Gold standard
The Paralympics were instigated in 1948 and first held alongside the Olympics in Rome in 1960. But disabled athletes were competing in the Olympics long before that – notably George Eyser, a German who settled in St Louis, USA. That he had lost a leg after being run over by a train and wore a wooden prosthetic did not stop him taking up athletics and gymnastics. When the Olympics came to his city in 1904 he won three golds: in the parallel bars, long horse vault and 25ft rope climb. He won three other medals, on the pommel horse, horizontal bars and in a team event. He also competed in the triathlon, which in those days consisted of a 100m run, the long jump and shot put – but came last.
Ship shape
How dangerous is it at sea? Incidents involving ships bearing European flags:
– In 2022 there were 2,510 ‘incidents’ involving 2,701 ships; 6 ships were lost, with 612 severe casualties and 38 fatalities.
– The seas seem to be becoming safer, as in 2014-22 inclusive there was an annual average of 2,646 incidents, 20 ships lost, 753 severe casualties and 67 fatalities.
Source: European Maritime Safety Agency
Good buy
It is more than a decade since the Cameron government revived the right to buy. How popular is it with social housing tenants?
– In 2023/24, 6,275 properties were sold under the right to buy. The sales raised £618m, or £98,454 per property, and funded 3,046 replacement properties.
– In the decade to 2022/23, 14% of those sold were one-bed, 33% two-bed and 53% three-bed or more. Of replacement dwellings built, 25% were one-bed, 43% two-bed and 32% three-bed or more.
Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Hot line
The Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union proposed that the government should set a ‘maximum working temperature’, with workers put on ‘heat furlough’ (and their wages paid by employers or the taxpayer) if the temperature exceeded 27°C for manual work and 30°C for sedentary work. How often would workers have to be furloughed?
– At Heathrow airport, one of the warmest places in Britain, the temperature exceeded 30°C on an average of 7.9 days per year from 2014-23.
– In 2018 office workers would have had to be sent home on 18 days. The last year in which there would have been no heat furlough was 2008.
Comments