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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LOUIS LONG BAAL

It’s easy to mock, but statistics can help us better understand the world around us. Here’s one by way of illustration: 57% of the folk who willingly spend more than three seconds per decade analysing data from football, a game conceived back in the 1850s as a fun diversion from the mundanities of work, subsist on a predominantly meat-paste-based diet. Another 26% wear slacks consisting of 70% polyester, 20% cotton, and 10% dried juices from food-flavoured spreads. And 15% are listed on at least one official State Department register, and accordingly monitored by the authorities, for the greater good of society. But a few normal people read stats, too, required to pore over them for purposes of work rather than pleasure. Economists, for example. Or scientists, or structural engineers. Or Louis van Gaal, who needs them for his job at Manchester United, where his chief responsibilities appear to be starting arguments in press conferences, and wearing an affronted look on his coupon in press conferences, if the fruits of the first eight months of his labour at Old Trafford are anything to go by.

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