Occupation: Standing in the middle of Hong Kong's busiest pavement handing out pieces of paper that within 20 yards or so (depending on the recipient's reading skills) will end up littering the ground.

Contractural niceties: These people are hired on an hourly basis and, one suspects, are given bonuses based on the distance their handouts manage to make it before they are crumpled up and tossed in bins, or more commonly, on the ground.

Uniform: Outlet chic.

Favoured locations: 1. Immediately outside MTR exits (punters emerge blinking into the light and without time to think automatically accept the paper forced up on them). 2. On busy street corners (again the ambush tactic works wonders).

Favoured literature: Language schools must be the biggest fans of the mass handout. Then you have business schools and even that hideous chain of karaoke hutches.

Alternative handouts: Cheap samples of products like 2-in 1 shampoo conditioners. A while back, one company even gave out free sanitary napkins. You can imagine the number of raised eyebrows among Hong Kong's non-heavy-flow males who received just such a handout from an operative with less-than-perfect vision.

What they're not selling: An environmental message. It seems extraordinary that nothing has ever been done about this form of marketing which surely must have a retention rate of something like one in one hundred. Mind you, Hong Kong seems perfectly happy to hire armies to old folk to keep the streets clean ... all in the name of artifical employment, you see.

Closely related to: The Flag Day girls. These cuties show a far greater depth of commitment to the cause. Not for them a hand stuck out blindly while picking their nose. Instead, they work in packs, pounce on hungover Saturday morning people and badger them into parting with money.

Alternative employment options: 1. These people are also well suited to jobs working on Hong Kong's many 'census' operations. These generally involve a similar degree of personal commitment and accuracy.

2. Involvement in Hong Kong's electoral system. Given recent developments prompted by Beijing, the next step on the way toward our legislature will probably involve the Handout Team taking up their usual positions having been given sheets of paper on which is written. 'By the way, compatriots, this is who you've just voted for.' You never know, it may even have a bit written in very, very small type at the bottom saying 'penalty for littering is death'.