The Daily Telegraph's total lack of numeracy is an embarrassment and national disgrace.

Here's a screen grab of a headline in today's Telegraph:

The headline reads: "Pound drops as figures reveal 'unsustainable' current account  deficit.

Yes, that deficit is a national disgrace, given it's a Conservative Chancellor who  has failed abysmally at his task of reining it in. But this is not about the failure of our political class to get a grip on events.It's about our media and its failure to handle the most elementary numerical data, providing textbook examples day in, day out, of how NOT to present and interpret statistical data.

So how much has the pound dropped as a consequence of Chancellor Osborne's lax management of the nation's finances? How does it compare with the 50% drop in the value of the Russian rouble against the dollar this last year (yup, 50% no less)? Is it 5%? Or a mere 1%?  Read on, and prepare to be underwhelmed.

Here's the key sentence in the article under that headline:

The sentence (highlighted in my yellow) reads:   "The news sent the pound down to $1.555, having opened at $1.559".

Visual aid?  Just in case the reader is incapable of visualizing a decrease of 4 parts per 1559...  stand by for a truly cretinous graph (with  apologies  to cretins everywhere, most of whom are probably streets ahead in cognitive skills relative to the Telegraph's financial journalists and sub-editors):

Just look at the way that vertical y axis has been expanded, so as to run from 1.555 (minimum) to 1.561 (maximum) thereby magnifying tiny differences in exchange rate, fully within the range of day-to-day variation - being a change of just 0.257%.  I repeat: a mere 0.257%. That's about one quarter of one percent.

Look too at the time scale, running from 22 December (yesterday!) to 23 December (today). What an abortion! What a total travesty of statistics.

Just a one-off? Just a momentary lapse on the part of the Telegraph?  Nope. A more egregious example certainly, but in no way atypical. This kind of mindless treatment of numerical data has been appearing on the Telegraph with ever-more growing frequency over the last year or so.  Why? Are its journalists and sub-editors really so innumerate?  Maybe, maybe not. What seems probable is that any kind of sloppiness is tolerated in the interests of click-bait journalism. That's despite the fact the the Telegraph is now behind a paywall, at least after the first 20 free clicks. That's not all. It's one of those sites that freezes one's laptop for a minute or more while it retrieves data on one's internet activity via its cookies. Shoddy and disreputable. They do it because it's technically possible. Never mind right and wrong.

2015 may well be the year when this blogger waves goodbye to the UK's more obnoxious MSM sites, the Telegraph especially, and returns to reading books.


Postscript: Here's a screen shot of tomorrow's Telegraph, courtesy of Sky News:

There's a new headline, lower left:

It reads: "Christmas holiday makers suffer as pound takes another dive."

Garbage. The pound has been in gentle decline against the US dollar for many months. Nothing exceptional or newsworthy has happened in the last 24 hours.

Here's the BBC's chart showing sterling's decline against the dollar over the last 3 months:

Repeat: nothing exceptional has happened recently.

Update, Wed, 24th December

Have just spotted this comment under the article - from a kindred spirit.

FreddieTCapitalist    

 

 

To be fair, it's just a badly researched article trying to make something out of nothing e.g. a large scaled graph showing nothing more than a daily exchange rate fluctuation (no different to any other day), a revision which is actually quite small and de-emphasising the growth forecast for the current period which remains unchanged. Only the DT can make a story out of pretty much nothing. It was a slow news day...
That said, Osborne is incompetent and a magnificent liar.

Update: Saturday 3rd January 2015

Despite stern admonitions from your blogger, the Telegraph continues to hype modest changes in currency exchange rates. This time it's sterling against the lame-duck euro, which is currently its lead story no less:

Yup, "Holiday Windfall" it reads, for we Brits as value of euro slides.


In fact, the exchange rate has improved over the last 12 months (as sterling has declined against the dollar over the same period), but only by 5%, hardly worth writing home about on one's holiday postcard from Spain (with its 50% youth unemployment rate) or Greece (an economic basket case if ever there was).

