About three minutes in to the piece we first hear mention of ‘The Street’. This would appear to be the main thoroughfare of the building and provides an opportunity for workers to take a break from listening to super secret things and meet up with co-workers and moan about Val in accounts or chat about the sexy new worker down the hall (for security reasons, GCHQ have asked me to point out that I don’t actually know if there is a Val in accounts or anyone sexy who works there). Listening to it I was struck by the phrase that the guide utters at about 6’15, where she provides some tantalising detail about the amenities on offer at GCHQ. She says that workers can visit “different coffee shops, restaurants etc”. Imagine that. Not just normal coffee shops but “different” coffee shops and not just one restaurant but “restaurants etc”. I had to know more. The people who work at GCHQ are the best of the best of the best so what is it that fuels them? What the hell do they eat? What is their favourite food? Is fish on the menu or do they only eat Government sanctioned, super-secret food created in laboratories by robots? The GCHQ website doesn’t help much either. It adds the most meagre flesh to the bones.
I knew that if I wanted answers to my questions I would have to go undercover, deep undercover, maybe even more deeply undercover than Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop 2. I knew that I needed an informer, a mole, a human being so sneaky and low-down that they would provide me with the information I needed, no questions asked. I needed a Deep Mouth and he wasn’t hard to find. From his email I was able to ascertain that there is a main restaurant, a continental café, a deli bar, coffee shops (number unspecified) and numerous vending machines and tuck shops. I also discovered that the main restaurant served “anything and everything” and had “a range of homemade soups, trattoria, a 'global theatre', chef's classics, salads and jacket potatoes, homemade hot and cold desserts, and of course, vegetarian choices”. And then he dropped the bomb (once again I would like to point out that this is a metaphor) when he mentioned that the breakfast menu served in the restaurant included “standard fare that you would find in most good hotels”. It was there that the email ended.
I was in shock for days afterwards, my head swimming with thoughts of brainy people enjoying “global theatres”, adult tuck shops and breakfasting to the level of a good hotel. I needed more information so chanced my arm and got in touch with Deep Mouth one more time. What he told me nearly blew my mind so brace yourself because once you know what I am about to tell you, you will never be able to unknow it.
Far from being Peruvian mime or Italian puppetry, Global Theatre is “a range of natural healthy options cooked fresh to order while you watch. They tend to include food with olive oil, no dressings or seasonings. Typical dishes include; salmon, chicken, plain pasta and salads”. But what of the GCHQ worker’s favourite food? Well, “this appears to be pepperoni pizzas, fish & chips, burgers, chicken tikka masala, steak and kidney pie and curries. Full English breakfast is very popular (especially on a Friday morning) and porridge is always up there with the biggest sellers”.
So there we go. The elite brains of GCHQ like having plain pasta cooked while they watch, fish (but only in batter) and most require a fry-up on a Friday morning. On Thursday nights, the bars and pubs of Cheltenham must be full of very clever people getting squiffy and not being allowed to say anything much at all. That, in itself, is very, very impressive.
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