Barometer | 20 November 2010

Trouble with stags

In addition to next year’s royal wedding, Prince William will have to organise the royal stag party. William got into trouble in 2008 for flying a Chinook helicopter from Lincolnshire to his cousin Peter Phillips’s stag party on the Isle of Wight — at a cost of £8,716 to the public purse. In 1981 Prince Charles announced that he would hold a fireworks party in Hyde Park in lieu of a stag do — but he slipped off to meet friends at White’s. Prince Andrew was less successful at setting a decoy for his stag party in 1986: the press tracked him down, thwarting a plan by Sarah Ferguson and Princess Diana to crash the party dressed as policewomen. Prince Philip in 1947 held two stag parties, the first at the Dorchester with the press invited. His second, the night before the wedding, was held with friends at the Belfry and went on into the early morning.

House arrest

The crisis in the Irish economy has its roots in a property boom fuelled by low interest rates after the country joined the euro. The boom and bust have been even bigger than in Britain. Average house price in Ireland in the third quarter of each year:

1996              €79,270

1998              €115,384

2000              €165,501

2002              €198,046

2004              €233,808

2006              €308,180

2007              €300,763

2008              €270,461

2009              €233,137

2010              €198,689

Source: Economic and Social Research Institute



Home alone

Burmese pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi was released after 21 years under house arrest. No one wants to be under house arrest but the average Briton spends most of their time — 1,003 out of 1,440 minutes a day — at home, where their main activities are:

Sleep                          476 minutes

TV/video/radio/music 152 minutes

Eating/drinking           59 minutes

Washing/dressing      42 minutes

Cooking/washing up  40 minutes

Source: ONS Time-Use Survey 2005

Back home

The release of Rachel and Paul Chandler by Somali pirates focused attention on the ‘lawless’ seas off Somalia.