ETCETERA / Index

Years of 24-hour talking needed for a typical MP to have a 10-minute chat with each constituent: 1.5

Millions of years of television commercials watched per year by American viewers: 3.5

Eight-hour days without lunch-breaks required to read US anti-pollution rules: 96

Average 1992 donations to the Tory party per working day: pounds 73,076

Weekly pensions paid by taxpayers to retired civil servants: pounds 33,076,000

Proportion of over 21s who do not move directly from government job training into work: 2/3

Criminal damage and injury compensation paid by UK taxpayer in Northern Ireland in 1990-91: pounds 42,200,000

In 1992-93: pounds 102,500,000

Dwellings built by local authorities in 1979: 72,500

In 1992: 2,900

Miles a queue of juggernauts would stretch loaded with a year's foreign tea for Britain: 52

US military vehicles hit by their own side's allegedly radioactive depleted-uranium shells in the Gulf war: 22

Depth of world's deepest valley, Kali Gandaki, Nepal, measured in Canary Wharf Towers: 219

Sources: RM / Dept of Health; Earth Island Journal (30.6bn hours); RM / US Code of Federal Regulations (4 mins/page); RM / BBC / Conservative Party (pounds 19m gross); HM Treasury (pounds 1.72bn per year); RM / Dept of Employment; NI Office; ibid; Dept of the Environment; ibid; RM / Euromonitor; BBC News & Current Affairs; National Geographic.