The charisma casualty. A scientist in need of an apology and the question he dreads

Look at that miserable student in the corner at the party. He could be my younger self. He was doing well until she asked the dreaded question. ‘What are you studying?’ At such a moment what would one not give for the right to a romantic answer: ‘Russian,’ perhaps or ‘drama’. Or a coldly cerebral one: ‘philosophy’ or ‘mathematics’ or even ‘physics’. Or to pass oneself as a modern Victor Frankenstein, a genetic engineer or a biochemist. That is where the action will be in this millennium. But statistics? It's like Kenny Everett's joke about elderly women: just like Australia, everyone knows where it is but no one wants to go there. Except that people do want to go to Australia.

Some years ago there was an advert for a French film, Tatie Danielle, about a misanthropic, manipulative and downright nasty old lady which ran, ‘you don't know her, but she loathes you already’. Of most people one might just as well say, ‘you've never studied statistics but you loathe it already’.