Lauding and applauding key and essential workers from doctors and nurses to less high-profile professions such as pest controllers, midwives and sea merchants even politicians, who are depicted on the Top Trumps card by Boris Johnson we’ll forgive and there’s a nod to journalists too.
One of the four scoring sections in the new game is ‘Unsung Heroes’ .. and in that category it is the partners of key workers who come out top. They get a maximum 10 out of 10. Binmen and binwomen scored a point lower at nine out of ten. Less unsung heroes like doctors (8), nurses (8) and police (7) fare lower.
Claire Simon, from Top Trumps, says: “Every single front-line key worker is, of course, a heroine and hero and would each score 10 (or even 11) out of 10 by any reckoning if we had devised a Hero category. By creating an Unsung Heroes category we have ensured varying marks, in keeping with the game’s core classic and its unique and much-loved branding. From our research, which has been intensively conducted over six weeks, partners of key workers came out top in this section. There are an estimated one and a half million partners of key workers in Britain so that’s a lot of Unsung Heroes and Heroines.
Many of the public we spoke to pointed out that partners too are putting their lives on the line, albeit less directly. As well as being there physically they are providing emotional support. For that reason we listed partners as key workers.”
Other features of the pack include:
- Binmen and binwomen (binpeople?)being named as the most stylish of all the key and essential workers. That’s because of their fluorescent and neon clothing, which is all the fashion rage at the moment. They score 10 /10 on ‘Street Style and as they are also runners-up in the ‘Unsung Heroes’ section then they are very much the card not to bin during the game! In its card citation Top Trumps point out that refuse collectors first began their profession during the 14th Century Black Death that swept across Europe and add: “In terms of facing a pandemic, refuse collectors can rightly joke that ‘we’ve bin here before’ ”.
- Stuffy politicians score just 1/10 in the style section – with teachers not doing much better and obviously in need of extra fashion homework. They get just 2/10. Journalists only manage 5/10.
- Religious and spiritual workers are listed by Top Trumps as the very oldest profession of all the workers in the pack in an ‘Originated’ section. They are named as first appearing in 50,000 BC, which easily wins this category.
- Gadgets and gizmos winner is the journalist, which isn’t surprising bearing in mind the lightening media advances with Zoom and the like – since the start of the Pandemic. The profession with the least formal gadgets and gizmos includes mental health workers.
- One of the very best cards to hold in Top Trumps terms is the courier. That’s because it features very well in the Originated section: at 2400 BC. It also scores very highly in the Unsung Heroes category – notching up a nine out of ten. And in terms of gadgets and gizmos it is only shaded by journalists.
Top Trumps Britain at its Best: Key Workers is available priced £5 from Monday (4th May 2020) exclusively at: winningmoves.co.uk and comes in a twin deck (the other pack being Britain at its Best: Hospitals* see further below for some details on this pack).