Doorstepping

The decision and policy makers cannot cope without pigeon holes. These are the broad categories of social types and groups into which we are placed and dare to cross over between during our four score years and ten.

We have all been slotted into one. You may wonder why you have received, through the post, a free copy of a glossy Lifestyle Magazine when your own is far from the same. This is because you fit the  group in the wider population that mirrors and promotes the aspirations and, yes, even for a fairly innocuous publication, politics and social class of the publishers and whoever controls their direction and finances.

The mechanism by which we are corralled into a particular category came to my attention when one of my colleagues activated a link on a property website entitled ' What is like to live in this postcode?'.

Of course, you enter your own for a bit of a giggle. After all, what possible harm can a demographic area profile have on your perception of your neighbours, friends and acquaintances?

The headlines summarising the specific postcode did initially invoke some hilarity but closer reading of the text caused anger and distress in equal proportions.

Of course, the disclaimer for the presentation of commentary and statistics is made on the basis that it is on a broad postcode unit and not for a particular household. The strapline in this instance was "Poorer Singles in Local Authority Family Neighbourhood". The disclaimer states, to the effect that "an affluent family may live inside a postcode which has a lower than average financial standing". Given that a full postcode can pinpoint a relatively small grouping of properties can make any designation of status all encompassing.

My colleague apparently resides in an area of houses in bad repair, poor quality, small and pokey, low priced, amongst loutish, heavy drinking and prolifically fertile neighbours who purchase ample volumes of spirits, abhor books but are easily influenced by television advertising and direct marketing.

This latter characteristic suggests that no-one has a job and stays around at home or otherwise frequents the Beer-Off.  Luddites look like geeks on the grounds that my colleagues neighbours and friends have a poor "take-up" of technological innovations, little experience of the internet and mainly watch Sky Satellite channels.

This enforced profile hardly indicates any potential for leisure time but the postcode grouping has the residents going to watch football matches, playing bingo, gambling, betting and have no apparent regard for fitness and cultural activities. This is surprising given the proceeding fact that car ownership is extremely low so by definition everyone indulges in the extremely healthy activity of walking everywhere or running for the bus.

Hand in hand with their derelict houses are wasteland gardens in which it is summised that very few have the inclination to invest in them apart from huge structures for aviaries.

DIY is apparently a necessity and is not at all a subject of enjoyment.

Is there in fact time for holidays within this existence? These are profiled as mainly in the UK and in holiday camps or a caravan. A throw away line in the continued assassination of the good families of this specific postcode  is beyond contempt in "As one would expect, charity begins at home for this group".

To those of a nervous disposition living in this particular postcode do you immediately go out and buy a burglar alarm, barbed wire and an attack dog? Do you dare look your fellow residents in the eyes again or give them the time of day or a cup of sugar? Rather than chat on occasion over the garden fence do you now patrol it and record events on a CCTV?

To those responsible for this type of social profiling I would urge them to abandon their almost religious devotion to statistics and actually go and visit real people. They will be surprised and refreshed by what they see.