A thing happened today. A while ago, I signed a petition or something about a particular advert which essentially amounted to a lie and a fairly disturbing bit of fear-mongering, by the 'No to AV' Campaign. I'm someone who will vote Yes in May. If the country rejects AV in May, fine. But it would be nice to know it happened because of reasoned choices.

Anyway, at the time, I listed my profession as 'Academic'. I don't really ever know what to put. I'm a Research Fellow, officially, but the word 'Fellow' always sounds ridiculous when I go to say it and I balk, often simply calling myself a Research Fff. Something vague like 'I'm in research' or 'I do research' sometimes works in conversation, but in form-filling might be taken as a learning disability. (Name: My name is Craig. Age: My age is 27. Address: I live in a flat with a blue door. I keep all my secret things there. Ssshhh.). Basically, it's all linked to a guilt that I don't do a proper job with stone and grime and lathes, and no matter how much I want to call myself a 'fact welder' or a 'hypothesis foreman', there's no escaping this. 'Academic' sounds flouncy and pretentious, but I went with it on this occassion.

Which brings us to today, when I received an email asking whether, as an academic, I would add my name to a open letter type thing, urging people to vote Yes. This troubled me. Yes, I'm kind of an academic broadly, but I'm an economist more specifically. I have absolutely no academic credentials which should give me a voice of authority here. It would be like me signing a letter, as an academic, in support of stem cell research or tougher regulation on carbon emissions or the legal case for war. In all those cases, I have an opinion which I could argue for. But it's really just me (Craig, 27, yachtsman).

But tell me this, kind reader: am I being overly precious? Or is this kind of thing just as manipulative as a bad advert?