Statistics
Posted: Fri 10 October, 2014 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Media, News, Pedantry Leave a comment »On the news last night, there was a story about how rural roads are more dangerous/deadly than motorways (which just makes sense to me – of which more in a minute) and one of their illustrations of this was this road sign
This is supposedly a sign from “one of the more dangerous roads” – but 43 injuries in 3 years equates to 14 (point 3-recurring) deaths a year. That’s just over one a month. Not quite such a scary figure… The same goes with 4 deaths in three years – just over 1 a year.
I don’t know if my viewpoint is a rarity, but I look at a statistic like that, and tend to think “I’ll go with those odds”.
And now, about those stats in the first place…
The stats in the story are :
- 3 people a day die on rural roads
- That’s 11 times more deaths than on motorways
To me, that all makes sense, for a number of reasons – including…
- On motorways, people drive faster – but (in general) pay more attention when doing so. Sure, there’s still idiots – there’s idiots everywhere – but in general people are paying a bit more attention on motorways.
- People definitely pay less attention – and drive worse – on non-motorway roads.
- But also – on motorways, everyone’s going in the same direction. It’s *far* harder to have a head-on collision at speed on a motorway.
- The speeds are higher, but with everyone going in the same direction, it also reduces the relevant impact speed. A head-on is the sum of the two impact speeds – so two cars hitting head-on at 60mph is an impact speed of 120mph. Even if you’ve got someone at 70 on a motorway hitting a stationary vehicle, that’s an impact speed of 70.
- It’s not the same factor if you were to crash into someone ahead of you (for example) because they’re still going forward at 60-70mph anyway, so – as I understand it – if you’re going 70mph, and hit someone going at 60mph, the *impact* speed is 10mph – the difference, rather than the sum.
The other key factor is that I’m willing to bet that there’s one hell of a lot more miles of rural road in the UK than Motorway. In 2005, the DfT’s report said that the UK has 2,202 miles (3,523 km) of motorways. According to this document, the UK’s motorways account for 1% – ONE PERCENT – of the total road space/distance. So again, 11 times more deaths on roads that account for 99 times the road mileage.
All told, it’s just bad stats and shitty journalism
Publicity
Posted: Sun 21 September, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Hypocrisy, Media, News, Politics, Thoughts 1 Comment »Over the last few weeks, there’s been a whole load of stuff talked about IS (AKA Islamic State, Isal, or ISIS) – both stuff about hostages held by IS (and the killing thereof) as well as politicians saying how people who go to fight for IS in Syria and the like are just Wrong.
Maybe I’m missing something, but surely if you don’t want people to go and fight for IS etc., there’s a few things that could be done ?
- Don’t keep feeding them the oxygen of publicity. The more they’re mentioned, the more they’re talked about and covered in the media, the more they’ll be seen as an attractive option by those of a certain persuasion / defective nature.
- If you feel they have to be publicised, you do the same as happened to the IRA, where no spokesman was allowed to be broadcast, any statement was done by an actor’s voice, so on and so forth.
- And make sure you don’t show anything but disgust for them. Fuck impartiality, allow presenters etc. to show what they think. Make it clear, say “The terrorist organisation IS has done this, but that’s the most we’ll say about it”.
If you take away the glamour of the organisation, stop feeding them airtime and headlines, they’ll stop being popular.
Of course, the other thing that can be done is to stop focussing on, and alienating, those sectors of the populace, making them feel that the country is against them.
As an example of that, I’ve a colleague who happens to have the surname Ahmed. He flies a lot for the company at the moment, and has been told – in no uncertain terms – “Oh, your name makes sure you’ll never be on the accelerated access programme to get back into the UK”. That’s a completely law-abiding, tax-paying, UK-resident, UK-born person, who now feels more victimised than he has any right to.
But of course as a nation, we’re not letting terrorists win. Riiiight.
Scottish Independence
Posted: Mon 8 September, 2014 Filed under: Cynicism, Media, News, People, Politics, Thoughts Leave a comment »In a few day’s time, Scotland will be voting on whether they should become independent from the United Kingdom.
Personally, I don’t give much of a damn either way on this one, if I’m honest.
However, I do think it would be a more interesting referendum if it had been a UK-wide question, rather than asked just to the Scots.
Anyway – regardless of the outcome, what I hope is that there is a clear and large margin between the Yes and No votes. I don’t want to see it being 49 to 51 or whatever – because then it’ll just end up with more fighting, that the people who are in that ‘minority’ (that’s still just under half, and thus makes for one heck of a lot of people) feel they’re being forced by the other half to do what they don’t want to.
If it’s a 75 to 25 in either direction – maybe even a 60/40 split then it’s harder to argue the toss at all.
Mind you, the cynic in me really wants to see it split 50/50, and see what happens then.
