DID you know that 77 per cent of people hope to be reincarnated as a dolphin?

Or that a staggering 83 per cent of Northern men would choose a night of beer, curry and chips over a date with Pamela Anderson?

Who says so? Well, surveys of course, those famously inaccurate insights into the collective mind.

The poll I like the best is the one which revealed that 100 per cent of all surveys are bobbins.

Dreamt up by marketing departments in a desperate attempt to tap the psyche of Joe Public, they ask a few people a few questions, multiply it by the square root of their expense account and then proclaim it as fact?

Luckily most people recognise most surveys to be a load of old cobblers but focus groups are the new buzz word and it's now on-line to ask a few people lots of questions to get a "deeper" understanding of not a lot.

The city council has bought into this world of spin and decided to bung around £9,000 to MORI to find out what local people really think about it and the services it provide.

And here, ladies and gentlemen is a summary of the published findings furnished to our staff. After thinking long and hard about the composition of the focus groups (which is vitally important for an accurate reading of the tea leaves) they decided elderly Skertonians, ABC's from the Lune Valley, sandgrown'uns with a shop and Lancaster's callow youth would best reflect life across the district.

A mixed bag certainly but what exactly did they have to say about the council?

"Unfortunately its reputation precedes it," said one Skerton C2DE (that's marketing speak for someone who won't be getting a Range Rover Discovery in their Christmas stocking this year)

Another of those pesky C2DEs said: "They are very good at giving us what we don't want" and yet another added: "There's nowhere for our kids to play. They hang about on street corners."

So far so good, the revelations are startling. But what about the focus group's more affluent members?

"Nobody seems committed to saying right we'll do this and then carrying on with it," said ABC1 from the Lune Valley.

Another added: "I never think about the city council, only when the rates come and the bin men."

Surely someone had something good to say?

Actually, there was one positive comment. Talking about town hall staff, a female ABC1 said: "The were extremely helpful. They gave me some extremely useful advice."

So, after all these shenanigans, what conclusions did the pollsters reach? Are you ready for this?

Basically, the council is regarded fairly negatively, people are concerned with bins, green spaces and play areas, they'd like better customer care and, finally, they'd like the council to listen. They also say that negative publicity should be countered - shoot the messenger again eh?

So are the findings reliable or can they be dismissed as another inaccurate survey?

I don't know but I do know that there's loads of local people who would have reached the same conclusions for the price of a pint and a packet of pork scratchings but then again it's only money!

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.