posted
I had the day off to do decorating yesterday, so the radio got a fair old listening to. I did enjoy Radio 4s "More Or Less" programme, which investigates the kind of numbers and statistics that get chucked around in the news.
Yesterday's programme included stuff like the BNP making a fuss about the 400,000 spoiled ballot papers in the mayoral election. This figure was accurate, but it turns out that papers were counted as being "spoiled" if the voter simply hadn't made a second choice. (Their first choice was counted, of course.)
They had a bit about that food waste scandal, which pointed out that they included stuff like potato peelings as food being thrown away.
But the interesting one was that statistic about how many CCTV cameras there are in the UK, and how we are the most closely monitored society in the World, or something.
It turns out that this fact comes from a survey in 2002 which involved someone counting all the CCTV cameras they could find in Putney High Street - in shops and on the street - and then working out how many people lived there and then working out how many people live in the UK and assuming they all had the same number of cameras in their street so they could work out how many CCTV cameras there are in the UK.
No one actually knows (or probably cares) how many CCTV cameras there are in the UK. There's none down my road anyway.
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posted
I'm just replying because it sounds like a really interesting programme. I just read this post out to Darryn and now he's sitting on the sofa ranting about his personal pet hate, which has nothing to do with statistics, but does have to do with the news and numbers, and it's that tendency news programmes now have to say things like "These two 80-year-olds, who between them have supported Chelsea for 160 years..." and "these 10 couples with 500 combined years of marriage between them..." It makes him so righteously angry and he's still ranting about it now.
And he's right. It's bullshit.
[ 13.05.2008, 15:49: Message edited by: Damon's Off ]
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