Statistics

Thursday

The Spectator

Who cleans skyscrapers?

From our UK edition

Tough at the top The clocks on Big Ben were cleaned by abseiling window-cleaners. Some other big cleaning/painting jobs: — Repainting the Forth Railway Bridge used to be a metaphor for never-ending work, but a new coating completed in 2012 is estimated to have a life of 25 years. — Sydney Harbour Bridge was, for the first 80 years of its life, cleaned by hand, but last year it was done for the first time by robot. — The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is cleaned by a team of abseilers, with all 24,000 windows taking three months to get through. — Most New York skyscrapers are cleaned by hand. The World Trade Center had an automated cleaner, but it could not cover the corners or upper windows. Two window cleaners were among the victims on 9/11.

Thursday

The Spectator

If you thought this World Cup was weird, take a look at Brazil 1950

From our UK edition

Old world Brazil has struggled to get ready for the World Cup, even though it hosted it before, in 1950. Some oddities of that tournament: — There was no final, as such. The winner was to be decided by a second group stage. But it came down to the last match, Brazil vs Uruguay, in which Brazil needed a draw and Uruguay a win. Uruguay won 2-1. — That match, at Rio do Janeiro’s Maracana stadium, still holds the record of the best-attended match in World Cup history, with 199,954 spectators. — Only 13 out of 16 teams who qualified turned up. Scotland could have gone but stuck to their manager’s promise that they would only attend if they beat England in qualifying. India withdrew supposedly because banned from playing barefoot.

Thursday

Thursday

The Spectator

Are pigeons braver than dogs?

From our UK edition

Animal spirit A labrador blown up with her handler while sniffing for bombs in Afghanistan in 2008 became the 64th animal to be awarded the PDSA's Dickin medal for 'gallantry' during wartime work. — Among the total are 29 dogs, yet they are outnumbered by the 32 pigeons who have won the medal, such as Gustav, for bringing home the first message from the Normandy beach landings in 1944. — Only three horses have been given the medal, and none of them were working in a war zone. Olga, for example, was given the award after bolting 100 yards from a flying bomb, before returning to the scene and helping police direct traffic and rescue operations. — One ship's cat has been given the medal, but there have been none for the cattle who have provided the bully beef.

Thursday

The Spectator

Do wars always start in years ending ‘14’?

From our UK edition

Years of war Imaginative souls have tried to compared the situation in Ukraine with that which preceded the first world war 100 years ago. Are years ending in 14 especially violent? — 1414 saw the Polish-Teutonic war, one of a dozen skirmishes between Poland and Teutonic knights between the 14th and 16th centuries. The war was noted for the efforts to starve opposing armies by razing crops. — 1714 saw the outbreak of the seventh Ottoman-Venetian War, which like the first world war lasted four years. It ended with Venice losing control of the Peloponnese. — 1814 saw the Swedish-Norwegian War, which resulted in Norway entering a union with Sweden.

Thursday

The Spectator

A successful obesity campaign? Fat chance

From our UK edition

Fat chances The National Obesity Forum said that Britain is reaching a ‘doomsday scenario’ where half the population is obese. What happened to previous government campaigns to tackle obesity? — Between 1997 and 2008 the percentage of men getting the government’s recommended level of physical exercise grew from 32 per cent to 39 per cent, and women from 21 per cent to 29 per cent. And yet over the same period the proportion of men who are overweight or obese grew from 62.2 per cent to 65.9 per cent and women from 52.5 per cent to 56.9 per cent. — In 2006 28 per cent of men and 32 per cent of women were eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer: Storm waves? It could be three times worse

From our UK edition

The test of a wave Waves measuring 27ft from peak to trough were seen off Land’s End as the stormy weather continued. How do these compare with the highest waves ever measured? — Waves of 67ft were measured by a buoy off the coast of Donegal in December 2011, the highest found around the British Isles. — The highest wave yet recorded during a storm was one of 91ft during Hurricane Ivan in August 2005. — A landslip in Lituya Bay, Alaska, on 9 July 1958 created a local tsunami which tore down trees 200ft above sea level. Water directly opposite the landslip site splashed to a height of 1,720ft, tearing down trees even at that height. Comparison shopping Retailers have begun to publish their sales figures for the pre-Christmas period.

