- Britons buy almost half as many celebrity magazines as Americans, despite a population only a fifth the size. [The Economist, 3rd September 2005]
- Each successive monarch faces in a different direction on British coins. [BBC News Online]
- There are over 25,000 centenarians in Japan—twice as many as there were five years ago. By 2050, the country expects to have over 1m people aged over 100. [Associated Press, 13th September 2005]
- In 2003, American companies invested twice as much in Ireland as they did in China. [Foreign Policy, September/October 2005]
- Until David Miliband's 40th birthday in July, there were no cabinet members in their forties. [Prospect research]
- Of the 218 new plays produced in Britain last year, only 38 were written by women. [The Guardian, 10th September 2005]
- Miriam Stoppard is Oona King's aunt. [The Guardian, 12th September 2005]
- The first edition of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams sold only 351 copies in its first six years. [Prospect, page 21]
- Of the ten British constituencies with the highest percentage saying they have no religion at all, nine are in Scotland. [Office for National Statistics]
- In 1940, 58 per cent of black women with jobs worked as maids. Now, only 1 per cent do. [The Economist, 4th August 2005]
- In the 1830s, the population of the island of Ireland was 8m, while the population of England, Wales and Scotland was 10m. [Slugger O'Toole]
- In New Zealand, because of male emigration, a 32-year-old woman has as much chance of finding a partner her age as does an 82-year-old woman. [Population Growth Report 2005]
- In the six London boroughs affected by the July bombings and attempted bombings, crime in July fell by 12 per cent compared to July 2004. [The Economist, 27th August 2005]
