The “recent years” x-axis selection only gave you the last seven years (2001-2007 at the time of writing) which didn’t let you monitor trends very far back in time. The new “recent (odd) years” choice gives you the last seven odd-numbered years, which obviously go back further. Why do we use the odd years? Well we’re avoiding “2000″ because this text on a web page refers to the actual year much less than, say “2001″.
Here’s the trend linked above, showing Jeremy Clarkson’s meteoric rise vs. Germaine Greer’s steadier web-presence growth:
Here’s one that unfortunately shows the general decline in society:
I was hoping for something more optimistic!
The new x-axis choice helps put events in around 2001 (e.g. 9/11) in context:
Here we see the result of Bush’s administration desperately wanting to link Iraq with 9/11.
September 2nd, 2007 at 19:55
Here’s an interesting plot showing the recent massive rise (due to media interest?) in city bonuses. Usually attributed to increased mergers and takeover activity - but not very well correlated here: