To Whom it May Concern:
So, GCHQ, I saw your “job ad”. I remember it was a Thursday because I wrote in my journal: “Thursday – idea for screenplay: artist/barista gets scouted to become MI5 spy”. And it was raining – of course, typical me goes out in pure lemon suede. Livid. But when I got to the studio (we rent a space round the back of Haggerston; really good light in case we want to become painters) and had a smoke I thought: not screenplay, real life! I could totally do that. And here is why.
As a creative, I’m all about finding solutions to problems, whether how best to rebrand a misogynist coffee shop (hire a plus sized) or sort out Isis (first rule of branding: don’t keep changing your name, you wallies!). I’m all about making stuff funky – ie I’m the guy who gave you street food van names Shit the Bread, Chew Baklava, Naan-y State and Gruel Intentions. Yeah, I have a fairly unique way of working. Like you lot, I don’t believe in old-fashioned advertising. I respect that, man, the way you just jet cleaned your ad on the pavement along with all the discarded laughing gas canisters and Red Bull vomit, like: “First spy test, look down!” as if to say: “We’re looking for authenticity here, dude – we want people who look between the cracks, who see adverts where others would just see Old Street, which is over.” Jet cleaning a wanted ad on the kerb, scrubbing away society’s filth to find the truth beneath. Love it. I’m the same. I put little cards under people’s moped wipers: just my Tumblr. If they get it, they get it.
Also, I know you get a lot of crap for all the snooping, Snowden etc, but let me just be clear. I LIKE to be watched. And not in a kinky way, shut up. My dad calls it apathy; I call it security. Every time I look at my inbox and see Gmail has noticed I’ve been Googling, say, my ex’s band, Malcolm Gladwell Conspiracy, and targeted an Amazon ad at me, I feel like I’m being… comforted. Patted on the shoulder, warmly. God knows my parents never properly hugged me, never told me they supported my decision to leave that idiot law conversion course, so when Gmail is curious about my life I see it as a happy stand-in. The internet is keeping an eye on me. Every data grab is the equivalent of being told I’m interesting. Keep at it – damn the mans!
Work experience: mate, I’ve done it all. Coffee architect. Freelance war correspondent. Scent consultant. App archeologist. Successful poet. Radical knitwear designer. Voracious reader of difficult novels. Trainer customiser. Lover. Friend. Man. Because that’s what you’re really after, isn’t it, G? Someone who is comfortable both in their skin and out of it, someone who can sit across a bar from a 6ft 4in Russian (as I often did in my summer working flair at the Royal Oak) and become, like a mirror for their thoughts so they’ll tell you literally anything. One time a guy started drinking at three, and by eight he’d tattooed his pin number on my wrist with a Biro and my hoop earring. 7674. Smiley face in the six. Show you when I see you, it’s wicked.
You’re not wanting one of those suited Bond dicks (please, who “shakes” a martini in 2015?); you’re after someone real. Someone who can blend into any university town with a decent vinyl shop and craft community, someone invisible in a crowd of nice hair. I’m more your Ben Whishaw-type spy. I’m very “could be on the door at Duckie”. Totally fluid sexually. In theory.
And may I just say, while I have you, that I appreciate your endorsement of my people. With your touting for business on the pavement outside the one remaining gay bar in this postcode, you get it. That, however much your eye gets drawn to the beard, or the cereal, ours is a culture based on good things, like art and protest, and not being our parents. But where was I? Oh yeah, crowds. Don’t like them. Someone nicked my phone at Latitude during Kwabs, texted my mum a picture of their balls.
But I hear there’s a good deli bar at your Cheltenham headquarters. Tell me more... I once met a friend of a friend at the Google offices and ate free sushi for two hours. Sure, I was sick, but quality sick, you know – sick sick?
Tip: maybe Snowden wouldn’t have leaked your info if you’d given him free sushi. Worth a thought. Freestyle. Anyway. Hit me up. I won’t leave my number – you want me, you can find me.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @EvaWiseman
