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...a blog by Richard Flowers

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Day 2178 2179 2180: Daddy Cannot Count

Wednesday (again):


…which is obviously pretty bad news for an accountant.

I have been learning MATHS and trying to work out why my days in my diary DO NOT ADD UP!

[Daddy Richard Says: Move Along, Move Along. Nothing to See Here!]

This is REALLY BORING but I am going to explain!


In the FIRST PLACE, my diary should have started on Day 1881 (NOT Day 1880).

This is an example of the old counting lampposts error!

If your road is ten metres long and you want a lamp every metre, then how many lamps do you need? Answer ten.

WRONG!!! Awooga Awooga! Alarms go off and "ten" flashes on the screens.

The right answer is ELEVEN because you need one at the beginning as well, then number two at one metre, number three at two metres, number four at three metres, and so on up to number ELEVEN at ten metres.

Since I arrived on the 1st January 2001, then that is Day 1. NOT Day 0.

Daddy is ALWAYS going on about how he thinks I am FIVE and not NEARLY SEVEN. Ha! It turns out HE'S one to talk!


Then in the SECOND PLACE, the nice Blogger machine tells me how many diaries I have typed in with my big fluffy nose.

But when it said I had done 100 diaries, I was on Day 1976, and when it said I had done 200 diaries, I was on Day 2076.

Any fule nose that even if you are STUPID like my Daddy Richard and start on Day 1880, then 100 diaries later is Day 1979, NOT Day 1976! And 200 diaries later is Day 2079, NOT Day 2076!

What COULD have happened? I decided to stick my big ol' nose into my archive and here is what I found.

There were TWO diaries each for Day 1884 and Day 1885 and Day 1906.

That is where the three extra days disappeared.

AND I found that there were two diaries for Day 2132, so it would have been FOUR missing days!

Day 1884 and Day 1885 were DELIBERATE: the first one was a PS and the second one was my FIRST FLUFFY PICTURE!

Daddy has edited these so that there is now only ONE diary for each day.

But Day 1906 and Day 2132 were MISTAKES: Daddy – who is STUPID – used the same number TWICE.

Using the same number twice means that all of my diaries are a TWO DAYS OUT instead of ONE DAY OUT. And doing it again means that they are even THREE DAYS OUT instead of ONE DAY OUT!

BOO HOO!

Now THIS is where it gets REALLY complicated!

Daddy did not realise that there was a difference between two diaries for one day and the same number used for two days. So he deleted the duplicate Day 1906 just like he did with the duplicates of Day 1884 and Day 1885.

This means that there is actually NO DIARY for Tuesday 21 March 2006!

Which is why this diary has to be for Wednesday AGAIN, so that there is one day with TWO diaries to make up for the one day with NO diaries.

But it also means that I have a SPARE NUMBER so that is why I only have to skip Day 2178 and Day 2179.

And while we're at it, Day 2049 got put in as Day 1949! But I have let Daddy fix that!


I cannot re-edit all of the mis-numbered Days because Daddy Alex has explained that if I change the titles, then the Blogger machine will change the URLs which will blow up all the links to my diary that people have made.

(Daddy Richard tried to sneakily change the ones in the last week when we discovered his mistake, but I have made him put them back!)

So instead I am just going to have to put it right, starting from NOW!



And now, if you will excuse me, there is an elephant in a BONE MAMMOTH MASK here trying to sell me a copy of the latest and last FACTION PARADOX book in exchange for my missing days…


This has been my 300th Diary! It was brought to you by the miracle of ADDING UP!

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