Click to ENLARGE

Cheap holiday? It's not 5% here or there that makes a holiday cheap. It's going to the budget airline sites, clicking on the cheapest destinations for one's chosen dates, availing oneself of any cut price deals on hotel accommodation and car hire, eating one's main meal at midday instead of evening etc etc.  But then everyone knows that, or should do, with the exception it seems of the DT's financial journalists who unwisely attempt to combine that role with self-appointed "consumer advisor".


Update: Feb 21

Have just posted this to Colin Randall's Salut! site. Yup, the DT's Finance staff  continue to trash simple arithmetic, simply for the sake of a click-bait headline.

ColinB said... 

The exchange rate of the Danish krone against the euro has moved from 7.445 to 7.465 approx in the last 24 hours. According to the FT's Finance department, the value of the euro has "soared" against the krone, and just in case you have doubts on that score, we have been given a graph to prove it in a current front page article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11425226/Denmark-could-impose-capital-controls-to-protect-currency.html

The graph has an expanded scale, needless to say, which magnifies the tiniest change.

This gross arithmetical illiteracy is not an isolated occasion. Precisely the same mistake in reading tiny shifts in exchange rates was made just before Christmas, when commenting on dollar-sterling exchange rates, one I felt obliged to headline on my own site, despite it being ostensibly a science blog. Google Telegraph lack numeracy Dec 23 2014 and ye shall find.

This is appalling! The DT's so-called Finance journalists are making a laughing stock of us all, based as they are in what is supposed to be the world's major finance centre.

Reply February 21, 2015 at 08:24 AM

Further update: I'm not the only one to have noticed the gaffe.

But why bother commenting on the DT site?  With few exceptions, the DT's staff writers never look 'below the line'. If they did, these kinds of errors might not be happening with such monotonous regularity.

Talking Energy - an individual perspective

Today's the day when the Telegraph launches its "Talking Energy" feature in association with E.on, the energy supplier.

 One is invited to join the debate . Four of us bloggers are each given individual "home pages" on the website:    Christina O, SabinaA, the recently-arrived Robert  and myself.)

Whether, in the case of E.on,  one calls it a public consultation exercise or a PR campaign, does not worry this blogger unduly. Given the way that the AGW debate has been politicized and polarized, any new forum is to be welcomed if it allows the voice of reason and real science to be heard without all the personal aggro.

So this blogger  has signed up,  asking that any new forum be proactively moderated.  I suggested in an email that it could usefully take a leaf  from New Scientist about how to moderate.  (For example, the NS has no time or patience for those persistent conspiracy theorists who clutter up its comments, and a good thing too.)

"Reactive moderation", as one sees on My.Telegraph,  may be cost-effective, but it degenerates quickly into unseemly dogfights, ending with entire posts and comments - good as well as bad -  being deleted by the tardy moderators.

I received an electronic galley proof of the Telegraph/Eon opening gambit, scheduled for later today tomorrow, and submitted my 600 words yesterday, along with mugshot and bio' as requested. One waits with bated breath (more commonly rendered these days as "baited breath",  with visions of mouse traps and  Cheddar cheese*).

 I'm  not giving any secrets away by telling you that the central message of the exercise is that energy companies like E.on are confronted with what they call a "trilemma".  (A parallel campaign on YouTube   whence came my graphics is already underway with that questionable t-word neologism in prominence). The trilemma refers to so-called "conflicting" demands that future energy supplies be:  1. Green (low-carbon) 2.  Affordable and 3.  Reliable. 

Well,  one could be pedantic  and say there's nothing conflicting there - they are merely three desirable criteria that need to be met simultaneously.  Otherwise our lives would be burdened with trilemma, like where to live (it's got to be a nice area, affordable, handy for public transport).

