there are statistics, statistics and damn lies

london
That saying is very true.
take for eg this headline... hayfever tough season.

it gives a statistical evidence, by collecting pollen daily, that this year we in uk had the longest high pollen season . 
the video mentions this is so because we had been having a continous mix of sunny and wet days so that the plants are flourishing like anything.

but i live here, and i think this summer had been very mild for us hay fever sufferers. the rain periodically sweeps the air clean of pollen so that it does not lie loosely on the ground to be swept up by the wind, which normally would be the case if we had long sunny dry days.

so the statistics may measure the total amount of pollen and find it lasts over a longer period but it does not measure how it affects hay fever sufferers.  

and to extrapolate the findings to imagining it affecting hay fever sufferers highlights why statistics are not everything, nor whether it has any bearing on real life. 

Look and observe yourself in the field as it were and to your own experiences. i can tell you categorically that this summer is one where i have been very hay fever free, just like previous summers. haha. 

I think the reason why the statistics dont bear a close relationship to our experiences is because we sensibly stay indoors , or most of us live in the cities and towns, where the pollen is not everywhere unlike in the country and even then, those who live in the country dont always live near fields for cows and sheep grazing, and full of grass. a lot of fields have wheat or rapeseed growing in them.  

i was thinking the farmers had better make hay now, because with the price of soya and corn going up because of the drought in the usa reducing yields, they will need all the hay they can get to feed their livestock in winter. 

cooking oils will go up too, even though it has been high for some time now. rapeseed oil has gone up, not because of there being a lack of rapeseed, but because corn and soya oils have gone up and retailers are raising it to profit by it. 


i think a lot of people dont realise that they can save a lot of money by using less oil when they cook. simon for eg uses hell of alot of oil when he cooks. and i think he is typical of most people. 

Added. 15.8.12 i have been thinking about it and realise that maybe people are not bothered about the price of cooking oil enough to economise. 

granted the price of rapeseed oil has gone up from 99p a litre, to £1.50 a litre now. maybe it is just me who dontlike to waste things but to most people it is not much of a saving to reduce their usage. you are talking pennies of savings most people will think it is too small to bother. 

 I think of savings over a lifetime of using cooking oils and that would amount to quite a lot but most people could not be bothered to think of it like that. They will say life is too short. haha.