If you find everyone else boring you only have yourself to blame

Birdwatchers, church-goers and TV addicts are considered dull, according to new research. But this is stereotyping - let's embrace the mundane

A new study has supposedly pinpointed the most boring people alive: birdwatchers, accountants, data analysts and everyone who works in insurance. (What, no trainspotters? A major oversight.) The University of Essex research lists the most boring hobbies as going to church, watching TV and animal observation". All these things were judged to be worse even than stamp-collecting.

Of course, when you undertake this kind of research, you also have to find the opposite types. So the study lists actors, scientists, journalists (and in particular science journalists") as the least boring" professions. The research, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, was conducted by Wijnand van Tilburg, Eric Igou and Mehr Panjwani, all possessing refreshingly unboring names and presumably blessed with many science journalist friends.