PERHAPS this week鈥檚 Feedback ought to be subtitled 鈥淔un with figures鈥�, as all the stories feature numbers being used in what might charitably be described as original ways.
We start with the environment section of the website of the UK supermarket Somerfield, which tells us: 鈥淪hoppers in Britain are estimated to use , an average of 323 bags a year to each household, or enough to carpet the entire planet every six months. Somerfield distributes approximately 900 million degradable bags each year, making a huge difference to landfill sites throughout the UK.鈥�
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Feedback reader Hillary Shaw notes: 鈥淚f the above figures were true, Britain would have a total of just under 61,200,000 households, remarkable for an island with a population of less than 60 million. If six months鈥� worth of bags (10 billion) would 鈥榗arpet the planet鈥� (surface area 510,000,000 square kilometres) each bag would have to cover 51,000 square metres. Even if we allow for cutting the bag down the side to spread it out fully, each bag must measure almost 160 脳 160 metres.鈥�
We are pleased Somerfield recognises these monster plastic bags could cause problems in landfill sites.
GOOD to see, too, that the Australian research organisation CSIRO has released a daring plan to stop childhood obesity. A government press release announces: 鈥淭he CSIRO plan will be rolled out in two stages, with the first involving a mail-out to schools of 1.9 million fridge magnets for every Australian primary school child.鈥�
鈥淎n advert for the Pulsar kinetic watch spotted by Jonathan Cromie claimed that it provides 鈥渁ccurate kinetic movement鈥�. Cromie thinks a watch offering non-kinetic movement would be much more interesting鈥�
Greg Eaton is optimistic the plan will work, because 鈥渙nce a child covers his or her refrigerator with 1.9 million fridge magnets, they cannot get anywhere near it to eat the contents 鈥� hence a forced low-calorie diet鈥�.
AN AIR NEW ZEALAND advertisement spotted in the UK by Derek Butcher in The Mail on Sunday offered return trips to Los Angeles, Hong Kong and New Zealand. It also offered a 鈥渞ound-the-world鈥� trip from 鈥溌�698 return鈥�. Butcher says as he only wants a one-way round-the-world trip, 鈥渨ill that cost only 拢349?鈥�
THE reminder sent by UK phone company BT to a client of Derek Woodroffe stated: 鈥淭his email is to advise you of an outstanding amount of 拢87.510000000000005 relating to the above BT Business Broadband account. Please pay your bill promptly as failure to do so could lead to a late payment charge of 拢10.鈥� Woodroffe is suggesting his client writes to his bank requesting a 鈥渕uch wider cheque book鈥� because of the difficulty of fitting in the amount to be paid.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Privett tells us that his local Caff猫 Nero coffee shop in south London has posted in its window a licence from Lambeth council permitting the shop to have seating outside the premises, so long as the chairs leave 3.4500000000000002 metres of pavement free for pedestrians. Hopefully Caff猫 Nero is in possession of a sufficiently accurate tape measure.
HERE is a unit of measurement we have not come across before. It was found by Jonathan Stott on the website of the monitoring unit of the UK academic network Joint Information Systems Committee, which tells us: 鈥淭he University of Kent [in Canterbury] is a data source (unlike much of the academic sector in the UK). Between August 2004 and July 2005 the University shipped 318 terabytes of data, and consumed 104 terabytes. Put another way, on average that鈥檚 the equivalent of 1246 CDs full of data being shipped out of Canterbury every day of the year. That鈥檚 6.8 tonnes a year. Which was the estimated shrimp production of Vietnam in 1983.鈥�
The only trouble is, we don鈥檛 believe a word of it. Doubts began to set in after a quick look at a famous web search engine revealed that Vietnamese shrimp production typically runs into hundreds of thousands of tonnes per year.
READER James Demery was understandably alarmed when he started to copy a few files from one folder to another on his laptop. The Windows Vista program informed him that he would have to wait 48,896 days for the task to finish. As this amounts to 134 years, he was greatly relieved when in fact the files finished copying within the minute.
FINALLY, the section of the UK Driving Standards Agency website tells us: 鈥淵ou can normally book a theory test online 24 hours a day, every day.鈥� Chris Oattes notices, however, that it continues: 鈥淥utside these hours you may make a 鈥榩ending booking鈥�.鈥�
