St Jude's day storm and useless scare mongering media - the usual

So as November starts, I have to remember if I'm writing a moustache this year or I'm growing out a story. Er. Or something. Most likely neither as either takes effort, and my latest attempts at writing a narrative story got about a thousand words in before I started to utter despise myself for having the audacity to believe that I'm a writer, and that I should go back to slinging filth on the internet, where I belong. Also I can't stand upper lip hair.

Now today I'd like to talk about the Big Ass storm that passed through Britain - called the St. Jude's day storm who not only has a holiday on the 28th October, but is the patron saint of lost causes. So with a name like that, and weeks of frenzied speculation from the media, you would expect the storm to be the Harbinger Of End Times.

It really wasn't.

The horror.

Now before I go into a giant piss off about this, quite frankly, disappointing storm, I would be callous not to mention that sadly around ten people have died due to the storm. Deaths before their time are always tragic, and our thoughts are with their families.

However, the callous part of me would like to note that around five people die a day on Britain's roads, so that's two days of road deaths. Ten people, according to some fuzzy math, would account for a day's worth of dead people due to falls. Some more fuzzy maths (which we can agree, is the best kind) would suggest that nearly storm killed as much as half an hour's worth of what heart disease does in this country.

What I'm saying is that this storm was a let down. I went into work expected chaos, murder, mutiny in the streets - feral humans wearing clothed fashioned like Mad Max in a desperate bid for survival. I've played Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas - I was eagerly awaiting my new place as wasteland king.

Finally, all my hours neglecting my family playing video games translate into real world experience!

I expected my work place torn asunder under ravaging winds, and all I got was one tree and a branch in the road. And some wind. And the tree we ended up driving around. Basically, we got some vandalism on a national scale for a single night.

Some of the frantic media over-speculation has been leveled at them missing the infamous 1987 storm. Admittedly some of that fault lies with the Met Office, ie: The Actual People Who Should Know About The Bleedin' Weather, for not predicting the storm with accuracy. At least this time round rail companies let people ahead of time to not bother turning up for early morning trains, which was not only nice but probably prevented a few 'bored stupid at the station' homicides. 

However, I'm not entirely sure we can go with a media overreaction correlation with the 1987 miss, as that would suggest that Britain's media are capable of learning. 

Instead we look at that bad news sells, so everything is awful, though in truth it's not that bad. That 'five deaths a day on road' statistic I pulled up is getting lower every year, which is impressive considering the increases in traffic. Death by murder on my handy visual graph is missing - it's less than a thousand, yet represented on the graph is 219 deaths by 'Diseases of the male genital organs.' Ew. Also; I did not know you could die of theoretical dick rot. Now I know, and I am unhappier for it.

The problem with this rampant bigging up of bullshit is that it's got to the point where I'm not the only person wearily banging on about it. The more I - and everyone else - saw of the hand-wringing by the papers the more we started to stop caring about the storm. I overheard many conversations wondering if they was so little in the news that day that the storm was the only thing they could be bothered to cover. Continue on this path, by the time we actually need to listen to a genuine threat, everyone would of tuned out already. 

Journalists today are one of the least trusted professions, according to an IPSOS Mori poll in February this year - if you'll forgive me for referring to a survey with such a low sample size. Anyway, this poll, for what it's worth, gave journalists a paltry one in five belief they'd tell the truth - just above politicians, and considerably below a random stranger on the street, who comfortably was hitting over sixty percent. That's right, a random display of humanity ambling along is a superior news worthy source than a trained accredited journalist. Well done people. Well done.

Wait, strictly speaking, me, a semi-anonymous shlob on the internet is a viewed as a better source that a person who actually gets paid to write. Huh. Yeah. That's... concerning. And that taking into account that that by calling the people who work for the Daily Mail journalist's is somewhat of a stretch. Professional Shit-Flinger is a more accurate job description, though once again, for all my bitching - they're A.) Getting paid to do so, and B.) Getting people to pay to read it, so my name calling feels a little juvenile considering they're making money doing the awful things they do. Hell, I cant even be bothered to do basic SEO research that would get me read here, and here I am, screaming insults at them.

Sigh. I think this entire article may of been inspired by the fact the storm the news has been discussing recently, somewhat limiting what I can talk about.

Which of course, is a handy cover for the fact I've been playing Skyrim non-stop recently, which is also the real reason why I not participating in National Novel Writing Month.

Write a novel? DAMN IT I AM FIGHTING DRAGONS HERE.

Breakdown of my maths (and sources!):

Because I love you, I would never knowingly lie to you. So I'll quickly go over my own maths - I'm going off the National Office of Statistics figures, posted last year in November, handily promoted by The Guardian's own website, here: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/06/deaths-mortality-rates-cause-death-2011#data and numbers from the British Heart Foundation, here: https://www.bhf.org.uk/media/news-from-the-bhf/bhf-facts.aspx

Falls deaths per year in 2011 = 3,885. Divided by 365, we get a healthy 10.6 deaths a day. Ah, heathly as in comfortably with 10, not, ah, you know. The dead people.
Heart diseases deaths per year (unknown year by BHF) = 159,000. Divide by 365, then by 24, and then by 2, we get 9 deaths per half hour, but that's what the term's 'nearly' and 'fuzzy maths' will get you. Admittedly, 2011 put the figure at 139,706, so that's more good news! Also, same maths put's it near enough at eight a half hour. Perhaps I should of gone with a whole hour. Ho hum.