions training
I’ve been interested in liars and lying for a long time, ever since a situation where I realized people close to me had been deceiving themselves and me for years. I’ve read and studied books on how to spot the lie and the liar, there’s a lot of information out there from body language and persuasion skills, to NLP patterns and interrogation techniques. But one of the most interesting techniques has to be spotting micro-expressions as per Dr Cal Lightman in the TV series Lie to Me. Tim Roth’s character is a deception...
read moreWho would you kill? The Dark Market wants to know.
Currently I’m opting for Kony, Cameron, Cowell and GaGa. In my new thriller Dark Market there is an assassination market – based on a real world model – which allows any group of people to nominate a victim and have them bumped off. Everyone is anonymous, no one can be caught. Dark Market (Assassins Rule) So, the question is, if you could 100% get away with it (you wouldn’t even have to pull the trigger) – who would you assassinate? This is purely for kicks. Although there may be an app to go with the book...
read moreDark Market – Prologue
‘And now my darlings,’ the estate agent turned and spread his arms wide, ‘the pièce de résistance.’ The easy prey followed him into the room. Too many bankers and their dull grey suits today, the estate agent thought, not enough billionaire colour. He’d strung these two along with his bitchy queen routine for far too long already. Although he didn’t have to act too hard he had to admit. He watched the couple blink at the blinding summer light blasting in from the two-storey lounge windows behind him....
read moreDrive School – How to Drive on Two Wheels (Wheelie Weave)
Don’t forget your training wheels! INSTRUCTIONS 1. Aim for the centre of the ramp in a straight line using one side of the car. 2. Balance steering and acceleration. When the car lurches off the ramp, you’ll be riding on the edges of your tyres, just like a motorbike taking a corner. 3. Hold your position until it’s time to go horizontal again. Then turn into the direction of your underside. Troublespots. Depending on the type of car you use you may well have trouble with your carbs. Experiment and see what works! Taken from...
read moreThree ways to get your gps co-ordinates/geocode (including zip codes/postcodes)
1. Google Hack. Download or open Google Earth. Search for a location say Otterburn, United Kingdom. Double click the high street to centre it. Click the add a placemark icon. Right-click (alt-click for Macs) the placemark icon in the left hand navigation column. Copy the latitude/longitude with a comma between them in www.google.com/maps. EG: 55°13’53.63″N, 2°10’35.19″W. Paste this location code in your browser address bar. Then copy and paste the javascript below in your browser address...
read moreDrive School – Scandinavian Flick (Rally Skills)
The Scandinavian Flick While you can modify the previous hairpin handbrake turn to accommodate your edge of the seat needs, at speed it is easy to get wrong. Here’s a simpler technique. Once again the aim is to unbalance the car so at speed drop down into third gear then quickly turn the wrong way into a corner to unbalance (that’s right, away from the corner you’re turning into) then immediately turn back the right way. Now let the rear end slide out as far as your nerves can take and hit the throttle to power out of the...
read moreDrive School – Doughnut into a Powerslide (Whip and Terminate)
Power slide in a circle INSTRUCTIONS You will be going in a wider circle and this requires more skill than the simple doughnut. To begin have your car rolling in second gear then turn into the direction of steer and hammer the throttle. Now comes the tricky bit: you have to balance the power with the steering and constantly adjust. Too much power and you’ll spin out, too little and the car will straighten up and you’ll lose the power and the slide. Please note: The space used in this video was quite small for demonstrating this...
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This site is about all the things I love: writing, deception, adventure, travel and fatherhood.
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