Concrete Pencil: 2009 in stats

Let me break those down for you.

Books bought has jumped 68 per cent to 54, reversing 2008's slight downturn (from 35 in 2007 to 32).

Books read has also jumped - to a three-year high of 38 - but that hasn't kept pace with book buying, so the bought/read ratio actually dropped from 82 per cent to 70 per cent. In short, while I read more this year, I was less efficient at buying the right books.

Welcome to my world in statistics. This started in 2007 when during an attempt to quit smoking I started counting everything. I revisited it last year to compare year-on-years, and now in Year Three we can really start looking at some trends.

For instance, attempts to quit smoking have gone from three in 2007, up to four in 2008 to just one in 2009.

That last one was, however, successful. So a roughproximation of cigarettes smoked (I love roughproximating, me) goes something like this: 2007: 4,500; 2008: 2,750; 2009: two (and those were on New Year's Day, so they hardly count).

Each of the reports so far covered have featured a significant life event: 2007 was my 30th and I proposed, 2008 saw me marry. In 2009, as reported in the headline figures, a record one child was born to Wife and me.

Sons born: 0. Daughters born: 1.

This event has had, one fears, an effect on some of the other figures and, perhaps, on some of the accuracy of the reporting.

Gigs-gone-to went down from a steady 10 in the previous two years to seven, and camping fell to just eight nights under canvas (down a third on 2007's high of 24).

One fears though that other figures, some of which were anomalously high thanks to Daughter One's arrival in mid-year point, will drop sharply in the the first full year as a parent.

Continents visited was up at a five-year record of three, and trips to the West Country rose to four from three the previous year. Trips in helicopters even made it back on to the list (one).

These and other lesiure sectors are sure to suffer next year. Live sport and theatre (each down to a disappointing one in 2009) could suffer further. Non-lido outdoor swimming, a poor five events here, needs urgent work not to slip further.

In better news, weddings were up to four - the best since records began - and stag dos to three. Funerals were one.

Years of successive Annual Reports: three. Degree of confidence in justification that it's amusing and interesting to other people rather than just the vainglory of a geek: 40 per cent.

This concludes the 2009 Life In Numbers Ledger.