MPs' expenses, now available as receipts

MPs' expenses was the dataset that lauched a thousand visualisations - you may have seen the charts and graphics . Ben O'Steen opted for a unique approach on his Random Hacks blog. He took our Google spreadsheet and ... actually, it is probably better if Ben explains from here: Talking one night about printing with receipt printers, Dave Challis said that it would be interesting to print out a receipt for the MPs' expenses the next day. So we did. We grabbed the [spreadsheet], parsed it up using Python and then spent an hour or so adjusting the look and feel of the receipt itself before starting the print run Python is a programming language, in case you didn't know. You can see more of Ben's photos of the exercise as a Flickr set . Ben's next conundrum is what to do with the enormous mountain of receipts he now possesses.