100 YEARS OLD AND STILL CHECKING CHECKS...

FIGURES released today reveal a disturbing increase in the amount of double-checking going on in this country despite warnings against the practice.

In the first 30 days of August, our database of national newspapers reveals 27 uses of the term “doublecheck” compared with only 14 in the whole of July and also 14 in June.

“The waste of effort involved in needless double-checking is a massive drain on the nation’s resources,” laments Sir Tintin Evans-Evans of the Department of Pointless Repetition.

“If people would only have the confidence to trust that they have checked properly in the first place, they would not feel the need to perform a double-check. Doublechecks are only seen to be justified if the second check yields a different result from the first check. In that case, you need a third check to see which of the first two was correct.

“Yet, as the database reveals, there have only been three triple-checks mentioned in the press in the whole of this year compared with 161 doublechecks which strongly suggests that the second check in 158 of those double-checks was unnecessary.”

We asked Sir Tintin why he thought the double-checking was so high.

“The evidence suggests that it may be a seasonal effect,” he told us. “Last year there were a massive 44 doublechecks in August which was the highest number for any month in 2016 and indeed the highest monthly figure since records began.”

We asked if he had any theories about why so much superfluous double-checking was going on during the month of August.

“We are currently working on a theory we call PSHLOSD, which stands for Post Summer Holiday Lack Of Stress Disorder. Summer holidays cause people to be lackadaisical which gives them a feeling that extra checking may be necessary.”

“But what about people who take their holidays in September and not August?” we asked.

“In that case,” he said, “their August double-checking is down to Pre Summer Holiday Lack Of Stress Disorder, which is also PSHLOSD. Apart from August, the highest rate of double-checks in both 2016 and 2017 has been in January. This may be put down to people getting lackadaisical after the Christmas festivities.”

“Might it not be argued,” we suggested, “that the double-check is justified, even if both checks yield the same result? You say that only three of 161 double-checks called for a third check to be made but that is almost two per cent of all double-checks. In those cases, a catastrophe may have been averted.”

“It’s possible, I suppose,” he conceded, “but we’d never have a catastrophe if we did the first check properly right at the start.”

“Just out of interest,” we asked, “when a triple-check is performed, does the third more often confirm the first or the second check?”

“I’d have to double-check that one,” he said. Then he added the words, “Oh blast!” and left the room.