- John Kerry is only the third Catholic to stand for the US presidency. [International Herald Tribune, 11th May 2004]
- Stockport County FC now own 50 per cent of a Chinese team called Stockport (formerly Liaoning) Tiger Star. [The Economist, 14th May 2004]
- Estonia spent its entire tourism budget for 2002 on hosting the Eurovision song contest. [BBC News online, 14th May 2004]
- Mohammed is the most popular name for newborn boys in Amsterdam. [Atlantic Monthly, June 2004]
- In 1996 in China, there were 121 boys between the ages of 1 and 4 for every 100 girls in the same age range. [Chronicle of Higher Education, 30th April 2004]
- In Britain, flowerpots are responsible for 5,300 accidents a year, making them the second most dangerous piece of garden equipment, after lawnmowers. [The Guardian, 3rd May 2004]
- Just after the six-day war, 49 per cent of French people believed that Israel should annex all of the Palestinian land it had conquered. [The Observer, 25th April 2004]
- 90 per cent of men with salaries over ?60,000 admit to adultery. [Radio 5 Live, 13th February 2003]
- In 1715, the British army was roughly the same size as the King of Sardinia's. [Captives by Linda Colley, Pimlico]
- In rural Zimbabwe, women with more than eight years of education are 50 per cent more likely to be living in poverty as those with no education at all. [OM magazine, 9th May 2004]
- In a psychological experiment in which subjects were asked to watch a video of a basketball game and to count the number of passes made by one team, half failed to notice that a woman dressed in a gorilla suit was in frame for nine seconds, walking among the players and thumping her chest. [Daily Telegraph, 5th May 2004]
