Vital statistics revealed

 

I love statisticians. They have a certain way of looking at life and jumping at all sorts of conclusions. I remember a statistician friend of mine visiting our home and within minutes he was explaining what percentage of doors in houses open outwards and inwards, the average number of windows per house, and the size of gardens in relation to the size of the house.

He told me, "Did you know that 50% of people in Britain, that's almost half," he said, "do not care much for statistics!"

I counted myself with the other half.

When I worked in London I had to go to a statisticians' conference. It was for business and we discussed important things like inflation, deflation, and all sorts of sleep-inducing subjects. As we got in the conference centre we were given a fact-sheet detailing how many of the people there were male and female. The percentage of us which came from the finance sector as opposed to construction, manufacture, import/export, from the North or South, from the private sector or working for other industries and so on. It was illuminating if you put it on a bonfire. It's a pity they did not tell us what percentage of women there were blonde, and the name and telephone number of that pretty young lady sitting a few seats away from me.

What is it with statisticians always quoting figures on TV and radio which are of no real importance and can be disputed by another statistician anyway?

Did you know, for instance, that in the UK 13% of babies are conceived in IKEA beds? A figure I cannot believe since those shops are usually well-lit anyway.

Did you also know for example that 9 out of 5 people cannot do fractions?

Statisticians have discovered there's a direct relationship between the number of heartbeats a mouse has in a lifetime and its its size and weight. They then did the same with an elephant and found the relationship/ratio between the number of heartbeats and the size of the elephant to be the same as that of a mouse.

A mouse being small and fast-running has a very fast heart beat. He therefore uses his allotted number of heartbeats quickly and dies in a matter of a few months. The elephant on the other hand has a slower heartbeat per minute and lives much longer. The faster we use our heartbeats the shorter our life would be.

That's why it is good to be overweight and sit in front of a TV with a large pizza and a beer rather than waste our life in doing exercises.

 

And another important statistics: 70% of visitors to this Blog are new one's who have never been here before. That's good news, but also thanks to all you loyal readers who keep visiting me. Did you know if you all invited new people we'd have more people visiting here? Thanx.

Statistics and Grammar

I find it irritating how we tend to glorify ignorance on TV. Frequently, on British TV, we see so called comedians pretending, or possibly not, that they do not know maths, or even their native English grammar. And everybody laughs.

What example is that setting the younger generation who believe that education is not important, especially maths. Or expressing themselves in text speak on modern gadgets.

Mathematics is important to life. Especially statistics.

How else are people to know how many "friends" they have on social media and what percentage of these friends are personally known to them compared to those who have just clicked the friends icon on the website?

I like statistics. I use them to check how many readers I have on this blog and my other website. And how many readers are new or returning loyal readers like you just now. Thank you, by the way. I am very grateful.

Statistics can teach us a lot in life.

Did you know for example that 9 out of 5 people cannot do fractions?

And that one out of seven dwarfs is Grumpy?

Or that six out of seven dwarfs are not Happy?

Or that 50% of people do not understand percentages - that's almost half.

Or there is a 90% probability my wife would get angry if I put a red item in the washing machine - that's a 50/50 chance I guess, so let's try it and see!

You see ... statistics is or are important.

And so is grammar.

I remember when one day my English teacher said to me "Your grammar stinks!"

I was upset since my grandma always smelled of lavender.

I told my father what the teacher had said and he asked "Which grand-mother?"

He wrote a letter of complaint.

My teacher replied that she had never commented on, nor would she ever presume to comment on, my family's body odour!

On reading her letter my father gave me a clip round the ears and then wrote again to the teacher apologising for the misunderstanding.

On reading my father's letter the teacher gave me detention after school.

On the Saturday I went to Confession. Our church had an old fashioned confessional which was a wooden booth where the priest sat and the penitents would kneel on either side and confess through a small window.

I told the priest all that had happened. He said "Don't speak so loud I can smell your grandmother kneeling on my other side!" Although he did not specify which grandma he could smell.

Then he gave me an extra penance for speaking loudly and for drawing attention to old peoples' body odour. Which technically I had not done because it was not me who started all this; it was my English teacher who said "Your grammar stinks!"

I think the church got this whole question of confession and absolution wrong somehow. I got a penance for my teacher's sin!

Moral: So did Jesus.