Wednesday 21 October 2009

Fruitcakery


If you're paid by the state to flick rubber bands, and you are dragged off of Facebook or the celeb gossip pages unduly by some nonsense study, you might just do something ridiculously stupid such as this.

Hundreds of council workers filled out a health and safety questionnaire about biscuit-related injuries, only to discover it was a hoax.

Four councils were so taken in by the spoof survey they reported having specific policy rules on safe biscuit consumption.

One council even claimed to have supervised tea breaks for safety reasons.

A total of 813 over- cautious council employees clicked through to the online survey and 437 risk-averse workers actually took the time to complete it.

The fictitious 'British Biscuit Advisory Board' was created as part of a £3million marketing drive by Fox's biscuits for its Rocky bar.

Ahem. I wonder if Fox's have read my stuff at some point?

Not that there is an avalanche of gullible, wasteful dolts in the public sector, or anything. Oh no.

H/T ta to the Predator & Smart Mark.




5 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

:-b

Junican said...

Dick,

Perhaps there is more to be understood than immediately meets the eye in this 'biscuit' hoax.
Only a few days ago, my wife and I returned from a holiday in Majorca. When I looked at my emails, I found one from the airline with which we travelled. The email asked me to complete a survey regarding my experience using their airline. The email said, 'don't be afraid of being negative. We can take it!'
There then followed the usual box-ticking exercise about how much the cabin staff smiled, etc.
AT NO POINT IN THIS SURVEY WAS I ALLOWED TO TELL THEM THAT MY WIFE, WHO IS DISABLED, WAS LEFT SPRAWLED IN THE AISLE OF THE AIRCRAFT BECAUSE OF THE INCOMPETENCE OF THE STEWARDS WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW TO LIFT HER OR THAT THE CABIN CREW STOOD AROUND WITH SILLY GRINS ON THEIR FACES WHILE MY WIFE WAS SPREADEAGLED ON THE FLOOR AND I, A LITTLE OLD 70 YEAR OLD, HAD TO TAKE CHARGE OF THE SITUATION AND DIRECT THE STAFF IN WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE.

The clear implication is that ANY kind of questionnaire is suspect. Questionnaires direct people into giving appropriate answers.

It is clear that Government today use similar methods to justify their actions.
These actions by Government are shameful and can only lead to catastrophe in due course.

banned said...

This will account for evil Gordon Browns dithering when being quizzed on Mumsnet about what his favorite biscuit is. Not wishing to fall foul of the 'British Biscuit Advisory Board' Gestapo he wisely took 24 hours before answering the question.

I was once looking at a traffic congestion 'survey' by my council. It asked " do you prefer to travel to work either
A ) In a fuel hungry kiddie killer earth destroying greedy private car
Or
B ) On a people friendly eco-sound fluffy little bus. ? "

Or something along those lines, I recycled the questionnair.

Dick the Prick said...

@Junican - all sounds a bit shit frankly.

However 'One woman had to be treated after she used a knife to try to remove a Smartie from a gingerbread biscuit and stabbed herself in the hand' does have a certain comedy value, not quite a Darwin award but damnedly silly.

BTS said...

"But research by Fox showed the general public is just as health and safety obsessed, with an incredible one in five believing there is a need for more rules and regulations concerning safe biscuit consumption."

Wtf..?