Reader Tom Williams is a 24-year-old personal trainer from London and has been a panellist on Urban Life – Metro’s survey of 4,000 readers – for several years. He is one of the few men who, when interviewed, picked all the components of the ‘perfect female face’ correctly – a story that featured on Metro’s news pages in November.
“I got involved with Urban Life because it sounded like an interesting opportunity to get my views across. There aren’t too many opportunities to feel that something you say might be read.
You often see things like adverts that are backed up by surveys of various people, and you wonder where they get the information from. So, it’s good to get involved in that kind of thing yourself.
A lot of it is about the kinds of things that affect most city dwellers, like travel, shopping habits – things I find quite relevant to me.
I thought the ‘perfect face’ story Metro ran last year was an interesting one. It was odd to see the picture.
Of course, I don’t really think there is any such thing as a ‘perfect face’ – it’s better to have a mix of nice features and then the flaws and differences that make each person unique. But I enjoyed taking part in it.
I didn’t realise my choices ended up being in sync with what people picked as the ‘perfect face’ [Penelope Cruz’s hair, Liv Tyler’s eyes, Sienna Miller’s nose, Scarlett Johansson’s mouth and chin] – it was just personal preference really.
I wasn’t thinking about what everyone else would like – it was what I find attractive or appealing. They’re all pretty hot chicks.
I enjoy doing the surveys – it’s a nice distraction from work. I see it more as helping out and swapping opinions and information. I don’t think I’ve filled out the rants section… or maybe just once.
It’s great that you have contact with a newspaper’s Editor. That really helps. You feel that your views will get across.
Other times, you might send off an e-mail to a website and it’s a bit anonymous and you don’t know whether it really will get dealt with.
But if it goes directly to the Editor, you think they are going to read it and take on board your feedback and opinions.
It’s also nice that the surveys are fairly infrequent. If it was every week you’d maybe get a bit sick of it and wouldn’t put any thought into your answers.
But because it’s only every now and then, you actually do read it and put some thought into it. They pop up and you think: ‘I’ll spend 15 minutes at the end of my day doing that.’
It feels quite nice to be able to help make the news stories. It catches your eye a bit more in the paper when you feel you contributed to it a little. There might be a strapline with the story that says ’50 per cent of Metro readers said blah…’ and you think: ‘Ah, that’s me they’re talking about.’
The fall and rise and fall of GBSo you wait ten years to become Prime Minister and then you’re down, up and down again quicker than Derby County.
Or that’s what Metro’s Urban Life panel thinks of Gordon Brown. The premier’s stock with the young professionals who take part in our survey was riding high before he took office, it then fell as Tony Blair’s last days gave a boost to Tory leader David Cameron before Brown bounced back when he first took over.
Since then though, the government has had a torrid time with the ‘will-he/won’t he’ election, lost CDs jammed with the personal information of crucial voters and a scandal over party funding.
In the meantime, David Cameron’s ‘likeability’ beats the Prime Minister’s by three to one and in the ‘funny’ stakes by a similar amount according to the poll.
In fact, Mr Brown’s ‘business-like’ manner was the only major phrase where he scored higher than his Conservative counterpart.
But how will Gordon Brown fare in the opinion of Urbanites in 2008?
So, what is it all about?Urban Life is Metro’s award-winning study of urbanites – young, full-time working professionals across 16 British cities.
Each year we recruit 4,000 Metro readers to gauge their views on current affairs and to understand our readers better in terms of their attitudes, opinions, lifestyle and behaviour.
What’s involved?There are seven main surveys (one in February and then one every six weeks) and they take around 15 minutes to complete.
All surveys are online and you can do them at a time that suits – as long as the survey is still open.
What do I get?The chance to:- Fuel Metro’s news pages – we printed more than a dozen Urban Life stories last year- Win a share of £60,000 worth of prizes-nLiaise directly with Metro’s Editor, Kenny Campbell
For more details and to sign up, visit www.myurbanlife.com but be quick… spaces go fast
