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I meet a lot of bands. And they all have one thing in common: they’re all smart people. Yes, even the drummers.

Intelligence takes a bunch of different forms: David Beckham, for instance, is widely mocked for being slow-witted, but his true intelligence emerges via his right foot, albeit a lot slower than it once did.

Thus it’s possible to appear a bit dim and yet – because intelligence is not really a measurable trait – still have a solid career in the most creative of bands: see Bez “Bez” Bez of the Happy Mondays, whose position in the group as provider of “vibes” was never under any doubt, despite much face-palm-inducing behaviour over the years.

The other single trait that ties all the bands together that I know is money, or rather, the lack of it. There is no easy route to filthy lucre in music  – although if you’re bright and hardworking you can make, frankly, an easier go of it in the ‘real world’.

So if you’re smart, tight on money and yet as committed to solving problems as Bez was on swallowing anything pill-shaped that he could get his hands on, you might be interested in what GCHQ, who are the focal point of the British Intelligence arm that doesn’t include any members of the Happy Mondays, and who have an HQ shaped like a doughnut, have to offer.

Their Apprenticeships are a focussed alternative to simply going to University and getting drunk for three years, and it’d still allow you time to work on that proto-nu-post-dubstep-core electronic music project that will definitely change pop music.

Hey, let’s face it, you’re using your computer all evening to transform that sample of Gangnam Style into a proto-2-Step bassline, so why not transfer those beat-beat skills into code-breaking? Or your ability to hunt and download cracked copies of Fruity Loops into hunting cyber criminals?

And I have it on excellent authority that an endless stream of white label Four Tet remixes are piped into the office 24/7, so all’s good on the vibes front (OK, Bez?)

More Here: GCHQ Apprenticeships