General Chat

Wow Put's things into perspective. Thanks Phillip becx

From the Independent newspaper on Christmas Eve: “The cost of Christmas: £30bn – the amount Britons will spend celebrating Christmas this year. Spending: £4.2bn – the amount spent on cosmetics this Christmas £4.14bn – Britain’s aid budget for the developing world in 2004 £813 – average spending per adult on celebrating Christmas (£55 less than last year) £50 – the per capita annual income in Ethiopia £20m – the amount made by Mark Tilden, British robot expert who invented Robosapien, this year’s hit toy £20m – the mount nations of sub-Saharan Africa are paying in debt to the developed world every 16 hours Eating: 7,000 average calories consumed by Britons on Christmas Day 780 minutes running needed to burn off 7,000 calories 7 – the number of days a child refugee in Darfur, Sudan, could survive on 7,000 calories £12 – the average cost per head in UK of Christmas lunch £12 – the cost of a month’s supply of grain for a family in drought-hit Malawi 30,525 – the number of miles your Christmas dinner will have travelled to reach your table – vegetables alone are likely to have come 15,800 miles 4 miles walked daily by families in the developing world in search of water Health: 5m Britons will suffer a stomach upset over the festive season 2.1m people in the developing world killed this year by diarrhoeal disease Crime: 244,800 homes in Britain likely to be burgled over the festive season 75,058 Britons spending Christmas in prison 4.2% rise in the murder rate over Christmas Environment: 83 sq km – the amount of wrapping paper used (enough to cover 33 Hyde Parks) 3 million tons of extra rubbish generated – enough to fill 120m wheelie bins" ‘Nuff said! Philip

From the Independent newspaper on Christmas Eve Philip