I did a Telegraph online survey this morning. They promised me that if I answered a few questions on behalf of one of their advertisers I could be entered in a draw to win £100 worth of Amazon vouchers, and I thought I should like that. A friend of mine once won a £20 book token from the Colchester Evening Gazette, and very pleased she was with it. Since the Telegraph are presumably tracking my browsing habits on their site anyway they already know quite a lot about me, and if I didn't like the way the survey was turning out I could always stop answering.
The survey started by wanting to know my age, within broad bands, and sex, for which I was given only two options, M or F. Presumably lesbian, gay and transgender people don't read the Telegraph website while they're eating their muesli. Then we got to the first question of substance: was I interested in cricket? Again this seemed to be a rather black and white decision, with no box to tick if you weren't personally fussed, but lived with somebody who was so had picked a bit up. Likewise I struggled a little with the question of whether I was interested in Test cricket. I mean, I'm generally aware of when there's a test match on if England are playing, and even who they're playing against (note the instinctive use of the word 'they' rather than 'we'), which is more than you can say for my awareness of the football European Cup. I decided that I was not interested in Test cricket.
Then we got to the meat of the survey: have you heard of any of the following financial providers? The list included Rathbones, Brewin Dolphin, Investec and a couple of others, and I'd heard of all of them. However, I could truthfully say that I'd never seen the following advertisement, which must have been embedded in the sports section of the Telegraph. My opinion of Investec (so that was the client) was completely neutral: I had no strong feelings to sway me away from a rating of 3 out of 5 about whether they were competent, different to other fund management companies, trustworthy or anything else.
Since the occupation of the main income earner in our house was part time, and unskilled but having received training (which is apparently what retail workers are) and I declined to say what the net worth of the household was, I don't suppose I'll be hearing any more from them. Unless I win the voucher. One lives in hope.
Online surveys can be quite entertaining, and are worth doing from time to time to remind yourself that the results of all surveys should be treated with deep suspicion. It is terribly difficult not to write loaded questions, and of course a lot of the time that isn't the aim of the survey anyway. I'm afraid the Tate sank in my estimation after their survey asking what, as a Tate member, I thought of the new tanks at Tate Modern, used 'disinterested' when they meant 'uninterested'. I'd have filled in the whole thing more truthfully if I'd had the faintest ideas what terms for at least half the artistic categories I was being polled about even meant.
Yesterday's survey on behalf of Museum Selection should have been a doddle, since it went through everything I'd ordered and asked on a scale of one to five how much I liked it. I haven't actually opened up my packets of Christmas cards yet and inspected them in minute detail, but they looked fine in the packet. That survey promised it would only take two minutes, but after I'd rated the Christmas cards, and the English Countryside and Alfred Voysey blank-for-your-own-message cards, and the 2 pint jug bought on an impulse because it looked nice, and the free-when-you-spend-over whatever it is writing paper as fine (the free writing paper looked a bit odd, but I daresay it will come in useful, in lieu of postcards with my name and address printed on them) and tried to submit my reply, it was bounced back at me on the grounds that I had to write something. I thought they'd had their two minutes by then, and deleted the whole thing.
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