I duly studied said article, wondering why it missed out Mr. Abramovitch, owner of Chelsea Football Club, who was born in the depths of Siberia which was solidly in Asia last time I looked at my atlas. This made me wonder just how accurate the article (a two page spread) was. Further analysis of the article revealed that some of the “Asians” listed came from Kenya and Tanzania which were still in Africa last time I looked. Words seem to mean what they say they mean.

All this made me ask myself how accurate was the statement that New Look is now the second biggest footwear retailer. What was the measure used? Number of shoes sold? Amount of turnover on footwear? Square footage devoted to shoes? Profitability? How up to date is the statistic? It could refer to a month when New Look had a massively popular item which every other retailer thought was a waste of time.

Maybe whoever compiled the information got it by simply asking the retailers concerned. If someone came to me with such a request, if I had got out of bed the wrong side that morning I might easily put myself out of play by refusing to answer such an impertinent question. After all, for ages my replies to the question “How's business” depended on who was asking or how I felt at the time. A friend says he started with nothing and has been losing money ever since, which is as good a way of disposing of nosey busybodies as any.

Which brings me to the question of why anyone should want to know. What does it matter that New Look are number two? If (and I hope they are not) they are losing money on every pair they sell it is not going to do them much good. What does it tell the people who pay the people who make a living out of sniffing out these statistics, apart from that someone wants to know badly enough to pay several hundred pounds for their reports.

I have personal experience in these matters. I read once that some retail operation had the greatest profitability per square foot in the country. The article quoted a figure. Having nothing better to do I worked out my own figure and found I was well ahead of them. My chest swelled with pride until I remembered they had something like 200 massive stores against my rather small single unit.

My other brush with the world of statistics was through Mrs. Misfit, who a once agreed in a weak moment to supply a reputable market survey company with details of everything she bought in return for points which eventually brought prizes. If I remember right she was issued with a bar-code reader which transmitted the data over the phone to the firm. It turned into a heavy burden. Every pint of milk which came to the house had to be scanned before going in the fridge and she eventually gave it up. What, I asked myself, was the value of that information, on which serious businesses were making decisions. After all, only people with plenty of leisure like Mrs M. would get involved in this operation. A busy housewife with a tribe of screaming kids would not want to know. This must surely have skewed the figures.

Market share is important, but it is not the only measure of success. In fact grabbing market share can get you in all sorts of trouble with the competition commission if you grab too much. I have seen people fixated on market share who have cheerfully bankrupted themselves by reducing their prices to get it. Some people have a morbid interest in league tables which is all very well for football but selling shoes is not football. There is a difference in commerce between competition and running a race.

You can rely too heavily on numbers. I once knew someone who had the exciting job of preparing a digest of the weekly printout of the firm's sales which then went to the board. By the time she had totted everything up and they had met and made up their minds what to do the situation had most likely changed. Of course we have much more sophisticated computers these days, and managers are better trained, they say.

I don't mind if people want to play games with numbers or even if their statistics find their way into the media. The days when the average man believed that anything printed in a newspaper or aired on radio or television was true are surely long gone. It is all harmless fun. What does worry me is when the figures do not seem to accord with reality.

As I write this the radio tells me that various London councils are complaining that the government have grossly underestimated the number of immigrants in their boroughs. This may be true, and bearing in mind that they get more money for more people I take it with a pinch of salt, but our government does seem to be pretty good at getting its sums wrong.

It would not matter if they were not making macroeconomic decisions which are likely to impact upon us humble shoemongers, rarely to our advantage.

We all know there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Not quite true but you can rely on the numbers too heavily. There is no substitute for going round the shops, talking to people and looking at the stock, or even spending a day or so now and again actually selling to the customers, to tell the bosses what is going on.

Sadly, too few do this. It's much more comfortable in the office.

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