I’m very proud to say that an article I wrote about statistics and the human brain has made its way into The Best Writing on Mathematics 2017 from Princeton University Press. It’s a piece I did for the Royal Statistical Society’s magazine Significance about how the human brain judges probability – specifically whether or not we’re programmed to ...
Andreas Georgiou is the man who cleaned up Greece’s discredited economic data and produced the first statistics in years that anyone could rely on. That’s if you ask statistical bodies across Europe and around the world. To the Greek authorities, he’s a criminal who violated his duty to the country. I had the privilege of ...
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is nearly upon us, and it’s as bonkers and exciting as ever. Here are my top 10 reasons why it’s so great. 1. The showmanship Every year the bar for craziness at Eurovision gets set higher. A man trapped upside down in a glass box. A pair of identical twins with their ...
Photoshop is one of the world’s most successful trademarks. How do we know? Because it’s one of a tiny number that have received a very special honour: they’ve been verbed. Only a select few trademarks become verbs. You can google stuff, you can hoover your floor (at least you can in Britain), and there was a ...
What was the last film you saw that told an original story based on original characters? Genuinely new films are getting rarer and rarer. In 1995, only three of the 10 highest-grossing films were sequels – several others were based on novels or TV series, but were new to the movies. In 2005, six of the 10 biggest films were sequels, prequels, ...
This desk, acquired and assembled by my other half as a birthday present, is testament to the fact that I’ve finally gone freelance! After a decade working in-house for various publications, I handed in my notice this summer and am, as of now, a self-employed writer and editor, working mostly from this very desk. To ...
This piece by Timothy Egan in the New York Times explores how the US public understands the term “socialist”. His point is that, while the word “socialist” may terrify people, actual socialist policies, don’t. To me it seems that part of this is because Americans tend to equate “socialist” with “communist”, whereas over here in Europe we ...
As a non-fan, I find the world of football strangely fascinating. Not the game itself, I mean – that bit’s dull as ditchwater – but the whole world of football and how it works (or perhaps how it doesn’t work). Y’know: the hilarious Fifa circus, the endless hoo-hah over transfers, the annual outrage at the price of the new ...
How many times can you win in one situation? We’ve all heard of win-win situations – but now we’re seeing the rise of win-win-win situations. The image this conjures up for me is of a Mexican standoff being resolved amicably, with everyone putting down their guns, learning an important lesson about life and sitting down together to share some ...
In his latest effort to ingratiate himself to the population, that lovable rascal Michael Gove has been sending memos round his new ministry telling everybody how to write. Included in Gove’s list of pet language peeves which staff at the Ministry of Justice will henceforth have their wrists slapped for using in official correspondence, is the ...
