The day I beat my data to death: I poked it, pulled it, pummeled it. I sliced, slashed and skewered it. I tore it up into a thousand pieces and glued it back together into a Frankenstein mess. I abandoned it. I restarted from scratch. Seven times. I created 43 new variables, each of them a total waste. It wasn’t analysis any more; it was an act of violence.