Barometer

Minority report The Queen signed a new Commonwealth charter denouncing ‘discrimination of all kinds’, leading campaigners to suggest that she was supporting gay marriage. Peter Tatchell asserted that 6 per cent of the population are gay. What other estimates are there? — 37% by Dr Alfred Kinsey in 1953 (strictly an estimate of men who achieved orgasm with another male at some point) — 21% by a Gallup survey in 2002 — 10% according to Kinsey in 1948 — 6.1% in a scientific paper by A.M.

Dyeing and dying A teacher in Harrow complained to his MP that he had been banned from marking pupils’ work in red ink in case it upset them. Some origins of ink: Black Made from burned bones, tar and pitch in India by the 4th century BC. Made from soot in China by the 3rd century BC. Red Blood was used in medieval England (red ink from blood is said to have been used by poor monasteries; hence its association with debt). Made with brazilwood from the 16th century in Europe. Blue Made from various vitreous pigments added to black ink in 11th-century Europe. Purple Made in ancient Tyre, in the 7th century BC, from a secretion of shellfish. Epidemic of fear Eight hundred people in the Swansea area contracted measles in a now rare epidemic of a once universal disease.

Takes all sports The government is to introduce a new strategy for sport in schools. To what educational ends can sport be used? — ‘Using Sport to Tackle Youth Crime’ US qualification for the over-14s — ‘Maths Through Sport — boost your pupils’ maths levels through physical activity and sport’. Active Learning Programme — ‘Using sport for drug-use prevention’ Paper by United Nations’ Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention — ‘Women Win spotlights the harmful traditional practice of female genital mutilation (cutting) and how the strategy of using sport can play a powerful role in shifting cultural practices’.

Four sworn Barack Obama achieved a remarkable feat last week: he managed to take the oath of office for a fourth time. Under the 22nd Amendment to the US constitution, which was passed in 1947, no president may be elected to office more than twice. — In 2009 Obama took his oath a second time, in the White House, after chief justice John Roberts confused his lines, leading to suggestions that Joe Biden was president. — The constitution demands that 20 January be inauguration day. As it fell on Sunday, Obama took an oath in private, followed by a re-run at the official ceremony on Monday. — Only one other president has taken the oath four times: Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was inaugurated for a fourth time in 1945.

Equine dining Horsemeat was found in hamburgers sold by Tesco, among others. Why did eating horses become a taboo? — In the 8th century Pope Gregory III instructed St Boniface, missionary to Germany, to forbid the eating of horseflesh to those he converted to Christianity. — There has been no tradition of eating horsemeat in Britain, where ‘I could eat a horse’ is as an expression of desperate hunger. — Horsemeat has a slightly sweet taste, like a cross between beef and venison. — Abattoirs have become the principal means of disposal of unwanted horses in Ireland. They are also subject to seizure by local authorities, which sent 589 horses to slaughter in 2010. Shock the vote We are often told that referendums are not part of the British system.

Welfare state The government was attacked for wanting to increase benefits by less than inflation. How have benefits changed in real terms since they were introduced? — Unemployment benefit began with the National Insurance Act 1911, when unemployed workers became eligible for payments of seven shillings a week for up to 15 weeks in the year. In 2013 prices seven shillings equates to £33, compared with £71 for Jobseeker’s Allowance. — The state pension began in 1909 when people over 70 with an income of less than £21 a year became eligible for five shillings a week. In 2013 prices this equates to £24, compared with the basic state pension of £107.45. Child’s pay David Cameron proposed tax relief for childcare costs.

The Seacole empire Education Secretary Michael Gove says he wants to rewrite the national curriculum in history to concentrate on figures such as Cromwell and Churchill instead of Mary Seacole. Some institutions which have been named after Seacole in recent years: — Mary Seacole House, ‘mental health drop-in centre primarily for black and ethnic communities in Liverpool 8’ — Mary Seacole Research Centre ‘provides a base for diversity orientated research’ at De Montfort University, Leicester — Mary Seacole Housing Association, provides ‘supported housing for young single people in Luton’.

Counting the years 2013 might look an uninteresting number for a year but it is in fact a mathematical rarity: a year whose digits, when rearranged, can form a simple arithmetic progression: i.e. 0,1,2,3. — The last such year was 1432. The next will be 2031, after which we will have to wait until 2103 for the next one. — The good news, for those who believe in ominous dates, is that nothing terribly bad happened in 1432. Florence defeated Siena at the Battle of San Romano, there was a civil war in Lithuania and a small revolt against the Ottoman Empire in Albania.

