Tim Dowling: I’m taking stock of my life with cold, hard statistics

How many times has a fox triggering a security light caused me to ponder the meaningless of existence?

Sometimes when I speak in public – in a classroom setting, or at a literary event, or at the Ealing Civic Society’s annual building design awards presentation, someone will come up to me and say, “Is this going to be the subject of your next column?” I always say, “Possibly, if something goes really badly wrong!” But what I’m really thinking is: my version of events versus the recollection of 80 to 100 independent witnesses? Not likely. An argument with a squirrel – that I can write about.

Memory and perception can be famously poor mediators of reality. In this dark era of disinformation and fake news, I find it helpful to take stock of my life on an annual basis, reckoning with nothing but cold, hard numbers. These, then, are my personal statistics for the year 2018, using the very latest obtainable figures.

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from US news | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2VcVVdE