Mind how you go

Fantasy Bob reads in the popular - and not so popular - press that crime is falling. Reported crime in Scotland has fallen by 22% in the past four years.

Graph showing variable length
of police force's opening bowlers

Apparently, the risk of being a victim of crime also dropped significantly from 20.4% in 2008-2009 to 16.9% in 2012-2013 to be precise. However, the public's fear of being the victim of crime has increased, with the perceived risk being almost 20% higher than the actual one.

FB is not surprised at the last statistic above.   It may the age he is at.  It may be that he has spent too much of recent months on a diet of lurid crime fiction and drama.  But he goes in daily fear of being the victim of some terrible crime.

It is clear to him that official statistics do not properly record the incidence of real crime in the community. He has scanned official reports.  Nowhere does he find acknowledgement of the shocking increase in the following major crimes revealed by his own researches

• Number of cricketers playing in inappropriate trousers - up 25.5% since the invention of cargo shorts
• Amount of leg spin bowling in lower leagues - up 19.7% since the opening of Shane Warne's Twitter account
• Number of left arm over the wicket seam bowlers - up 43.8% following failure of action in the Supreme Counrt to have such action declared a controversion of human rights law
• Incidence of completely fatuous LBW appeals - up 12.4% mirroring rise in phishing and similar scams
• Frequency of cricket teas not including empire biscuits - up 31.5% for reasons still under investigation by scientists.

FB is sure his world wide readership will join him in urging the authorities to bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice and make the cricket fields safe again for law abiding individuals.  Now they have finally got Max Clifford in chokey there can be no higher priority. 

Police attend gruesome LBW appeal incident.