Double trouble The Duchess of Cambridge’s acute morning sickness was said to be associated with twins, raising the prospect of an awkward question of succession, especially if twins were to be born as a result of caesarean section. No monarchy has yet been tested in such a way. —Prince Vincent of Denmark was born before his twin sister Princess Josephine in 2011, but neither is likely to succeed to the throne as they have two older siblings, Prince Christian and Princess Isabella. —The only royal twin to have reached the throne in Britain was James II of Scotland. He was born after his brother, Alexander Stewart, Duke of Rothesay, in 1430, but the elder child failed to reach his first birthday.

Local elections in Catalonia, which could lead to an independence referendum, put the region in a race with Scotland to be the world’s next new nation. Some other contenders: NEW CALEDONIA A collectivity of France governed by a high commissioner and a 54-seat territorial congress. Rejected independence in a referendum in 1987 but will hold another one in 2015. MTHWAKAZI A kingdom until the late 19th century, now part of  Zimbabwe. A MTHWAKAZI independence party was founded earlier this year. CABINDA Former Portuguese Congo, now a province of Angola. Detached from the rest of Angola by strip of the Congo. BIAFRA Breakaway republic from Nigeria which existed between 1967 and 1970 before being reabsorbed.

Stage and screen Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap has notched up its 60th anniversary and its 25,000th performance, by far the longest run of a stage show. Yet for all its longevity, relatively few people have seen it compared with some television dramas. — The Mousetrap played at the 440-seat New Ambassadors Theatre until 1974. It then transferred to the 550-seat St Martins Theatre, where it still runs. If every seat had been sold in that time, it would have been seen by 12.7 million people. — That is far short of the record audience for a British TV drama (30.15 million, for the 1986 EastEnders Christmas special), and only three times the average Saturday evening audience for ITV’s Poirot.

Brave new words ‘Omnishambles’ was declared the Oxford English Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’, but will not for the moment be added to the dictionary itself. Here is a selection of the 498 words which were added to the OED in September alone, a month which concentrated on words beginning ‘a’: — Affogato, n, coffee-based beverage — Agometer, n, a device for measuring electrical resistance — Allowability, n, the state of being allowed — Allusionist, n, Someone who draws allusions — Ealdormanry, n, a legal district in Anglo-Saxon England — Egerdouce, n, an onion-based sauce Entwistle’s pay-off The BBC licence fee is £145.

Electric dreams Manganese Bronze, the manufacturer of the most familiar model of London taxi, went into administration, putting a question mark over the black London cab. — Although they enjoy the status of a timeless icon, London cabs only became universally black after the second world war, while their less welcome signature, diesel fumes, only came in during the 1950s. Remarkably, the first non-horse-drawn London cab was in fact electrically powered. — Introduced by Walter C. Bersey in 1896, the cabs could achieve 12 mph and had a range of 15 miles. — The 12 cabs were withdrawn by 1900, however, on account of unreliability, not so much because of their batteries as their pneumatic tyres.

Matters of record German skydiver Felix Baumgartner attempted to become the first man to break the sound barrier outside an aircraft when he dropped from a balloon at 120,000 feet over Mexico, reaching 690mph 40 seconds later. Other feats still to be achieved: —Climbing Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan, at 24,836 feet the highest mountain never climbed. But attempts have been banned since 1994 for religious reasons. — Swim the Pacific, if you can beat Benoit Lecomte to it. He swam the Atlantic (in eight-hour stages) in 1998, and is about to embark on a crossing from Tokyo to San Francisco in a shark cage.

Proud to be plebs Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell denied calling policemen in Downing Street ‘plebs’. The term has its origins in ancient Rome but was also used as a badge of pride by members of the workers’ education movement in the early 20th century. — The League of the Plebs grew out of a power struggle at Ruskin College, the institution founded in Oxford in 1899 to provide opportunities for academic education for trade unionists, and later alma mater to John Prescott. — In 1908 a group of students, supported by the principal Dennis Hird but opposed by the governing body, protested that the education on offer was too timid, and began lectures in Marxism.

The start of the tape Business secretary Vince Cable announced another crackdown on red tape. But where did red tape come from? It seems to have been a product of the Holy Roman Empire. — Spanish officials in the reign of Charles V (1516-56) would tie up documents relating to issues which had to be discussed on the Council of State with red tape; other, lesser documents were bound with rope. — The tape was called Boldoque, after the Dutch city in which it was manufactured (S'Hertgenbosch in Dutch). The Spanish have retained the word for red tape. — As for the Dutch, they have made amends by inventing the 'one in, one out' rule, now adopted by Cable's department, under which for every new piece of legislation an old law must be abolished.