Rather than nitpick, this blogger decided to focus on renewable energy, and how it might be made more reliable, given fluctuations in wind speed affecting turbine output etc.  Clue:  Dinorwig.

I'll let the Telegraph publish  first, then wait a day or two.

Watch this space!


* Cruel Clever Cat by Geoffrey Taylor:

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

 This little ditty first appeared  in an anthology called Catscript, edited by Marie Angel.  However, it was first published in 1933 in a limited edition of Geoffrey Taylor’s poems entitled A Dash of Garlic.


Additional  reading  E.on powers down to cut carbon and costs 

Interesting to see the spotlight being put on our PCs - and rightly so, when you consider the heat that comes - not just from the laptop itself, but the charger too.


Energy-saving tip: when using one's laptop, switch off a light or other appliance that would normally be on, if it's superfluous to requirements when you are online.


Update:  Thur 5th November: Here's a C&P of my first post on the E.on site.  Having been up for a few days now,  it would not seem a terrible breach of protocol to add it here for archival purposes:


Who can doubt that the future lies with renewable energy, and that we Brits are blessed with the stuff – existing or yet-to-be-realized.
First, there are those wind turbines – not the stuff of Wordsworthian rapture I grant you - but they are increasingly being sited offshore.

 

Then there’s solar energy, with a choice of two panels for your roof – the older thermal, or the state-of-the-art PV panels that can feed the electricity you don’t use into the National Grid.
And there’s wave power – which is a kind of secondhand solar power, recalling that weather and wind are due to unequal heating of the Earth’s surface.

And there’s even the dear old man in the moon, not wishing to be outshone by his flashy big brother, who contributes the prospect of tidal power. Just wait until we have a hydroelectric barrage across the Severn Estuary, supplying maybe as much as 10 per cent (?) of our power supply. (Yes, there are downsides, needless to say, to any big scheme, in terms of amenity, effect on wildlife, capital cost, the carbon-footprint of setting up etc. But let’s stick with the broad brush today.)

The problem with most of the renewable schemes is that the end-product – electricity, that energy-carrier par excellence – is generated at scattered locations across the country, supply may be intermittent, or supply may not match demand around the clock or calendar.

Is there a solution? Yes, there probably is, though it’s not always a panacea. One is talking about big money upfront, and, more to the point, big commitment.

But unless or until fusion power becomes a reality – which may take decades, centuries even – then there is no Plan B, assuming one is not a unbudgeable climate change denialist who thinks the world's scientists in their droves have abandoned all reason in condemning those fossil fuels.

So what is the solution? Simply go to the wiki page on Pumped Hydroelectric Storage, and it’s all there.
Britain already has 4 PHS stations – two in Scotland, two in Wales, and now needs a lot more in different shapes and sizes.

The principle is simple. One has two bodies of water – a lower and upper level. When there’s a surplus of electrical power, say from wind farms during the night, water is pumped from the lower to the upper level. When there’s extra demand, and the conventional stations are struggling to cope, water runs back through turbines, generating electricity.

It’s the closest one can get to “storing” electricity as the potential energy of a head of water. What’s more, the efficiency is surprisingly high – 80 per cent or more they claim in a well-designed system.

Do read the article, to see the new and imaginative ways of developing the principle. The Japanese have used the sea on Okinawa as one of the two levels, the other being a reservoir at the top of the headland.

The Danes have a plan that does not even need two levels – the water is simply pumped into a giant bladder which gradually plumps up, creating its own head. Sand is laid on top to get extra oomph.

My favourite is the salt-mine idea. We have lots of worked-out salt-mines in Cheshire and elsewhere. You pump water down into the old-workings, and site your upper reservoir on the surface. Yes, the water becomes brine, so all the equipment has to be corrosion-resistant. But there’s an upside too: once the water becomes saturated brine, it’s 20 per cent heavier than pure water, so becomes a more efficient energy-transfer medium.

What is it they say – where there’s a will, there’s a way!