Barometer | 28 April 2012

Marathon mortalities

A 30-year-old hairdresser collapsed and died in the final mile of the London marathon, echoing the alleged fate of the world’s original marathon runner, Pheidippides, who according to legend ran 26 miles to Athens to announce victory in the Battle of Marathon in 490 bc before collapsing and dying.

— A paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 1996 studied two US marathons over a period of 30 years and found that of 215,413 runners, three had died suddenly during the race, at distances between 15 and 24 miles, and one had died immediately afterwards. None had any previous signs of heart disease.

— This has given rise to a crude but often-quoted statistic that marathon runners have a one in 50,000 chance of dying from the activity.

Join the queue

The former head of the UK Border Agency, Brodie Clark, said that the government would have to give up its policy of checking the passport of every passenger entering the country or face lengthening queues. How long do we wait at passport control in ports and airports across the country, travelling from Europe and beyond?

An order of chips

The government announced plans to force all dog-owners to microchip their pets. How many people were admitted to hospital between May 2010 and April 2011 as a result of dog and other animal attacks?

Bitten or struck by dog    6,030
Bitten or struck by other mammal    2,518
Bitten or stung by non-venomous insect or other non-venomous arthropod    3,570
Other (including snake bite)    10

Funding films

HMRC has closed a loophole which had allowed 289 wealthy investors each to earn £404,000 in tax relief by investing £173,000 in a deal over film rights.