1 OCTOBER 1988, Page 42

`...and statistics'

FEWER than eight per cent of Amer- ican households own compact disc play- ers . . . Berkshire Record Outlet will continue to carry vinyl albums to service the 92 per cent of record buyers in America . . . who represent the musical majority . . . Our quarterly catalog lists about 6,000 classical titles . . . (adver- tisement in the Gramophone, Septem- ber issue 1988)

This implies that every American household not owning a compact disc player is a record-buying one, a classical record-buying one at that.

£20 goes. to Donald Clarke, of Dere- ham, Norfolk.

Send examples to '. . . and statistics'; £20 for the best published; £10 for every other published.