in fact...

(Prospect magazine, Dec 07 / Jan 08)

- Half the people living near Heathrow support the opening of a third runway.

- Women spend nearly three years of their lives getting ready to leave the house. Men spend three months waiting for their wives or girlfriends while out shopping.

- Only 1 in every 400 stop and searches leads to an arrest in the UK.

- In 2005-06, the City of London police force made 6,800 stops without finding enough evidence for a single arrest.
b
- In 2500 BC, the Harrapian civilisation, in what is now Pakistan and northwest India, had flushing toilets in houses linked with drains.

b

- In Britain, the mean average weekly wage for foreign-born workers is £424, compared with £395 for native-born.

b

- In the 1992-93 season 71% of Premier League players (363) were English. In 2005-06, the figure was 38% (191).

b

- In 2006, out of 31 million commercial flights worldwide, there were just 77 crashes. The lowest ever recorded. Only 20 of these involved fatalities.