Celebrate World Statistics Day!

By Lucy Heady 20 October 2010

Yes, that’s right, today’s the day. I’m sure it’s been in all of your calendars for months. Today, 20/10/2010, is World Statistics Day. Countries all over the world are celebrating this day. My two favourites are Greece that is releasing a special stamp, and Papua New Guinea that is introducing the World Statistics Day jingle.

Sadly, I think statistics might be getting a bit of a hard time today. They will be used to spell out the extent of the cuts to UK public services. They will not be painting a happy story. So here are some numbers that might cheer us up:

In the UK, crime fell by 5% between 2008 and 2009

In 1970 life expectancy at birth for men was 68.7 and 75 for women. In 2008 that had risen to 77.8 for men and 81.9 for women

London has more green parks than any other city of its size in the world

Despite the recession, pay is still going up (by 1.6% in the year to August 2010)

Hmmmm, I’m struggling here – if you know an uplifting statistic send one in so we can forget the doom and gloom and celebrate statistics!

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