10 Interesting Nuggets

An eclectic selection of 10 nuggets from my Bank Holiday reading:

1. 51% of live births in London in 2005 were to a mother who was herself born overseas (The Guardian)
2. The UK has the fourth highest population density within the OECD behind South Korea, The Netherlands, Japan and Belgium (BBC)
3. More than 70% give up watching a video within 10 seconds if presented with a pre-roll ad (YouTube)
4. Only 5 houses and 3 bungalows were demolished to build the initial 72 mile southern section of the M1Motorway in the 1950s (quoted in BBC4's Secret Life of the Motorway)
5. 80% of work conversations happen when one person simply passes another's desk. (UCL / Space Syntax)
6. Office paper consumption has increased 40% since the introduction of email (The Myth of the Paperless Office)
7. In 1949, 81% of British men and 39% of women smoked (Matthew Hilton's Smoking in British Popular Culture 1800-2000)
8. In the 5 years following the introduction of PowerPoint the time spent making speeches or presentations in British firms increased by 31.9 per cent (Exclusion, Employment and Opportunity)
9. In the four months after the introduction of the Belisha Beacon road crossing scheme, 3,000 of the 15,000 that had been installed in London had been destroyed! (Daily Telegraph, 4th Jan 1935)
10. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the amount of walking in Britain reduced by 25 per cent (The Cost of Bad Design, CABE)

Credit: Nuggets 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 were all found in Joe Moran's excellent book about our changing daily lives 'Queuing for Beginners'.

Note on the photo: I took the photo above with my back to Durdle Door in Dorset. I bet it will be busier today!