Ain’t that the truth

What are the chances? What are the statistical chances of having a big, busting bestseller with a book about the reputedly dull business of statistics?

This was to be my final, frankly smart-arse question for Tim Harford, the British economist and author. His new book, you understand, is about the business of making sense of statistics.

I didn’t get the chance. Almost the first thing he tells me after picking up the phone at his home in Oxford is that his new book, How to Make the World Add Up, has been so blindingly popular in Britain since going on sale in mid-September that finding a copy is now impossible.

“In the UK, it sold out everywhere in two days, somewhat to my frustration,” he says. Here, there’s a rueful laugh. “My