MI5 needs a health and safety chief (but you didn't hear it from us)

British intelligence service advertises post, but warns 'we can't tell you much about the job. We can't give exact locations'

MI5 needs a new head of health and safety, but for potential applicants who've spied the job vacancy on its website, there are a few drawbacks (AP)

MI5 needs a new head of health and safety, but for potential applicants who've spied the job vacancy on its website, there are a few drawbacks.

"We can't show you the buildings," the ad warns.

"We can't talk about the people you'll work with. We can't tell you much about the job.

"We can't give you the exact locations. We can't mention the kind of technology involved.

"Is it still a risk worth taking?"

With a fairly hefty £60,000 salary, the answer for most wannabe non-risktaking Bonds is likely to be "yes".

But, the ad continues, "for the Head of Health and Safety role you must be CMIOSH". And that's to say nothing of having a Nebosh diploma.

But, far from implying you're a member of a sinister eastern European underground organisation dedicated to the overthrow of western society, CMIOSH simply means "chartered member of IOSH" (the distinctly less menacing-sounding Institute of Health and Safety).

A Nebosh diploma, as any decent applicant will know, is a diploma issued by The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health. Not quite as glamorous as a licence to kill, admittedly, but also less likely to see you strapped to a board while a laser heads toward your nether regions and a genial megalomaniac tells you he expects you to die.

"A dry orange squash, carefully stirred please": James Bond's top five health and safety nightmares.

5. Grappling with Jaws on the roof of a cable car in Rio.

- Neither of the men are wearing protective gloves, to say nothing of a hi-viz jacket. Jaws should really be wearing a mouth guard.

4. Driving an Aston Martin DB5 at high speed through a Swiss forest.

- Neither Bond nor Tilly Masterson are wearing a seatbelt. Some of those modifications to the Aston Martin are definitely not road illegal and the DVLA would not be happy about the multiple numberplates.

3. Driving a rocket boat down the Thames then dropping on to the Millennium Dome from a hot air balloon.

- Bond is flagrantly defying the Environment Agency's advice here to "avoid turning your boat near bridges, bends and locks". If he was upstream of Teddington, he'd be breaking the 5mph speed limit. As for jumping from the boat on to the rope that holds the hot air balloon, too many health and safety breaches to mention.

2. Driving a tank through St Petersburg.

- Several traffic bylaws clearly being contravened here, as well as the illegal destruction of a wall. Despite continually poking his head out of the tank, Bond is not wearing a helmet and, I suspect, not a seatbelt when inside it either.

1. Strapped to a gold table as a laser comes toward him.

- Despite the risk of potential blindness from the (clearly unlicensed) laser neither Bond nor Auric Goldfinger are wearing protective goggles. The restraint cuffs holding Bond to the gold table do not appear to conform to BSI standards.