In fact

 
August 19, 1999

In Washington DC, of a total of 12,667 students enrolled at public high schools, only 362 are white. [Prospect research]

In 1996, Norway was the top country in the world for newspaper reading, circulating 592 copies of daily newspapers per 1,000 people, followed by Japan at 582 and Finland at 456. Britain was at 330 and Italy at 105. [British Journalism Review, Vol 10, Number 2, 1999]

In Australia, half of all Aborigines refer to themselves as artists. [Resurgence, July/August 1999]

In Liverpool, 10 per cent of the members of the Orange Order are black. [The Faithful Tribe, Ruth Dudley Edwards]

In South Africa, 43 per cent of upper-income people are black. [The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1999]

In the US, 53 per cent of ER viewers say they learn important health care information from the programme. [The American Prospect, July/August 1999]

In 1893, when Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, 20,000 people cancelled their subscriptions to the Strand magazine which published the Holmes stories. [The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1999]

In the US, 6.2m people say they are more attached to their dogs than they are to their children. [The Utne Reader, July/August 1999]

In Ireland, 28 per cent of all births were illegitimate in 1998. [Prospect research]

Before 1850, less than 10 per cent of Americans owned guns. [The Economist, 3rd July 1999]

Twenty per cent of all white adult males are completely without chest hair. [The Weekly Standard, 21st June 1999]

In 1996, American men spent $12m on penile enlargements. [The Utne Reader, July/August 1999]

Intervening in Kosovo cost Nato over ?3 billion; of this, Britain paid around 12 per cent. [Red Pepper, July 1999]