Online Banking Continues To Grow

According to the latest figures from the banking payments association Apacs, the use of UK internet banking has grown by 174% in the past five years. In 2006, a total of 17 million people used online banking services compared to only 6.2 million in 2001.

If you're looking to bank online, pay a visit to our online banking section where you'll find an overview of online current and savings accounts plus links to online banking services.

Killer Sandcastles More Dangerous Than Sharks

I love unusual statistics and a recent story in The Telegraph caught my eye.

The personal insurance industry is awash with statistics and they are used as a main element in the equation to determine the cost of a policy premium. The insurance companies know for example statistically how many people receive novelty slippers as a Christmas present and not too surprisingly manage to fall down the stairs in them that very day. I doubt however that the following statistic is factored into the calculation for personal accident and life cover.

Research by a leading doctor (published here) shows that Americans are more likely to die from sandcastle holes in the beach than being killed in a shark attack. Dr Bradley Maron (Harvard Medical School) has undertaken research that shows that since 1990 in the US 16 people have died as a result of falling into holes dug in the sand but only 12 people have died from a shark attack. Dr Maron says

Typically, victims became completely submerged in the sand when the walls of the hole unexpectedly collapsed, leaving virtually no evidence of the hole of the location of the victim.

Not a nice way to go!

Post Office Financial Reaches 1m Customers

Post Office Financial Services reports that it has now acquired their one millionth customer. The joint venture with Bank of Ireland was setup three years ago to offer various personal finance products. The Post Office now sells 1 in 50 of all car insurance policies in the UK. In 2006, it issued 1 in 25 of all new credits cards. We promote the Post Office credit card in our credit card centre.

Managing Director Alan Cook said:

Post Office Financial Services entered the market with the aim of challenging what other financial services providers were offering. Gaining one million customers in about 1000 days confirms we were right. People want easy to understand, good value products.

I'd find it interesting to see the figures detailing where the customers came from. How many came via the counter and how many cam via the internet?

Off On Holiday? Then Get Home Insurance

A report from Halifax Home insurance suggests that more than 1m holidaymakers return home to find:

• their homes burgled
• vandalised
• spoilt by burst pipes
• damaged by storms
• fire damaged

The annual repair bill from the above and others is expected to be as much as £2.3 billion this year the bank said. Unfortunately for homeowners in The Midlands, they are most likely to return home to encounter a disaster of some sort whilst Scots are least likely to.

So, either move to Scotland or make sure that your home insurance is up-to-date! And while we're on the topic did you know that if you still have home insurance from the bank or building society that provided your mortgage then the chances are you'll find cheaper cover elsewhere?

10 People You Know Will Commit Suicide

The UK television company Channel 4 recently broadcast a programme entitled The Human Footprint and it graphically represented average statistics about a British resident. Remember here that the keyword here is average. I don't smoke, yet the statistics indicate that on average I smoke 77,000 cigarettes. Worringly, I do drink beer and wine!

Also worringly, apparently 10 people I know will commit suicide. If this means people I know of then I can believe it - my maths teacher hung himself, another teacher was decapitated on a train line and a friends sister jumped in front of a train. Grim.

Anyway, as I quite like statistics, I've sought out the statistics detailed in the programme from various sources and collated them here.

It would be interesting to see the stats for other countries such as America. Some items on this list are probably peculiar to us Brits. Do they have baked bins and drink tea in The States?

The stats....

Food

Milk: 15,951 pints To produce this amount of milk for the population, 2.1 million cows are needed, eating 100 kilograms of grass a day.

Meat: 89% of us will eat meat.

Including:

• 4 head of cattle
• 21 sheep
• 15 pigs
• 1200 chickens
• 13,345 eggs.

Potatoes: 2327 kg
Bread: 4283 loaves
Apples: 5272
Carrots: 10,866

95% of our food is imported.
Food packaging: 8.49 tons

Chocolate: 8.2kg a year. 10,000 chocolate bars in a lifetime.
Bake Beans: 845 tins.

Beer:10351 pints
Wine:1,694 bottles
Tea:74,842 cups in a lifetime.

Waste and Sewage.

