A ground-breaking new personality test has just been released by that bastion of balanced and non-sensationalised news:

The Daily Mail Online

The personality test?

It’s based on how you butter your toast.

According to the test, the way you apply this creamy dairy product to a slice of golden brown bread can tell you a lot about your personality.

Take, for example, the Glider.

Gliders are those who gently glide their knife over their toast for an even buttery spread.  And if you’re a Glider, you’re easy-going, laid back, good at listening and on time for meetings.

Quite extraordinary.

Other buttering styles range from Total Coverage (means you’re precise and methodical) to Clumpers (iconoclasts), Curlers (perfectionists) and Double-Siders (flamboyant and indulgent).

Then there’s the Barely There spreaders, who use as little butter as possible (and are, apparently, “outdoorsy, go-getter types”).

Shall I tell you who else is Barely There?

The psychologist who put all this nonsense together. 

He must take Daily Mail readers for a bunch of mugs!

What will be next?

A test which tells you your dream job by examining how you boil your eggs?

A quiz which helps you find your future life partner by analysing your favourite chocolate bars?

The world’s gone bananas!

Anyway, on a more serious note I can’t help think that any personality test has a fundamental flaw.  Not just personality tests about toast.

See, I view personalities as random and arbitrary.  As a set of learnt behaviours we’ve take on early in life in order to stay safe or get ahead. 

In some respects, personalities are like shields we wear or carry round without realising.

But any personality test which reminds me about my shield – and re-enforces the idea that the shield is actually who I am – is, to my mind, an unhelpful red herring.

I don’t want to be reminded about the shield I’m wearing or the act I’m playing.

I’d rather get to know the Tom that lies underneath all that.

That’s it for today. 

 - Tom

p.s. What’s that?

You want to try the toast buttering personality test for yourself?

Pfffft.  Classic Glider behaviour!

Okay.  The link's below.  Don’t say I don’t look after you.

Just make sure that once you’re done, you hit reply and let me know which way your bread is buttered:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12639443/Psychologist-reveals-butter-toast-say-lot-glider-clumper-crust-avoider.html