(MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYS)
Being a spy takes stealth...
..skill...
..and style.
(RECORD SCRATCHES, MUSIC STOPS)
Well, not so much that one, but I do look quite good as a blonde.
Anyway...
It turns out there's another spy asset
that at least one of the world's
real intelligence agencies is looking for, and that's...
Dyslexia?
Yes, dyslexia.
Hmm.
The Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ,
is a top-secret British intelligence and cybersecurity agency
that works with MI5 and MI6.
Yeah, that MI6.
The name's Bond. James Bond.
(JAMES BOND THEME PLAYS)
Hello. My name's Jo and I'm a director at GCHQ.
We work to keep the UK and our allies safe
in the real world and online,
whether that's by preventing terrorist attacks,
stopping serious criminals,
or helping to keep the UK the safest place
to live and do business online.
Jo says GCHQ is always on the lookout for new recruits with special skills,
including people with dyslexia.
And from our beginnings, we've always valued
different perspectives and diversity of thought.
Some of our most talented and creative people
at GCHQ are dyslexic.
This is Jasper, and while he's not a spy...yet,
he knows all about dyslexia because he has it.
A teacher at school started helping me.
The teacher had dyslexia herself, so she had a suspicion,
so she, um, helped me through a test that said I had dyslexia.
So, what is dyslexia?
You see, our brains have lots of different parts
that help us see, remember and understand,
and they're all connected
by lots of tiny little electrical pathways.
They help us do stuff,
like connect the things we see to the sounds we hear
to the lines on a page.
Scientists think that, if you have dyslexia,
the wires in your brain are connected differently,
which, in some cases,
makes it harder to read and write.
It affects me when I'm learning.
In long words, the first part of the word, I can see,
but like 'stopping', I can't see the '-ing',
so I have to look over a bit and I see the '-ing'.
And when I'm writing, I, like, do the wrong letter.
But those different pathways in the brain
can actually make dyslexic people better at some things.
Dyslexic thinkers tend to be good at pattern recognition
and spotting visual anomalies -
skills which are really important for our intelligence analysts.
This real spy agrees,
although you can't see them because, you know, they're a spy.
WOMAN: And I can't go into too much detail on what I do.
I'm often looking through a lot of data,
and I find that my dyslexia helps me to see the bigger picture
and spot patterns that aren't always obvious
to everyone else around me.
But if spying's not your thing,
there are plenty of examples of other famous people
who talk about having dyslexia, or are thought to have had it,
like Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, author Agatha Christie,
Apple's Steve Jobs,
Microsoft's Bill Gates
and director Steven Spielberg.
At least I don't THINK any of them are spies.
But it sure is an impressive list
that shows all the possibilities
of a brain that works a little differently.
Most people just think, like,
we're the lower beings, but, actually,
we're the normal human beings, but just with one problem,
but the problem is something we can easily overcome.
Do you ever want to be a spy? Um, now I think of it, no.
Not at all.
Yeah, that's what a spy WOULD say, Jasper.