- In Britain, 1-2 per cent of births are through IVF. [The Times,14th March 2005]
- The brand new French embassy in Berlin has 19 kitchens. [French Cour des Comptes]
- Only two people have had their coffins transported on the London underground: William Gladstone and Dr Barnardo. [Wikipedia]
- In Britain, football sendings-off have increased by 3,658 per cent since the first half of the century. [TLS, 8th April 2005]
- There are fewer than 100 Serbs remaining in Pristina, down from 40,000 before 1999. [The New Republic, 11th April 2005]
- Ghanaians are often named after the day of the week on which they were born. Kofi Annan was born on and named after Friday. [Cross-Cultural Solutions]
- Of the 500 largest multinational companies in the world, 185 are headquartered in the US. [National Interest, Spring 2005]
- Half of the working-class undergraduates at Cambridge come from private schools. [The Economist, 19th March 2005]
- Britain and Iceland are the only two developed countries in which schoolchildren can drop history at the age of 14. [BBC News Online, 27th January 2005]
- French males can marry at 18, but females at only 15. [The Guardian, 30th March 2005]
- On a rough estimate, each newly conceived human has around 300 harmful genetic mutations. [edge.org]
- As a percentage of its population, Vermont has lost more soldiers than any other American state. [Washington Post, 9th February 2005]
- 68 per cent of people in Tooting have heard of the Africa Commission, while only 7 per cent of those in York have, despite the fact that the local MP, Hugh Bayley, chairs the Africa all-party parliamentary group. [Chatham House]
