The job advert had read ‘civil servant’ but I knew that the panel members opposite me were assessing my suitability for a role that included subterfuge, espionage, honeypots, and data decryption. I played along answering the standard interview questions with confidence, and was progressed to the next stage.

The chair of the panel congratulated me, then leant towards me with a pair of intelligence calipers. He explained that it was possible to judge an individual’s IQ from the size of the sinuses. He measured me up and was able to tell me my full educational history including details of my school, university, and first degree.

Next I was left in a room in which the walls and floor were covered in apparently random artefacts. I recognised these as the clues for a murder inquiry. It was there and then that I realised that TPR would be a much better candidate for this job than me.