This was a pretty good read!
It starts out with the British government and the sort of surveys the population is subjected through over the years. And generally speaking, it's quite entertaining. But suddenly in the middle of all these anecdotes, there's this :
Then there was Mass Observation, an ambitious project launched in the 1930s by the polymath Tom Harrisson. The aim was to record the way ordinary Britons lived, using diaries, questionnaires and by following people around and noting down their habits.
Areas of interest ranged from whether moustaches made men more attractive, the speed with which people could drink a half-pint, and how much alfresco sex was taking place in Blackpool during August....
.... So Mass Observation decided to visit and test the legend out. They went out at night and fell over couples on the beach and noted down how many were having sexual intercourse. They recorded four such cases, only to have the study reliability jeopardised when it emerged that one of the participants was a Mass Observation researcher.
Ah, me :) Only the Brits!
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