For most, the thought of reading about the day-to-day workings of Civil Service meetings, sorting offices and school classrooms would inspire only dread. Yet a host of bloggers have managed to become hugely popular by dishing the dirt on their chosen professions through candid and controversial anonymous posts about the daily grind.

Some offer small insights behind the news headlines. According to “Roy Mayall”, a postman taking part in the postal strikes, for instance, picket lines are being crossed not for political ideals, but for hot drinks: “We had a spy on the inside who was popping out every so often bringing us regular updates. Apparently they’d opened up the vending machine and were getting free teas and coffees.” Others provide us with parallels of our own workplace frustrations. Updates from “Duty Sgt” on his life of crime prevention include tales of unnecessary callouts — such as the man who reported a “kidnapping”, his ex-wife’s seizure of a cuddly toy — while a teacher, “Frank Chalk”, “cheerfully pleads guilty to locking at least half a dozen pupils in cupboards for being a damned nuisance on various occasions”.

Not all the blogs are whimsical. Last month, The Magistrates’ Blog caused a storm after newspapers discovered a post revealing that convicts receiving a 28-day sentence would often get immediate release from custody. Elsewhere,care worker “Winston Smith 33” calls for parents who have children taken into care to be sterilised and “Mental Nurse” gets to grips with striking in a recession.

While many of the blogs are fascinating, there is no guarantee that they are real. And since many of those who do work in the professions that they claim to would face disciplinary action were they to be discovered, the facts they impart are stretched so far as to become unrecognisable. “If you think that you can identify a particular case from one of the posts you are wrong,” says The Magistrates’ Blog. “Enough facts are changed to preserve the truth of the tale but disguise its exact source.”

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