Coffee House, distracting civil servants since 2007
Peter Hoskin and Jonathan Jones 12:46pm
A cracking, little story that we arrived at via the Daily Mail website: thanks to an FoI request put
in by the Taxpayers' Alliance, the Department for Transport has revealed which websites its staff visited on work
computers between January 1st and May 31st this year. The full list is here, and there are some eye-catching entries to
say the least. Take the role-play site bearsfaction.org.uk, where you are advised to "conduct yourself as a Bear would" — that got 183 hits
per day. Or the infamous sexymp.co.uk on 142 hits per day. Even the website of the website of Page 3 girl Claire Tully got 5 hits per day.
And there's more more, much more. The Department's sad cohort of Arsenal fans visits a trio of Gooner sites to the tune of 412 hits a day. A site for Classic Porsche enthusiasts reaches 268 hits per day, and one dedicated to American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd (of "Free Bird" fame) 65 hits per day. Transport officials also visit the blog of a Jonathan Tolhurst 20 times a day, perhaps to have a go at his "UK Coastline Quiz".
Oh, and this very website, Spectator.co.uk, was visited 169 times a day. So while we ought to urge the civil servants to get on with their jobs, we're actually grateful for the traffic. Hello, and thanks, to you all.
P.S. If you want to get steamed up about civil servants wasting time, then do read Freddy Gray's recent article on Whitehall's four-day week for The Spectator.
Previous
Pateroo
July 29th, 2011 1:24pm Report this commentI noticed after a quick scroll down to Bercow on sexymp.co.uk that he is listed as bi-curious - nice
Ian Walker
July 29th, 2011 1:29pm Report this commentPateroo - surely that's describing his political orientation?
Simon Mason
July 29th, 2011 1:45pm Report this commentNice one. But, my fav silly season story so far is the French killer seaweed.. Also in The Mail, of course
http://bit.ly/naBtnS
Michael
July 29th, 2011 2:57pm Report this comment'Gooner' Ah... so it's some kind of football fan is it? Ah well. I realised talking to someone the other day that I don't actually know how many people there are in a football team. I know rugger has 15, and cricket 11, because I had to play them at school, but football...
Axstane
July 29th, 2011 5:00pm Report this commentDisgusted to see that Cricinfo is only in 33rd place.
Boudicca
July 29th, 2011 6:04pm Report this commentI'm a civil servant. We're allowed to use the internet during our lunch periods although there are restrictions on the sites we may visit. This is covered by the Civil Servants Code and the Internet Policy.
I usually skim the Speccie and the Daily Telegraph during my lunch period. I don't comment because using Government equipment to voice political opinions may contravene said Civil Servants code.
YorkshireLad
July 29th, 2011 10:20pm Report this commentSexymp.co.uk infamouus? Never!
The best site to view top Tory totty anywhere on this interweb thing.
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