Evens Stevens

“Exactly £25 in two pees. What are the chances of that?” For an hour, Sue had been counting her way through the small mountain of copper and silver that had come out of four collecting boxes. The mingled heap of coins was now in neat piles and rows and waiting to be bagged up into bank-friendly denominations.

Well, what were the chances of the tuppences adding up to exactly £25? Precisely the same as the chances of there being £24.88 in two pence pieces. Or £25.02. Or £26 for that matter. The only amounts there were no chance of it being was an odd number of pence; or zero. Aside from that, evens Stevens, fifty fifty, heads or tails. But somehow, that all of the donated two pences added up to a round pound figure holds greater significance.

This is the odd place where what feels instinctively logical and correct doesn’t necessarily add up to what makes mathematical or statistical sense. As I was mulling this over, it was announced on the radio that the Bank of England had cut interest rates to 1.5%. Yesterday, I drove past one of those high street ‘pay day loans’ shops. The charge for cashing a cheque to bail you out in advance of your pay day was 149%. No-one would have predicted a year ago that UK interest rates would (could) fall that low. And – I’m imagining myself here – if you’re desperate for cash and you need it now, I’m pretty sure you won’t care less or even stop to think how much your short-term tide-me-over-for-a-few-weeks loan is going to cost you to pay back.

None of these things make sense instinctively, logically, statistically and mathematically all at the same time. What seems true may not be; what appears to make sense actually doesn’t. It’s left brain versus right brain, Mars and Venus, emotion and intellect all over again, except without love hearts in the margin or late night drunken texting.

So thanks to Sue and a pile of coppers, I think I finally began to edge closer to understanding the credit crunch. Or – unlike the weather outside today – maybe at least the fog started to lift a little.