When a trend isn’t a trend

This survey, featuring Halle Berry, a Bond girl in 2002, is running on the cover of this weekend’s Metro, and it’s annoying me to no end.

I get the premise. Let’s see if a bikini signals an impending death in a Bond movie, and then let’s stick Halle Berry on the cover in an effort to move papers. But the headline — “You only wear it once” — isn’t misleading; it’s just wrong.

The results of Metro’s survey showed that 45 percent of all Bond girls who wear a bikini on screen die. That means 55 percent don’t die. In my world, 55 percent is more than 45 percent. Therefore, the majority of Bond girls do not in fact wear it once.

Anyway, even if the numbers were reversed, a 45-55 split doesn’t really show any correlation between death and a bikini. The Bond girl’s choice of on-screen bathing attire is purely coincidental and has nothing at all to do with her life expectancy.

OK. Glad I could get that off my chest.

How many New York Times reporters does it take…?

Two men scaled the new New York Times building yesterday. How many reporters did it take to report on the story? Well, James Barron wrote it, but he needed some help:

Reporting was contributed by Charles V. Bagli, Russ Buettner, Sewell Chan, Glenn Collins, David W. Dunlap, Jason Grant, Christine Hauser, Corey Kilgannon, Eric Konigsberg, Jennifer 8. Lee, Trymaine Lee, Patrick McGeehan, Colin Moynihan, William K. Rashbaum and Paul von Zielbauer.

I guess they just stationed a reporter on every floor and watched Alain Robert and Renaldo Clarke climb. Good work, guys. It took only 16 of you to report this story!

(Hat tip to mom.)

Fire that copy editor

Notice anything wrong with this? And I’m not talking about the constipated look on Kevin Garnet’s face. Take a look at the caption, and if you’re (hint, hint) still stuck, read the file name.

Strong Bad would not approve.