007 gives MI6 recruitment headache

LONDON (Reuters) - 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."