Well, you can forget knowing who's going to win the Championship!

As things stand, with seven games remaining until the end of the season, the top four teams in the Championship are separated by only three points.  It's going to be a very tense end to the season – anyone can win the league, and anyone can be promoted.

Why, then, do some Norwich City fans insist on throwing their arms in the air and acting like it's all over after one result which doesn't go our way.  After the 2-2 draw at Huddersfield in midweek, I knew there would be some chump popping up on social media to say "well, we can forget all about automatic promotion now!" – and, sure enough, there was.  It was the same after we lost to Wigan (our only defeat in the past ten games).

Why do some hysterical fans think every negative result is the end of the world?  It's such a crass, short-sighted overreaction!

When things are this tight at the top of the table, anything can happen, and things can change very quickly.  Bournemouth have have spent more weeks at the top of the table this season than any other team, but last month they'd slipped to fourth place – now, however, they're back on top again.  A month ago, when we beat them 3-0 away, Watford were sixth – but going into this weekend's round of games, they were first.  It doesn't take much for the picture at the top of the table to change completely.  It's not over yet – and to think that one result (either positive or negative) has sealed our fate is incredibly foolish.

The Championship top ten (correct as of Sunday 22nd March).

As things stand, Norwich have the best record over the last ten games (seven wins, two draws and one loss) of all the teams in the Championship; we have the second best goal difference in the league (only Bournemouth's is better); only Bournemouth (8) have lost fewer games so far this season than us (Norwich and Middlesborough have both lost 9); and we are two points off second place, and three points off the top of the table.

So is automatic promotion 'out of the question' now?  Quite the opposite, in fact!  Given all those statistics, there is absolutely no reason why we can't catch the teams above us.  Automatic promotion is still eminently plausible, and the volatility of the race for promotion means that this is likely to remain the case.

Of course, promotion isn't guaranteed just because the statistics are in our favour.  This unpredictability works both ways; the likes of Derby, Ipswich, Brentford and Wolves will be looking up the table at Norwich, thinking "there's no reason we can't catch them" – and they're right.  But what it does mean is that promotion is up for grabs, and anybody at the sharp end of the league table has a chance of grabbing it for themselves – and if we just keep doing what we're doing, we've as good a chance as anyone, if not better.

Why can't we talk about the NHS?

It is with not inconsiderable trepidation that I sit down now to write a Blog post about the National Health Service.  It can be a pretty touchy subject.  Unfortunately, this is a big part of the problem.  Although I feel pretty positive towards the NHS in general, I find that few things irritate me more in the realm of political discourse than the apparent beatification of the Health Service, and the way in which so many people are seemingly so incapable of discussing health policy rationally.

The NHS is a good institution – but that doesn't mean there is no conceivable way in which it could be improved.  Even a statement as benign and self-evident as that one, however, is tantamount to high treason in some people's eyes; even to hint that the NHS is anything less than a million percent perfect is proof positive that one is an enemy of health, of the state, of civilisation itself.  And remember, it's not just 'the NHS' – it is your NHS; our NHS; THE PEOPLE'S NHS.  It is the envy of the world.  In a recent survey event all about the NHS by the pollster Lord Ashcroft, the NHS was described by one respondent as 'the soul of the country'.

This is not a healthy state of affairs.  The amount of ludicrously emotive, hyperbolic rhetoric surrounding the Health Service – along with the idea that it should somehow be above scrutiny, and above reproach – makes it impossible to have a rational, objective discussion about the challenges (and there are challenges) facing the NHS today.  This was particularly brought home to me while reading Lord Ashcroft's Report from his NHS polling; I have long felt baffled and confused by health campaigners telling us that the NHS is constantly 'in crisis' or in need of 'saving', and yet opposing any and all attempts to improve or reform it – Lord Ashcroft's meticulous research, however, shows up a far greater number of paradoxes in the way people view one of our most important public services.

Ashcroft found, for example, that consistency of care (as opposed to the dreaded 'postcode lottery'!) was an important issue, with 72% of people asked saying it was important to make sure healthcare varied less from one hospital to another, or between different areas of the country (and as many as 60% thought the government should 'set standards and targets that all hospitals must meet').  At the same time, however, more than half the people in the survey (57%) supported the idea of decisions being taken 'at a more local level' to 'ensure the needs of each particular area are met'.

Another strange dichotomy which struck me was that although people were not overly bothered by where they got treated, provided the quality of care was good, or by being able to choose which hospital they were sent to (which is a blow for the recent drive to introduce more 'choice' and 'convenience' into the health market), they still opposed the closure of local services.  Only 35% of people placed a great importance on 'being treated near your home', when asked what aspects of the Health Service they thought were most important, while 79% described 'high quality of medical care' as 'very important' – and yet, despite placing relatively little value on being treated close to home, when asked what the government should consider to help fund the NHS in future only 36% of people said the they should consider 'closing some local hospitals to consolidate services into bigger, more efficient units with expert staff'.

Ashcroft's survey also uncovered a remarkably entrenched view from many of his respondents.  21% of people say they would oppose the use of private companies to deliver NHS service, even if this would mean a better standard of care.  This stubborn view that 'private' is axiomatically bad – even when the results are positive – and needs to be warded off with a shaman's stick is the determined dogmatism of blinkered ideologues.  That's not to say that more private sector involvement is the answer to issues with the NHS – there is a distinct possibly that it isn't – but to dismiss the idea out-of-hand, refusing even to consider the benefits such an option might bring and weigh them up against any possible negatives before making an informed judgement, is supremely foolish.