Human wind: 1-1.5 litres of gas a day, 12-25 times a day (farting, belching), 35,815 litres
Toilet rolls: 4239 to cope with 2,865kg of faeces.
Sewage: 150 litres per day per person,

Disposed of across the country in a day are:

• 270,000 condoms
• 2.5 million tampons
• 1.4 million sanitary towels
• 700,000 panty liners
• 3,800 nappies (diapers)

2.5 billion nappies are disposed of each year in the UK making them the largest contributor to landfill, taking a huge 500 years to decompose. At age five we will have produced more carbon dioxide than that of a person in Tanzania over their entire lifetime. 40 tons of waste is sent to landfill over a persons lifetime.

During babyhood we produce 254 litres of urine.

Relationships

Language: average vocabulary is 25,000 words, only 4% of the English Oxford Dictionary.

We speak on average:

• 123,205,750 words in a lifetime.
• 2,000-4,000 words spoken by a man per day.
• 6,400-8,000 words spoken by a woman per day.

We will have 300 people in our social group at any one time.

• Partners: 10 different partners.
• 1,700 friendships made.
• 4,239 times having sex. About twice a week
• Love: we will fall in love 3 times.
• Marriage:11.5 years
• 70% will attempt a marriage once.

Personal Hygiene

• 7163 baths in a lifetime using 1 million litres of water
• 656 bars of soap
• 198 bottles of shampoo
• 272 deodorants
• 276 tubes of toothpastes
• 78 toothbrushes
• 411 skin care product
  
• 37 perfumes
• 35 tubes of styling gel
• 25 bottles of nail polish
• 21 sticks of lipstick
• 11,00 tampons/sanitary towels
• 5.6 bottles of fake tan

Shower gel components take 800 years to disappear from the water system. We wash our hair 11,500 times in a lifetime.

Wealth and Expenditure

£1,537,380 spent in a lifetime. Housing, food and clothing £552,772, tax £286,311, leisure and entertainment £236,312.

Consumer goods:

• 3.5 washing machines
• 3.4 fridges
• 3.2 microwaves
• 4.8 televisions
• 9.8 DVD players
• 15 computers (240kg of fossil fuels, 22kg of chemicals, 1.5 tons of water needed to produce a home computer)

£920 spent per person on the average Christmas.
628 Christmas gifts received over a lifetime.

Clothing

• Clothing market is worth £23 billion in the U.K.
• £385 per year spent on clothes or £3,222 pounds spent on clothes over a lifetime.
• 500 litres of water and 40g of pesticides needed to produce a t-shirt.
• 570kg of chemicals added to the water system through washing clothes.

Travel

• 197 miles walked per year
• 15,464 miles walked in a lifetime.
• We will drive 452,662 miles in a lifetime. 135,950 litres of petrol will be needed.
• 8 Cars owned
• 59 foreign holidays. 737 tons of carbon released into the atmosphere.

Information and Culture.

• Television: 148 minutes a day. 900 hours a year. 2944 days in a lifetime.
• 533 books read in a lifetime.
• 3% cannot read in the UK
• 40% choose not to read
• more households own two cars than two novels
• 2455 newspapers read
• 24 trees will be used to make the books and newspapers you need.
• 6 acts of worship a year, 390 over a lifetime.

Democracy

You will vote in fifty elections.

Health

• 1,980 babies born a day
• 78.5 years: life expectancy. That's 2,475,576,000 seconds
• Cigarettes: 77,000 over a lifetime. 1/3 of all cancers are from smoking.
• Vomit: Twice a year, five buckets over a lifetime.
• 314 visits to the doctor.
• 30,000 pills in a lifetime.
• Tears shed 61.5 litres.
• 104,390 dreams in a lifetime.
• 9.42: Hair length in metres if it is not cut
• 9.14: Beard length in metres if it is not cut
• 415m blinks of an eye
• 121 pints of tears
  

Death

1700 people we know.

Death rates include:

• 305 heart disease
• 179 stokes
• 111 flu and pneumonia
• 99 from lung cancer
• 92 from lower respiratory diseases
• 63 from dementia
• 49 cancers of the colon
• 32 from breast cancer
• 10 from suicide
• 9 in road accidents
• 1 in a fire
• 1 in 3 will know a person who has been murdered.