Wednesday

Hans Rosling

Don’t panic! There’s no population bomb

From our UK edition

Our planet is now home to seven billion people, with ravenous appetites for fuel and food — and the number keeps growing. Do you panic when you think about the expansion of the human race? Yes, the world faces great challenges but it is possible to solve them, and some are in fact already being solved. I’m a statistician — but don’t stop reading. Because the latest demographic data show that the future may not be that gloomy, and that mankind is already doing better than many of us think. In 1800, the world’s population stood at barely one billion. But with the industrial revolution everything changed, and in little more than a hundred years, the population reached two billion and then, when I was at school, three billion. Now we are seven billion.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer: Spain’s own version of Gibraltar

From our UK edition

Other people’s rocks Spain threatened to introduce a €40 border-crossing charge and find other ways of making life difficult for people of Gibraltar. A reminder of some Spanish colonial possessions: Ceuta North African city captured by the Portuguese in 1415. Sided with Spain when Portugal became an independent country again in 1640. Despite claims by Morocco, Spain affirmed its intention to keep it when King Juan Carlos visited in 2007. Melilla Along the coast from Ceuta.  Seized by Spain in 1497. Uprising of local African population suppressed. King Juan Carlos visited in 2007, ignoring Moroccan protests. Penon de Alhucemas Fortified skerry off Morocco. Given to Spain in 1559 by the Muley Abdala el Gabib in return for help fighting the Ottoman empire.

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Why aren’t more people unemployed?

From our UK edition

An unfamiliar noise floats over the town; an insistent, one-note metallic drone. Tracked to its source, it turns out to come from a sawmill in a hidden wooded valley a quarter of a mile from my house. Abandoned for the past year, the mill has suddenly come back to life. It is emitting great plumes of steam as well as a multi-decibel industrial racket. And men are working there — I can see only two or three, but still they constitute another little piece of the great employment puzzle. An uptick in demand for sawn timber matches reports of increased levels of activity in the construction and housebuilding sector.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Tory battle of the letters intensifies

From our UK edition

It's the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice this week, so perhaps it's the passionate letter from Darcy to Elizabeth that's inspired such an enthusiastic burst of letter-writing from Conservative MPs complaining about stories in the press today. Earlier, we had Jake Berry complaining to the BBC, and now there are more. Sadly, the latest missives I've got hold of from Harriett Baldwin don't contain declarations of love, or any insults for the recipient's mother: instead, Baldwin is angry about an article by Ed Miliband in today's Sun. Plugging his party's policy for every big firm receiving a government contract to train young people, the Labour leader writes: 'Among the major European countries, we are in the relegation zone when it comes to youth unemployment.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron rebuked by statistics chief over PMQs comments

From our UK edition

David Cameron's taunt at Ed Miliband yesterday during Prime Minister's questions that the 'good news will keep coming' was taken by some as a hint at today's GDP figures, which the PM has early access to. Now the chair of the UK Statistics Authority Andrew Dilnot has written to Cameron to rebuke him for the line. The letter, which you can read in full here, says: 'The Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008 states that recipients of pre-release access must not disclose 'any suggestion of the size or direction of any trend' indicated by the statistic to which the recipient has been given such access. It is clear from media reports that although this may not have been your intent, your remarks were indeed widely interpreted as providing an indication about the GDP figures.

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

The illusion of economic recovery

From our UK edition

GDP per head is still 7 per cent below its pre-recession peak. That's one of the sober reminders of the weakness of our recovery in a new ONS report, released as part of its National Well-being project. In fact, GDP per head fell by 7 per cent from 2008 Q1 to the recession's trough in 2009 Q2 — and has recovered by 0.0 per cent since. That is, the 2.4 per cent recovery in GDP up to 2012 Q2 (which still leaves us 4.1 per cent below our pre-recession level) has not been enough to outweigh population growth. The GDP index has risen, but only thanks to Britain's ever-rising headcount. When it comes to GDP per capita, there has literally been no recovery at all.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Drop in workless households suggests welfare reform could be starting to work

From our UK edition

Could we be starting to see the first fruits of the coalition's welfare reforms? The Office for National Statistics reported today that the number of workless households has fallen for the second year running. It found that just under 18 per cent of households have no adults in work, a fall of 0.8 percentage points from last year. Between April and June 2012 there were 3.7 million households in the UK where no-one was working, down 153,000. Garyling and his colleague in the Work and Pensions department Iain Duncan Smith will also be buoyed by the news that the number of households where no adult has ever worked also fell by 26,000 from last year to 265,000. The overall number including student households is now 340,000: a fall of 22,000 on last year.

