ETCETERA / Index

Number of times over the last 20 years the Rev Ian Paisley must have read the Holy Bible from beginning to end: 40

Erection aids planted in US men's penises every year: 20,000

Percentage of male partners UK women say share equally homemaking work: 1

Works of art taken out of storage to fill the new Richelieu wing of the Louvre, Paris: 8,000

Reported pay of Barbra Streisand for two New Year's Eve concerts at the MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas: dollars 10,000,000

Average annual economic growth percentage of Taiwan since 1951: 9

Acres of its farmland lost per year: 6,000

Petrol filling stations in Britain: 18,500

Average yards between filling stations per mile of trunk road: 1,000

Months it would take UK-continental ferries to empty the British Isles of humans: 22

Giant Imax wraparound-screen cinemas in North America: 103

In Britain: 1

Supertanker loads of acid-rain-making sulphur dioxide emitted in 1992 by Cottam, Notts, electrical power station: 2

Minutes taken by programmers to render each second's electronic motion of the illusory revolving crest on BBC's Nine O'Clock News: 60

Sources: RM/New Statesman & Society Vol 6/283 (twice a year); New Scientist 1905/1906; Women 2000, Mintel Dec 93; Alice Rowsthorne (FT), Radio 2, 18 Dec 93; Variety 15 Nov 93; National Geographic 184/5; ibid; Shell UK Ltd/Whitaker's Almanack 1994/RM; ibid; RM/Business Age (29.7m passengers in 1992); Variety 15 Nov 93/IMAX Corporation/

British Film Institute; ibid; RM/Friends of the Earth/Dept of the Environment statement 8 April 1993 (supertanker 100K t); Virtual Reality World Jan/Feb 1994.