Today's number: 15
Today is 15 December - the date of the last of these shameless plugs for The Book of Numbers by William Hartston (Richard Cohen Books, price pounds 9.99).
Fifteen is the number of:
babies in the largest recorded litter of a ferret;
people per square kilometre in Finland;
checkouts a supermarket has to have before it can call itself a hypermarket;
minutes everyone will be famous, according to Andy Warhol;
pounds of hydrogen in the average human body;
red balls in snooker;
men on a dead man's chest;
blows the executioner took to sever the head of Mary, Queen of Scots;
escalators at Baker Street tube station - the highest number on the London underground;
letters O in an Italian Scrabble set.
Fifteen is also - according to recent surveys - the percentage of women who would consider having sex after a first date with someone they have just met.
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