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We celebrated the arrival of our shiny new Ford Focus Stretch (aka C-Max) with a trip to the seaside; Worthing to be more precise. We chose a day when it was very windy, despite the fact that I had forgotten to pack my snow suit. So not quite warm enough to be comfortable. On arrival, the sea was a very strange yellow colour but given that it had become a more regular sea blue colour a couple of hours later, we were unable to decide whether the colour reflected the sand bank just under the surface or was some trick of the light. But a large handsome beach; just the place for a bracing stroll. A promonade for those not wanting to get sand or worse in their socks. Plenty of birds, including a few starlings battling bravely in the breeze. Not a bird we see much of in Epsom; certainly not the huge formation flying flocks one sees from time time elsewhere. Onto the pier, a rather grand affair, free at this time of year. A very modest craft fair in what had been a very immodest dance hall, that is to say it must have been quite a place in its heyday. Then to tea in the equally grand, if rather run down, cafe. Collected a peice of perforated chalk and two lime encrusted shells (all three now adorning one of the new ponds) and so home, luckily without being crimed by the beach trusty for removal of national heritage site.

That apart been a day of puzzlement. Started by learning that RBS is inviting its shareholders to stump up more cash, this time by inviting them to participate in the conversion of HMG preference shares to ordinary shares at a price which is 50% in excess of the prevailing market price. Given that the process of invitation must be costing millions of pounds, why are they doing it? Who would want to participate on this basis? Bit of a nerve to ask, given the way the share price has fallen since the last time, just a few months ago. I assume that there is some stock market rule which says they have to offer to existing shareholders but it all seems a bit wasteful; not quite the tone to set in the circumstances. Maybe some very large existing shareholders would want to do this, enabling them to buy volumes of shares at what is still a rather low price which they would be hard put to buy in the open market.

Then I thought that I ought to open my shiny new-to-me annual abstract of statistics. As a former statistician I could have a sentimental wander through the thickets of government numbers. As luck would have it, the book fell open at the national accounts, which I found to be as inpenetrable as they have always been, not ever having needed to take a professional interest in them. But I persisted for a while, curious to test the allegation that the UK doesn't produce anything other than financial services these days. So I find a table 16.4 which looks promising. It tells me that in 2004 we did £250bn worth of production and construction., about two thirds of that total being called manufacturing. Service industries did £750bn, of which something called financial intermediation - the only line with a money flavoured title - was £85bn, attached to a negative adjustment of £50bn. So while it seems likely that manufacturing is still bigger than financial services, which is reassuring, not much idea by how much. I then ask Mr G. about financial intermediation and find lots of it. Including a helpful article from the Scottish Office which tries to explain the whole business in lay terms. But life is too short and I declined to take up their kind offer.

Then started to wonder about single mothers, the cost of whom being an important subject at TB. I find a helpful table which sets out the weekly rates of the common benefits. A table which shows how much the common benefits cost in aggregate. A table which shows how many single parents are claiming income support - a number which, also reassuringly, has declined steadily since 2001 and stood at around 750,000 in 2006. Let's hope the decline is a not an artefact of the process of government rather than an artect of lone parenthood. But I was not able to find out how much all these awful single parents were costing us altogether. Clearly need to go to a more specialised volume for that.

But, despite jibes, a handsome and well produced volume. Complicated matters can only be presented simply by being economical with the truth, a truth which many newspapers do not seem to be able to grasp when they are running on about lies, damned lies and statistics. Or when they are publishing their own statistics, simplified to the point of opacity.