An interesting piece of research written up in last week’s New Scientist reveals that, in the subtitling of nearly 130 thousand UK TV programmes between September 2017 and September 2018, the word ‘beer’ got 23,648 mentions. The exercise, they say, reveals much about British preoccupations. ‘Dog’ got 105,245 mentions, ‘tea’ 60,060, ‘cake’ 40,043, ‘sex’ 56,307 and ‘Brexit’ 68,816. The term ‘climate change’ got 3,125, a little ahead of ‘zombies’ with 2,488.

The research was commissioned by the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA), as part of an initiative to improve the visibility of climate change on TV screens. Good for them. Perhaps they might also consider the carbon footprint of the next James Bond film.