In fact

December 20, 1998

Most babies in Britain are conceived without the conscious consent of the father. [Adrienne Burgess, IPPR]

In the recent attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan, the US launched nearly 80 cruise missiles which cost $750,000 each. [The New Yorker, 12th October 1998]

Of German households in cities, 48 per cent are one-person. [Claus Offe, Humboldt University]

In the mid-1980s, less than two thirds of Britons did their main food shopping by car; ten years later it was over three quarters. [Prospect, page 33]

The British tell pollsters that they recycle 45 to 50 per cent of their domestic waste-yet the amount actually recycled is 7.5 per cent. [Economic and Social Research Council]

Forty-eight per cent of British women drivers have never driven on a motorway. [Welcome Break/Daily Mail]

Nine per cent of Britons would definitely vote for a Le Pen-type party, and 17 per cent would seriously consider doing so. [Daily Express/ICM 1995]

Only 36 per cent of eligible Americans voted in mid-term elections this year, less than in any election since 1942. [International Herald Tribune, 7th-8th November 1998]

Entertainment and software products are now the US's largest export, totalling $60.2 billion in 1996. [US Commerce Department]

Of 106 daily newspaper in Canada, Conrad Black owns 62. [En Route, October 1998]

In the US, 50 per cent of men feel nervous in the company of women. [Conversation, Theodore Zeldin]

The information age Titans-Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Novell, Cisco, Oracle, Bay Net, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Adobe Systems, Amgen, Cirrus, Informix, Intuit, Cordis, Am.Online, Autodesk, MBC Soft, Picturetel and Peoplesoft-employ 128,000 people altogether compared with 721,000 for General Motors, the world's largest manufacturer. [Turbo Capitalism, Edward Luttwak]