I think the BBC might have broken a record last night – for the largest variance in subject matter ever broadcast in one night.
BBC2 contrived to screen a documentary about Hank Williams immediately after one on Robert Kilroy Silk. “Life’s rich tapestry” doesn’t quite do it justice.
Let’s err on the mean side, and allow for a few mute inglorious Miltons on top of other candidates, and grant that Hank is one of the 100 greatest people who ever lived: Isaac Newton comes close - because of this - as do John Stuart Mill and Tony Adams (indulge me*). Assuming the world’s all-time population to have been 100 billion, he’s therefore one in a billion. That’s a six standard deviation person.
Now consider the other extreme of the bell curve. For wit, charm, intellect and integrity, Kilroy has few equals – in that he is totally lacking in any of these.
Sure, he’s beaten in odiousness by Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, a few Russian oligarchs and a few criminals – though many of these have redeeming features of some animal cunning – but it’s unlikely that there’s more than 1000 more unpleasant people in the world.
With the world’s population at 6.5 billion, this makes Kilroy a 5.1 standard deviation person.
So, BBC2 schedulers gave us over 11 standard deviations in two hours. Has any tiny group ever given us more standard deviations? Sure, the stock market crash of 1987 was a rarer event – around 17 standard deviations. But that was the work of thousands of people, not a few.
* Or not. Has anyone else in any country in any major sport captained a team to a national championship in three different decades, whilst suffering a debilitating illness?
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