Chef
Posted: Fri 4 July, 2014 Filed under: Domestic, Films, Food, Media, Reviews(ish), Seeing Films, Writing Leave a comment »Last night, I went to see Chef at the cinema. It’s brilliant – if you get the chance, go and see it.
Lots of films (or their reviews/pimps) bang on about being “the feel-good movie of the season/year/decade” – Chef doesn’t, but bloody well should. It’s ace.
The basic premise is simple – talented chef gets bored by humdrum menu/restaurant, has a meltdown at a restaurant reviewer, loses his job, goes off and launches a food van doing what he loves. But the acting, the script – and the food – all raise it up a level. I’ve never been in a film where you hear the audience groan with lust/envy at the presentation of food in the film. They did in Chef. Sure, it’s – kind of – a film for foodies, but it’s not just that. It’s one of those films where you can see that they had fun doing it, that it was an enjoyable thing to work on.
It’s funny, it’s sweet (without being mawkish, cloying, or any of the normal American emotional guff) and it’s just good.
Go and see it. It’s worth it.
It’s a Pie
Posted: Tue 18 February, 2014 Filed under: Advertising, Bad Ads, Cinema, Cynicism, Marketing, Media, Pedantry, Writing Leave a comment »Another in the occasional series of “adverts that annoy me” – this one is one of the ones from Santander (which I still think are creepy, as I have said before)
Why does it annoy me? Again, because of one line.
At the start, we can see that the guy is making a pie, and putting a pastry lattice over the top. Yet the woman says
“I really like what you’re doing with that cake”
It’s a fucking pie, you idiot.
Remember The Name
Posted: Tue 7 January, 2014 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Geeky, Marketing, Media, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the Christmas Break, I watched more ‘live TV’ (i.e. not stuff recorded on my PVR, and not ‘delayed’ so I could skip adverts) than I usually do, and thus saw more adverts than normal. Advertising is something that interests me for a lot of reasons, mostly having worked for/with a number of agencies over the years, and also being interested in the psychology and manipulation behind them.
As always, “Brand Recognition” is one of my bug-bears, because for a lot of the time it seems that advertisers don’t care about much else, so long as you remember the brand-name. However, in my experience a lot of the time I remember the brands just so I can be sure to never, ever give them any money. This happens particularly when an advert (or set thereof) are
- insanely annoying (Insurance Comparison sites, EE, and the like) or
- paying money to people I can’t abide, and/or hypocrites (an example covering both those is when Knorr were using Marco Pierre White to advertise their stock-cubes – a product he wouldn’t touch in a month of Sundays)
I’ve written before about how adverts for certain industries are changing – usually for the better – but it’s interested me to see how GoCompare in particular have continued that change.
When they started, GoCompare had one of the most insanely irritating advertising “characters” (that bloody opera singer) known to man. I won’t link to anything, because it’ll just cause brain-damage and broken monitors. (Apparently it was also voted “most irritating advert” for 2009 and 2010 – quite the achievement) GoCompare then had ads of various celebrities killing the character in a variety of ways, and over the last year or so it’s been about the same character trying to get back into the adverts, and various ‘wacky’ schemes to advertise the company.
Now, though, they’ve changed again, and the same character appears to have become a driver or guide on coach tours. (Although I did like the reference to Blakey from ‘On the Buses‘, but that’s probably just a sign that I’m old) I have no idea where they plan to go with this set of adverts – although at least now they’re just weird and self-referential, rather than being actively violence-inducing.
I still wouldn’t ever hand over money to GoCompare – that memory of the dire branding will last a long time – but it’s been interesting to see how their stuff has altered over the last couple of years, in some sort of recognition that people hated the original concept.
[Updated and reposted on 7/1/14] – The Drum posted up this article about the ads, saying…
“We know that people will be keen to see what happens to Gio next. The new campaign will firmly position him as the legend that we all know him to be, but will also see the introduction of new characters enabling us to convey aspects of the Gocompare.com service that differentiate the brand still further.”
Although my favourite line (and I’m sure it means something other than what I’m choosing to read it as meaning) comes at the end of the article…
A series of executions are set to appear throughout the year.
All Done
Posted: Thu 2 January, 2014 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Marketing, Media Leave a comment »You can tell that we’re now completely done with Christmas 2013. How? Well…
- The TV Adverts are all for
- Diet plans
- Holidays
- Sales – primarily for Furniture, Kitchens, and other ‘big ticket’ items
- Stopping smoking
- Internet Dating (Because don’t forget, it’s only six weeks ’til Valentine’s Day)
- Selling off unwanted christmas presents
- Cold cures
- Checking your credit score
- Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs are in the shops for Easter (and it won’t be long ’til proper Easter Eggs are on sale – I’ve already seen Hot Cross Buns!)
- The news is full of ridiculous twaddle, because there’s sod-all of import going on
Still, at least we won’t see another bloody perfume advert until the run-up to Mother’s Day.