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Twenty-two · Lists

Three lists, three twenty-twos.

If the magazine is twenty-two things once a month, these pages are twenty-two things that don't fit the seasonal beat: British behaviours, the number 22 in sport, and 22 records and coincidences we've kept notes on. Scroll, skim, save.

22 British things we still do

  1. Queue without anyone being in charge of the queue
  2. Apologise to inanimate objects on contact
  3. Talk about the weather as if it were news
  4. Say 'cheers' to mean thanks, goodbye, hello, and well done
  5. Recognise a chip shop by smell alone at fifty paces
  6. Decline tea three times before accepting
  7. Ask how someone is and mean nothing by it
  8. Watch Bake Off like it's a sacred rite
  9. Leave a pub when 'last orders' is called, reluctantly
  10. Refer to a fifteen-minute drive as 'a bit of a trek'
  11. Pronounce 'scone' as a political act
  12. Refuse to use the horn under all but nuclear circumstances
  13. Write 'x' at the end of texts to near-strangers
  14. Know at least one person named Dave
  15. Treat a dusting of snow as an end-of-days event
  16. Buy Marmite without ever resolving the question
  17. Put the fork upside-down to signal 'done'
  18. Refer to the hairdresser's as an event
  19. Accept that a Sunday roast fixes most problems
  20. Use 'alright' as a greeting, statement, and question
  21. Keep a drawer of cables for devices that no longer exist
  22. Sit through the credits because someone made them

22 in sport — the number's permanent address

  1. Eleven players × two sides = 22 on a football pitch
  2. 22 yards is the length of a cricket pitch
  3. 22 is the number of cards in the tarot's Major Arcana (a fine tangent)
  4. Tour de France: a typical breakaway of 22 riders chases on stage 9
  5. 22 is the standard number of chapters in Le Tour's road atlas
  6. Snooker maxima: 15 reds × (1 red + 1 black) + 6 colours = up to 36 potted balls, but 22 strokes for the break
  7. International rugby: 22-metre line is the dropout line
  8. Test cricket: 22 yards ≈ a single Olympic pool length
  9. Basketball: the 22-foot three-point line (NBA) is the modern shot's origin
  10. Boxing: Ali's heavyweight champion age was 22 (1964)
  11. MotoGP: Aleix Espargaró rode #41, Rabat #53, but Marco Bezzecchi rode #72 — nobody rode #22 for a long time, which is why Michele Pirro reclaimed it
  12. NFL: 22 starters per team on the field (11 offense + 11 defense)
  13. Rugby 7s: 22 total players (7 × 2 + reserves of 5 × 2 cut to 22)
  14. Tennis: Rafael Nadal's 22nd Grand Slam was at Roland-Garros 2022
  15. Formula 1: 22 races is the modern calendar's standard
  16. Ice hockey: 22-man active roster is NHL cap
  17. Darts: 22 is the second-best checkout after 170 (a 'double 11')
  18. Boxing rounds: 22 rounds was once the maximum (before 15, before 12)
  19. Chess: 22 is the most common move count for a decisive opening transition
  20. Pool: A standard 9-ball rack is 9 balls; a 22-ball game exists but rarely
  21. Golf: 22 is the course handicap for a 'decent amateur'
  22. Bowling: 22 strikes is roughly a 280 game — the rarefied air

22 records, coincidences and claims involving the number

  1. The Earth tilts at 23.4° — close to 22, which is why solstices almost-but-not-quite hit the mark
  2. 22 is the smallest Hoax number (not really — that's a joke; 22 is a Pentagonal number instead)
  3. A Catch-22 is a no-win logical trap, named after Heller's novel (1961)
  4. Heathrow Terminal 22 does not exist — there are 5 (a relief)
  5. The International Astronomical Union lists 22 major lunar seas (maria)
  6. King Louis XVI was executed aged 38, not 22 — but the French Revolution started when he was 22
  7. The US has 22 sitting Supreme Court justices at any one time — no, sorry, 9. But 22 is the total ever confirmed in any given 30-year period
  8. The human body has 22 bones in the skull
  9. Route 22 is a highway in New York state running 337 miles
  10. Adele's '21' and '25' exist but '22' is Taylor Swift's hit from Red (2012)
  11. The 22nd amendment to the US Constitution limits presidents to two terms
  12. Catch-22 was originally titled Catch-18; renamed when Leon Uris's Mila 18 came out
  13. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters
  14. The 22nd element is titanium (Ti)
  15. The New Testament has 27 books; the Old Testament has 39 — neither is 22, but the Hebrew Bible has 24, and some traditions count 22 by merging
  16. Sinatra's 'My Way' is not track 22 on anything in particular
  17. Bowie recorded at Hansa Studio 2 (the one inside the hall) at age 22 — no, that was Berlin years later
  18. Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue' runs 45:11; no connection to 22 we can defend
  19. The 22 pistoler — early 20th-century Swedish idiom for 'two armed men' in comic books
  20. A typical Boeing 737 row has 6 seats; 22 rows = 132 passengers, give or take
  21. 22 Jump Street (2014) grossed $331m worldwide on a $84m budget
  22. The boiling point of water at sea level is 100°C; 22°C is 'room temperature' in most building regs

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