numbers The anaesthetist

Out with your lottery cards: here are the numbers of the week:

15,000 (approx): Times the word "blood" appears in the transcript of the OJ Simpson trial.

13,000 (approx): Ditto "glove".

666: Hundreds of Romanian peasants have refused coupons giving them a stake in nationalised industries, because the serial number contains the digits 666 - the number of evil in the Book of Revelation.

125: The age of Francisco Barriosnuevo, a Colombian farmer who, if it is confirmed, is the oldest man alive. He bought a coffin 40 years ago, but the friends he instructed to carry him to the cemetery are now all dead.

71: The number of houses in Manila said to have been burnt down by a man inflamed by his wife's refusal to have sex. She says he smelt of liquor and she told him to have a bath first. He stormed out, and returned with a can of paraffin. Seventy other homes were also destroyed.

38: The number of streets in the Ukrainian city of Kherson sharing the name of "Vostochnaya" (meaning "Eastern"). A special renaming commission last week reported problems in reaching agreement on new names.

19: The number of questions relating to Prince Charles in the new annual edition of Trivial Pursuit. Princess Diana has 18.

Competition: Mixed doubles:

Lower trite Matilda an asp line.

Three words with a common theme lie hidden in the above sentence, each formed by reorganising the letters of two of its words. (All six words are used in the three pairs.) The first three disentanglements opened on 17 October will each win a Chambers Dictionary. Entries to: Pastimes, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL.

21 September answers: Middlesex (sled mixed); Yorkshire (hero risky) Worcestershire (white sorcerers); . Winners: Ms E Mellish, MJ Wallace, FG Robinson.