Exaggeration nation: Statistic of the day

Satirist Craig Brown of the Daily Mail has it ^[1] for you:

A new biography of the film star Warren Beatty claims that he has been to bed with 12,775 women. The author adds, usefully, that the figure ‘does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on’

Thank goodness. Wait: “drive-bys?” How does that … never mind.

Brown notes, usefully, that this robust integer represents the equivalent of having relations with all of the women in the English villages of Dorking and Leatherhead combined, or all of the adult females in the town of Windsor — including, presumably, the residents of any castle therein.

Was ever a man more appropriately christened than Warren?

Brown was born in Middlesex, near the municipality of Prurience.

Of course, everyone wants to know how Beatty got so many notches in his belt, particularly since he is known to employ the floppiest of all come-on lines (reportedly: “What’s new, Pussycat?” to Joan Collins; “Houston, we have lift-off” to Madonna). But that’s the wrong question.

The real question is about Annette Bening, Beatty’s wife. The last time I saw Beatty on TV, he had less the look of a rogue stallion undertaking his eighteenth casual grope of the afternoon, and more the look of a retired bus driver searching the living room for his slippers — you know, the ones cousin Alice sent from Topeka the Christmas before last.

What has that woman done? Inexplicably, the world has been made safe for number 12,776.