5 The facts

Editors of newspapers and magazines often go to extremes to provide their readers with unimportant facts and statistics.

Last year a journalist had been instructed by a well-known magazine to write an article on the president's palace in a new African republic.

When the article arrived, the editor read the first sentence and then refused to publish it.

The article began: ‘Hundreds of steps lead to the high wall which surrounds the president's palace.’

The editor at once sent the journalist a fax instructing him to find out the exact number of steps and the height of the wall.

The journalist immediately set out to obtain these important facts, but he took a long time to send them.