I regularly write about the fun to be found in probability and statistics - but also the difficulties we face in understanding them, because our brains don't seem to be wired in a way that adequately deals with this kind of mathematics. However, there's one misunderstanding that stands out heads and shoulders above the rest - and this is that we find it very difficult to distinguish between forecasts and facts. Data about past events can be (though isn't necessarily) accurate. Data about the future is often only accurate if you are lucky. I'm not saying all forecasting is worthless - it's the best of a set of bad options (certainly better than relying on Mystic Meg) - but we always need to be aware of its limitations. Let's take a simple personal example. My mortgage will soon be coming off a fixed rate, and the bank has kindly offered me a series of options for new fixed-rate details. To be able to decide between them, whether consciously or not, I have t...

I can think of few better antidotes to a grey and miserable English winter than Matthew Fort's Summer in the Islands . It features a food writer and TV presenter in his sixties, setting off for six months of puttering around the Italian islands on a pink Vespa, obviously bringing us the eating highlights, but much more, the enjoyment of slowing down and simply living life in a series of fascinating landscapes, rather than the everyday battling through it back home. In a puff on the back of the book, Jamie Oliver mentions the term 'midlife crisis'. Leaving aside any concerns about the definition of midlife, I'd say that Fort's adventures are the absolute antithesis of a midlife crisis. This isn't about showing off to your peers in an unsuitable sports car - it's about stepping into a different culture and gently absorbing and enjoying it. The strange thing about the enjoyment of this book is that the reader does not need any sense of wanting to be in F...