His career has been largely one of number-crunching perseverance, away from the public eye, in such glamorous haunts as the state statistics institute and the national economic planning organisation.

ECONOMIST: Christian Sautter, France��s wary finance minister

On Thursday, the National Bureau of Statistics released some more positive economic data.

FORBES: Market Still Ignores China's Relatively Positive Economy

But the commentary, in the hours since the Office of National Statistics (ONS) released its first estimate of the UK's economic performance for the third quarter of 2012, has been hedged about by leylandii-sized caveats.

BBC: Growth of what?

The National Center for Education Statistics constructed a "world average" of 18 countries that are members of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and that participated in the IEA reading study.

UNESCO: II Part Analytic Section