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Britain: the country of Mohammed

From our UK edition

With apologies to his Royal Highness, the most popular boy’s name isn’t Harry -  in spite of what you will have read in the papers this week. It’s Mohammed, under various spellings. The Guardian hasn’t even worked this out, in spite of its pretty data table. Table 6 on the ONS results shows: some 8,018 baby Mohammeds came kicking and screaming into the world last year, well clear of Harry (7,523) and Oliver (7,007) Harry had his turn, and John was the most popular name for decades. We are now living in the age of Mohammed, a name that has been growing (on average) for 5 per cent a year. Here’s the trajectory. Does this matter? Not to me.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Immigration and the cost of living

From our UK edition

The average disposable income is at its lowest point since 2003, according to figures released this afternoon by the Office for National Statistics. The statistics for the first quarter of this year show that take home income was an average of £273 a week, while real incomes per head fell by 0.6 per cent to £4,444 in Q1, which is the lowest since 2005. The ONS points to rising prices as the primary cause of these falls, and there are obvious points to be made here about the cost of living. It's currently one of the major reasons voters are giving for turning away from the Conservative party, and Labour's Chris Leslie has already used the ONS' stats to attack the government's tax and benefits policies.

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

Measuring well-being: a tough but important job

From our UK edition

'If you treasure it, measure it.' So Gus O'Donnell said when addressing the All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics in November. Well, the government has decided it treasures our well-being, and so is determined to measure it. It's an incredibly tricky task — as I've noted before — but it's a significant step forward that the Office for National Statistics has at least begun to try, and has finally started collecting a wealth of well-being data. In April, the ONS began asking people four questions to measure their subjective well-being on a scale of one to ten: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile? Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?

Monday

Fraser Nelson

7 billion and onwards

From our UK edition

Today, if the United Nations is to be believed, the world population will reach seven billion. Almost as many words have already been written about the perils of a booming population, about how humans are bad for the environment and how — if current trends are extrapolated — the entire Western world will end up with the population density of Hamleys on Christmas Eve. In fact, mankind does not quite behave like this. As we grow richer, we tend to breed less. Look closely at the UN data and it shows that fertility is already below the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman in several countries. Extrapolate the UN’s medium-case estimates and you can find that the world population will peak (at ten billion) at the end of this century.

Saturday

The Spectator

Barometer | 15 January 2011

From our UK edition

A collector’s item — The Lord Chamberlain ruled that there would be no official commemorative tea towel for the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton. Some manufacturers are going to produce them regardless. But will they be a good investment? Consider the four Charles and Diana tea towels were for sale on eBay last week. — An unopened teatowel with illuminated gothic script but no picture had attracted one bid for £3, with eight days’ bidding left. — A used teatowel featuring the faces of Charles and Diana had attracted a bid for £5 with four days to go. — Two more, both unused and unopened, had yet to see a bid at starting prices of £5.

Saturday

The Spectator

Barometer | 8 January 2011

From our UK edition

Prison regimes A riot at Ford Open Prison in Sussex raised questions as to the regime in jails. This is some of what prisoners can expect: — Category A (Whitemoor, Cambs): work opportunities in recycling, laundry and restoring computers for schools in Africa. Courses in thinking skills and anger management. Gym, sports hall and Astroturf. Prisoners may apply for two PE sessions within a working week, one in the evening and two at the weekends. Acupuncture for staff and prisoners. Visits Thur-Mon 1400-1600, must be booked 24 hours in advance. — Category B (Wandsworth): courses include bricklaying/plastering, industrial cleaning. Multi-choice pre-select menu with halal and vegetarian options. Visits every morning and afternoon.