Tony Blews

According to figures published by the Strategic Rail Authority for the financial year 2002/3, 773969 people began their rail journeys from Crewe Railway Station, yet only 763846 people ended journeys there. This represents a net de-population of 10123 people in one year alone, by train alone. This is as close to 10000 people as makes no odds to me.

In the April 2001 census, Crewe had a recorded population of 67683 people. If we’re being generous we can round this up to a guestimate of 70000 people by April 2003.

Given these figures we see that within seven years of April 2003, in other words April 2010, Crewe will become a desolate no-mans-land inhabited only by temporary, transient people on their way to elsewhere.

I was there today. Its happened already.

Statistics, apparently, can’t lie. Just like the camera never lies (according to Bucks Fizz and/or Elton John). However, just like Photoshop can remove unsightly warts and disgraced aides from a photograph, if you present statistics in the right way you can turn some slightly alarming news into something utterly terrifying to the masses.

The Sun (again) gives us this story about how the number of unemployed people has reached 2.4 million. In this story they present this graph:

To the casual observer who knows nothing about how to read a graph, this would appear to indicate that unemployment has grown threefold.

If we show this graph with a properly scaled y axis, things don’t look quite as bad:

Of course it is still a massive leap, but it doesn’t look so scary and thus won’t sell as many papers.

And as i’ve shamelessly violated one copyright today, I might as well go for two. So here are some Marillion lyrics:

…You call for justice and distort the truth
Well Ive had enough of all your pretty pretty speeches
Receive your punishment
Expose your throats to my righteous claws…

-Grendel, Marillion

Oh, and for the record, I only buy The Sun for the Alphapuzzle, the crossword, and to look for all the two-faced double standards and downright scaremongering bullshit.

Oh, and the free TV guide and Jeremy Clarkson’s column on Saturdays.