7
Number of UK parliamentary constituencies in which the majority of households consist of single parent families

9
Labour's percentage lead over the Conservatives in the latest UK poll of polls

29
Number of people arrested in Papua New Guinea for making soup out of the penises of witch doctors

40
Number in millions of people in the United States suffering from anxiety disorders

40
Cost in millions of pounds of the Olympic basketball arena in London which will now be demolished

Thoughts about Edinburgh now that London's over

Isna Embro a glorious city!
James Hogg

To none but those who have themselves suffered the thing in the body, can the gloom and depression of our Edinburgh winters be brought home.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Edinburgh's soul is Bible-black, pickled in boredom by centuries of sermons, swaddled in the shabby gentility of the Kirk.
Tom Nairn

The impression Edinburgh has made on me is very great; it is quite beautiful, totally unlike anything else I have ever seen; and what is even more, Albert, who has seen so much, says it is unlike anything he ever saw.
Queen Victoria

It is like a city of Victorian children under the eye of God-the-Father and his hierarchy of traffic wardens writing down a report for judgement day in their little notebooks.
Tessa Ransford

Maeve Binchy, the Irish novelist who has died at the age of 72, said her sex life was so lacking in colour that she would not write about it: 'You should write about what you know'. Asked by a French broadcaster for her philosophy of life, Binchy replied: 'I think that you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another one'.

Today's banner:
Reflection of houses, Portree harbour,
by Islay McLeod

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