Hobson's Choice

Number of executions Larry Fitzgerald has attended during his five years as the public relations officer for the Department of Criminal Justice in Texas:

60

Chances that a prison inmate in India is awaiting trial rather than serving a sentence:

4:5

Average monthly wages of police officers in Pakistan:

$38

Number of states, apart from Somalia and the US, which have yet to ratify the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:

0

Percentage of Uzbekistan's population under 15 years old:

50

Percentage of new businesses in the US started by 18-34-year-olds:

70

Number of islands off the north and west coasts of Ireland inhabited in 1841, with a total population of 38,138:

211

Number of islands off the north and west coasts of Ireland inhabited in 1991, with a total population of 9,700:

66

Number of prehistoric rock-art sites in Ireland, Scotland and England:

7,000

Percentage of the cost of any public building in France which is dedicated to commissioning contemporary art:

1

Charitable donation needed for one of the three fountains at Versailles to be named after the donor:

$500,000

Amount congregations gave to the Church of England in 1997:

pounds 215m

Amount spent every second in April on credit and debit cards in Great Britain:

pounds 4,000

Percentage by which yacht sales in the US have risen since 1993:

143

Number of themed restaurants in Great Britain in 1996, as opposed to 200 in 1986:

800

Number of eggs consumed daily in Great Britain:

27 million

SOURCES: ATLANTIC MONTHLY, THE ECONOMIST, PROSPECT, SOUTH AFRICA,THE TIMES, DISSENT, HISTORY IRELAND, THE ART NEWSPAPER, CHURCH TIMES, METRO, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, THE GUARDIAN, SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, FOOD PROCESSING

Compiled by Will Hobson