.... people can read amazing things into numbers - especially when you throw in a chunk of media-speak ... I have this problem in that I've always loved numbers ... I may have only got a Grade 4 on "O" Level Maths back in '73 (blame Monday nights at the Top of the World in Stafford !) but as life went on, numbers became my friends .. my degree thesis/dissertation in 1982 was entitled "Unemployment Statistics - Complexity or Complicity ?" (and it was those 20,000 words that bumped up my degree !!!).
Anyway I ramble ...
"Tories hail European Advances" - share of vote up a gigantic 1% to 28.6% ...
BNP gain 2 seats - share of vote up 1.3% ...
Green Party vote up by 2.4% - no gains, same 2 seats ...
13.7% gets you 11 seats (LibDem) 8.6% gets you 2 seats (Green), 6.2% gets you 2 seats (BNP)
132,094 vote one way (get seat) - 127,133 vote another way (get nowt) [BNP v Green in the North West]
You sit (OK stand) there on the 0724 train thinking ... 200 peeps on this (overcrowded/slightly late) bugger ... so 12/13 of them voted BNP - but then you think ... 34% turnout .. so actually there are in fact a maximum of only 8 Fascists on this particular train (bet they've all got seats as well ...) - so it probably equates to the total number of "Sun" readers on the train as well (purely coincidental I'm sure !!!!)
OK Labour lost 6.9% of the vote - equating to - 5 seats - equating to 7% of the available seats ..... but apparently that's a complete disaster ...
But it's probably only me that looks at the numbers - everyone else reads a politically-sympathetic newspaper - and the gullible, and the paranoid, and the xenophobic and the trendy can believe/be duped accordingly
Stick me with guys/gals - read the Metro freebie - more bland than Bobby ...
Duped - I'm sure I am as well ...
...last word on this has to be thinking of UKIP - moaning about the fold in the (huge) voting paper which "hides" the party at the bottom .... Why not call yourselves the "Aardvark Party" (yes I thought about saying something else - tee hee ...) ...
Never mind - football (of sorts !) on Wednesday (and Andorra have NO SEATS in the Euro Parliament) ....
.
Barnsley 2-2 Reading
-
A church is striking nine bells on Sunday morning as I exit MSR Newsagents
on Front Street, in Arnold, after a four hour shift. I jump on the number
58,...
5 days ago
1 comment:
I love numbers too Mike but I failed the statistics module of my HND Business Studies course 30-odd years ago and I am convinced it was because I had an extract from "Readers Digest" on the front of my "Stats File." It said:-
'A statistician is someone who figures that with your head in a fridge and your feet in an oven, on average you'll be perfectly comfortable.' (The Statitics Lecturer took exception to it!)
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