The NHS is a public service, paid for out of tax money – and, as such, the public deserve to get the best possible service for their money.  We don't get emotionally attached to other public services like London buses or councils' bin collections, and feel a great need to defend their honour as we would our own children whenever anybody casts aspersions upon them.  In politics, everything should be up for discussion.  How else do we improve things?

If the NHS can be improved – if healthcare in general can be improved – that is unquestionably a good thing, and something we should welcome.  We need to consider all options, and debate the pros and the cons without getting hysterical; without thinking that those who disagree with us are evil bloodsucking vampires who want to roast babies like marshmallows and eat them squeezed between digestive biscuits, instead of simply being people offering a different solution to challenges which affect us all – a solution which we may not have considered ourselves; and without placing a higher value on the concept of a National Health Service (in its current guise) than on people's health and people's lives.

#F1 - Vettel's no Legend (yet)

So, another race victory for Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in Korea this week, and another seemingly impressive statistic to go with it.  Last week in Japan, we were gleefully informed that Vettel had equalled Juan Manuel Fangio's record of race wins, and this week he equalled Jim Clark.

So Vettel's a true great of Formula 1, then - just like Fangio, Clark, and others?  Well, no - not really.

I'm not saying he doesn't have the potential to be, or that he won't be.  He's still very young, at only twenty-five years old, and already has an impressive portfolio, so it's clear that he has a bright future in the sport.

In my opinion, however, equalling or surpassing previous records of race wins is a fairly meaningless statistic...  Much as I'm a sucker for a bit of classic F1 history, what relevance does a comparison with Fangio's or Clark's era have, when the sport has changed so much since then?

In simple terms, there are more races these days.  So yes, of course the modern-day F1 driver (providing he's good, which Vettel unquestionably is) will eventually win more races - purely because there are so many more races available to be won.

In 1951 (when Fangio won his first World Championship), there were eight races on the calendar.  By 1963 (when Jim Clark took the first of his two World Championships), only two races had been added to the calendar, making ten in total.  This year, we have already had sixteen, with another four still to come - twenty races in total, which is two-and-a-half times the number Fangio raced in 1951.

With so many more opportunities to win races in the modern era, is it any wonder that successful drivers rack them up so quickly?

A better measure of these things, in my opinion, would be the overall percentage of wins.  This allows us to take into account the wildly different amount of races contested by drivers from different eras, and tells a rather different story...

Despite only having participated in fifty-two F1 races throughout his entire career, Fangio leads the board with twenty-four wins, giving him a win percentage of 46.14% - a full 7% ahead of second-place man and rival to Fangio, Alberto Ascari, who won 39.39% of races in his F1 career, making Fangio the only man ever to have won over 40% of his races.  (Apart from anything else, this just goes to prove what a tough sport Formula 1 really is, as even the very greatest in the sport's history always lose more races than they win.  No one has ever won over 50% of their career races.)  Jim Clark is next in third, with 34.25%.

Other legendary F1 names predictably make an appearance in the Top 10 - including Michael Schumacher, and Jackie Stewart.  Sebastian Vettel is currently in 8th place, with 25.77%.

Of course, this is still not entirely conclusive.  More has changed in Formula 1 over the years than just the amount of races in a season.  Comparisons across so many years will always be shady guidelines, and little more.

Is Vettel a legend of Formula 1?  No, not yet.

Will he be, one day?  Quite possibly, yes.

Football commentary: stop living in the past

With the Euro 2012 competition reaching it's conclusion this weekend (I am watching the second semi-final on BBC iPlayer as I type this) I have been watching plenty of football on television over the past couple of weeks - and, as a consequence, I have been getting more and more annoyed at some traits of the commentary which accompanies live football.

I know commentators get a lot of stick (not always entirely deserved, in my opinion) but one thing which really does annoy me is the seemingly constant fascination with old statistics - sometimes several decades old, or more - which really have no bearing on the game currently being played.

It usually starts off with something fairly innocuous -

These two teams have played each other seven times before in international tournaments, and Team A have won six of those seven encounters.

But it's never long until these statistics become increasingly irrelevant, as commentators feel more and more gripped by the need to fill all the available time on air with something resembling an opinion -

This is the first time Team A played Team B in a stadium whose name begins with an "H" since 1988 - and on that occasion, Team A won by nine goals to three.  Could this be an omen?

And then these statements become ever more ridiculous, as they begin to relate to tournaments as a whole, not just the match which is currently taking place -

Team A played two friendly games before this tournament - both against South American teams.  The last time that happened was in 1992.  In that year, they lost their quarter-final match on penalties, despite having been four-nil up in the first half.  Are we going to see a repeat of this tonight? 

So what's the matter?  Surely these little pieces of trivia are harmless enough?

Well, harmless they may be - but they also add no value to proceedings.  Endless reminiscences of matches long gone does nothing to bolster fans' enjoyment of the match they're actually watching.

The real trouble is, it's so difficult to draw such parallels in football; whatever might've happened last time, or the time before that, or twenty years ago, doesn't affect what's going on now - they were different players and different managers playing a different game on a different pitch - and any apparent similarities are surely just coincidence.