2009 — 10 April: Friday (Good or otherwise)
Just after midnight. Tonight's picture of Christa is from our holiday in Cornwall, in September 1975. Glorious:
G'night.
Quiet?
Barely a sound from the motorway, so I presume everybody travelled yesterday or is sensibly staying put today. The promised torrential rain is (not) hammering down, either. It's 08:51 and a lovely bit of Handel (though "Semele" sounds a bit too much like "semolina") has just soothed the old ear drums. Time for tea and to stuff a crockpot. (A bit like "To kill a mockingbird".)
Stuffed, neatly in time to hear the final part of "Alice". It's a truly surreal masterpiece and will keep me occupied until my breakfast appetite revives. Meanwhile, it's actually begun to rain in that miserable "I'm settling in for the day, so deal with it" sort of way. Easter joy,1 heh?
I like the combination of humour and statistics, so this piece pleased me. Source and snippet:
A month ago I asked readers for examples of bogus statistics and numbers that had somehow become viral. I have to admit that this issue of bad stats has become something of an obsession for me,
not least because we seem to be having entire debates and advocating important policies on the basis of poor research...
A decade ago ... she had tried to make the calculation by asking about a third of the local organisations on her mailing list to estimate the number of
prostitutes in their area. Under half replied. The average of those that did was 665 sex workers, so Ms Kinnell multiplied by 120, producing a figure of 79,800.
"This method was extremely crude," wrote Ms Kinnell and was likely to be an overestimate. "Despite this," she added, "the figure of 80,000 is constantly cited as a fact, without any qualification,
often in the context of claims that the sex industry has expanded rapidly over the past ten years, often applied only to women and sometimes only to street sex workers."
Liked the comment that's given me a new quotation, too: Statistics are a lot like bikinis — what they show is important, but what they cover up is vital. Shades of Darrell Huff.
No yolks, please!
Not even about crunchy meat pies! Breakfast is nearly finished; soon be time for lunch at this rate. It's 11:43 already.
I must say...
... emails from three of my closest friends do a great deal to help keep a chap cheerful. So does a decent lunch, of course. Good grief, it's now 15:14 already. The weather really can't seem to make up its mind, but I don't mind; I'm wrapping some Jake Thackray round my ears as I resume scanning.
Actually phoned Carol in New York for a few words. And have just enjoyed re-watching "A Matter of Loaf and Death" — this time in full HD on the BBC satellite channel. On with the show. It's 21:15 and still no sign of that torrential rain. Just reaching the end of another folder, well into the letter "M". For a Friday, I must say this feels very like a Saturday.