My Letter of Application to Mi6.

To whom it may concern:

I would hereby like to submit my application to join the Secret Intelligence Service, a.k.a MI6. I am also willing to have this application forwarded to MI5, but please not GCHQ, as they are based near Milton Keynes and I don’t wish to be reminded of a very depressing Green Day concert I saw there in 2005.

To be honest, I was surprised and a little hurt when you didn’t contact me first, but I’m prepared to be magnanimous (it’s one of my qualities, alongside perfectionist).

Now let’s talk hard skills – or ‘intell’, as they say in Spooks.

Number One. I can blend into a crowd. I know this because people often fail to notice me even after I’ve been in a room for several hours.

Number Two. I didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge, but I’ve watched Brisdeshead Revisited (the proper version) twice, and I quite enjoyed both the novels of E.M Forster that I read.

Number Three. I’m not a homosexual or a communist, but perhaps that’s not obligatory anymore. If it helps, I did once wear my girlfriend’s underpants at a party and I also voted Labour in the 2005 General Elections (when it was no longer fashionable to be a socialist).

Is this enough? It seems convincing to me. I shall therefore await your invitation to interview with great interest and remain, meanwhile, your most humble servant
Matt Phipps