Numbers can be difficult sometimes – just ask Right Said Fred

Oh how my heart hurts for the Fairbrass brothers, who make up 100 per cent of the band Right Said Fred. It hurts because I genuinely loved their first album, Up, released in 1992. Yes, it had the novelty hit single “I’m Too Sexy” on it, but there were several other great songs that I listened to and enjoyed as a teenager. I still sometimes sing the lyric, “I’m like a swan – I only love once” to myself when I am in a happy mood. It’s a lovely song.

But lately the brothers Fairbrass have revealed a different side to themselves, becoming vocal anti-lockdown campaigners, joining protests in London against Covid-19 restrictions – including mandatory mask orders, compulsory vaccination, and social distancing. They have become a joke act all over again, only this time it’s not quite so funny.

I do not sympathise with or support the stance they take on any of this. However I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them this week as they gaffed all over Twitter with a basic misunderstanding about how percentages and probability work. It was pointed out in the news that fully vaccinated people are 47 per cent less likely to suffer serious illness, a statistic leapt on by the Fairbrass bros to suggest that this meant somehow you were 53 per cent more likely to be seriously ill if you are vaccinated, and therefore they remained unimpressed by the efficacy of the jab rollout.

Well, I’m sure you can imagine what happened next. Yes, even I joined in a bit. But I hesitated before I made my own joke because maths is not my strong point either. I’m not even convinced my joke makes mathematical sense. Percentages are a problem for me too. As are currency exchange rates and ratios.

Now we live in a world of daily statistics as we measure the course of the pandemic, it reminded me again how difficult it can be to interpret what we are being told when your numeracy skills are lacking, like mine are. There are new numbers to grapple with daily, and they often contradict each other or are overtaken by new events just when you’ve got your head round them.

The Fairbrasses wanted it to be known that they were joking when they made this apparent blunder, so really the laugh is on us. Perhaps they were, but after some of their pronouncements this year I am not so inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. But with that said, they will have my eternal sympathy for misreading the numbers.

I really did love that album, I guess. I’d rather be a swan than an ostrich.