Barometer | 1 February 2018

Tight money

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, was worth an estimated £40 billion. Yet the eighth richest man in the world drove an old Volvo, flew economy class, bought his clothes in flea markets and had his wife cut his hair to avoid the cost of a barber. Some other wealthy tight-fists:
— The oil entrepreneur J. Paul Getty, worth $6 billion when he died in 1976, famously installed a payphone for guests at Sutton Place, his home in Surrey.
— Wall Street financier Hetty Green was worth $200 million when she died in 1951. It would have been a little less had she not lived in a small apartment, used charity health clinics (leading, it was said, to the amputation of her son’s leg) and only washing the hems of her dresses to save on soap. She once stayed up much of the night searching for a lost two cents stamp.

Of mice and monkeys

It emerged that a defunct research body, EUGT, had tested diesel exhaust fumes on monkeys and humans. UK animal experiments used which species in 2014?

Source: House of Commons Library

Tube tumult

Passengers on the Central Line between Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green were found to be exposed to 109 decibels of noise: louder than a helicopter taking off. How does it compare with other noises?

Burning issue

The government was said to be considering a ban on coal as a domestic fuel along with restrictions on wood-burning. How have polluting emissions changed since 1970?

Source: Defra