Tag Archives: Statistics
250,000 cigars
In his book The Churchill Factor, Boris Johnson makes the apodictic claim that Winston Churchill smoked 250,000 cigars over his lifetime. This number looks too much like it has been pulled out of Mr Churchill’s famous hat. Let’s apply some … Continue reading
Ted Cruz on Gun Violence
You missed the news about the latest mass shooting ? Don’t worry, there will be another one this week. The only good thing about this high number of killings is that it provides a lot of data. We can compare … Continue reading
Is Cluj-Napoca the cleanest city in Europe?
And another record for Romania! The city with the cleanest air in Europe is Cluj-Napoca. That’s at least what the French “Association Nationale pour la Préservation et l’Amélioration de la Qualité de l’Air” proclaimed. But they only examined the air quality of the 100 largest … Continue reading
The Truth about Divorce Statistics
There are plenty of figures, numbers and statistics about marriage and divorce, some of them even more conflicting than an arguing couple. To know the truth, you only need to know these two statistics about divorce: The divorce rate would … Continue reading
But apart from this minor detail, the NHS is the best health service in the world.
A report by the Commonwealth Fund which compared the health systems of 11 countries gave top marks to Britain’s tax-funded universal National Health Service. If only there wasn’t this tiny detail which dampens the jubilant mood just a bit:
Who Kills all the Old People?
I usually dismiss all conspiracy theories. I don’t believe in large groups of people getting together and controlling everything else, with nobody – except some blogger in his pyjamas – finding out about it. As someone who subscribes to the theory … Continue reading
Top 10 Ethical Travel Destinations? I doubt that.
I don’t know why people need lists with suggestions for travel destinations. Do people really sit at home without any idea and wait for “the top 10 travel destinations in 2015”, “the most underrated travel destinations this year” and “the … Continue reading
Child Poverty in Romania
The good news: In a statistic on child poverty, Romania is just one spot behind the USA, one of the richest countries in the world. That’s a remarkable achievement for a country which had to rebuild its economy from scratch after the … Continue reading
My Blog is a Millionaire
Four years ago, on a drab winter day, I was sitting in my room in Southwark, an unremarkable part of London, when I decided to set up this blog. I had already published many articles and several books Until then, I had only written … Continue reading
Sue me!
Being a blogger is dangerous. If you make fun of Al-Qaeda, you will be beheaded one day. If you write about Mexican drug cartels, they try to run you over. And then there are the constant cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits copyright or … Continue reading
The Happy Hermit 