An independent statistician using data to understand our world and to predict the future
After two weeks of the 2018 6 Nations, all 6 of my match predictions have been correct. Whilst this might be vindication of the World Rugby ranking model, the last thing we want in sport is a perfect prediction model otherwise what’s the point? Where would be the excitement of watching sport live? So I am hoping for an incorrect prediction soon …
[Read more…] about 6 Nations #10 – Who will win in 2018? – Week 3
The 2018 6 Nations is underway and all of my predictions for week 1 turned out to be correct (just!) with the help of an amazing drop goal drop goal by Johnny Sexton. This means that out of 37 matches I have used rankings to make predictions, 30 have been correct.
[Read more…] about 6 Nations #9 – Who will win in 2018? – Week 2
Every time I went online in January, I would find a headline promising an extreme cold snap in the UK which never materialised. I’ve grown tired and cynical of these headlines and given that the latest met office data shows that January 2018 was completely unremarkable, I think I am justified in this attitude! [Read more…] about UK Weather Tracker #12 – January 2018
The 2018 6 Nations begins tomorrow and fans will be looking forward to a feast of rugby for the next two months. As always, pundits galore are making their predictions and the one thing we can count on is that some will have egg on their faces by the time it is over. In 2017, I used World Rugby’s Rankings to predict who would win each match in the 6 Nations and the Autumn Internationals and these predictions worked out well with 12 out of 15 6 Nations games and 15 out of the 19 Autumn International matches involving 6 Nations teams correctly called.
[Read more…] about 6 Nations #8 – Who will win in 2018? – Week 1
Labour continues to hold a small lead over the Conservatives at the start of 2018. Little has changed from the end of 2017.
[Read more…] about UK Opinion Poll Tracker #10 – January 2018
Labour continues to hold a small lead over the Conservatives as the nation entered the Christmas holidays. There is evidence of some voter movement towards UKIP which indicates that their true national level is around 4% or 5% and their General Election performance was distorted by so many of their candidates standing down.
[Read more…] about UK Opinion Poll Tracker #9 – December 2017
My latest UK weather tracker shows that December 2017 was the only month of 2017 to set a new UK weather record with the lowest rain intensity recorded in December. [Read more…] about UK Weather Tracker #11 – December 2017
Meteoologists define autumn in the UK to be the period from September to November so autumn is now over and we are officially in winter. The 2017 autumn was completely unremarkable but this hides the fact that our autumnal climate has changed quite notably over the last 25 years.
My latest UK weather tracker shows that the November 2017 was the 9th brightest on record which is some comfort for those that curse the onset of dark evenings with the change of clocks.
Labour’s 2 point lead over the Conservatives disappeared during November and they now hold a very slight lead. There is evidence of some voter movement towards UKIP which indicates that their true national level is around 4% or 5% and their General Election performance was distorted by so many of their candidates standing down.
[Read more…] about UK Opinion Poll Tracker #8 – November 2017
