- Parmesan cheese accounts for 10 per cent of thefts from Italian shops—more than any other good. [Sunday Telegraph, 5th November 2006]
- Tony Blair is the 188th best paid public sector worker. [The Observer, 5th November 2006]
- Iran's population is only 51 per cent Persian. [Los Angeles Times, 25th October 2006]
- There are 60 casinos in Moscow—more than any other city in the world bar Las Vegas and Miami. [World Casino Directory]
- In Britain, more children are born to one white and one black parent than to two black parents. [The Economist, 28th October 2006]
- The highest possible legal score on a first turn in Scrabble is given by the word "muzjiks," giving 128 points. The world record for the highest score on a single turn was recently broken in the US, with "quixotry" (365 points). [Wikipedia/Slate, 26th October 2006]
- The Chicago White Sox baseball team now starts its midweek games at 7.11pm after a sponsorship deal with 7-Eleven stores. [The Guardian, 20th October 2006]
- Almost 1 per cent of Guatemalan children are adopted by American families. [New York Times, 6th November 2006]
- During last year's riots in France, 33 per cent of those questioned by the police were European in origin, 36 per cent were north African, and 29 per cent African. [Dissent, Summer 2006]
- One of Olivia Newton John's grandfathers was Max Born, a Nobel-winning physicist and one of the founders of quantum mechanics. [Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish]
- Mitch Daniels, George W Bush's first budget director, tried (and failed) to get the Office of Management and Budget to use "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones as its hold music. [The Economist, 4th November 2006]
