#334

The Times, January 27, 2018

This is a completely spurious statistic, suggesting that the tortoise moved continuously for six months, which is obvious rubbish. Presumably it is meant to reinforce the popular view that tortoises move extremely slowly (which the second leg of the story makes clear is not true, but I cut it badly). By the same token if someone travels eight miles to work and spends eight hours there, you could say he had done an average speed of one mile an hour. It’s silly.

And if you are going to give one set of measurements in metric (322 metres) you have to be consistent and not switch to imperial (miles per hour).

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