The survey said: Bahrain

Managed to indirectly donate £25 to Medecins Sans Frontieres after answering some survey questions on Middle East countries.

They contacted me through my Nantional Union of Journalists listing. Or was it the Journalist Directory?

The research was being carried out on behalf of the Kingdom of Bahrain, eager to gauge perception of their international standing compared to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates.

I don’t recall ever seeing a travel feature on Bahrain. My main impression of the kingdom is of oil and oil tankers – when I was six or seven a boy in my class at school moved to Bahrain when his dad got a job out there as a tanker captain. Oh, and they host a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Some of the questions were a little mundane. Statements included ‘Bahrain is a base of American and Allied forces’ specified answers ‘very important’, ‘quite important’, ‘not very important’, very unimportant’. Other questions asked were repeated for each of Bahrain’s neighbouring countries.

But I did learn some interesting facts: the country is inclusive of all religions, works hard on peace in the middle east and has an excellent human rights record.