Numbers

Today is the 21st of March.

Twenty-one is the number of perfection, since it is the product of the mystic numbers 3 (beginning, middle and end - therefore the number of synthesis) and 7 (the number of creation). This may explain why the Elizabethan mystics John Dee and Edward Kelly decided there were 21 letters in the language of the angels.

And while we're counting, there were nine choirs of 6,666 legions, with 6,666 angels in each legion, which makes 399,920,004 angels altogether, or only one angel for every 14 people on earth.

Disclaimer: The above calculation is based on a probably faulty assumption of zero population growth among angels over the past 500 years.

7 March competition:

Answers: 3 Royal Princes; 4 July American Independence Day; 5 Nations' Championship in Rugby Union; 6 Days Shalt Thou Labour; 7 Gables in Nathaniel Hawthorne's House. Winners: Peter Charlton, Anne Key, V&J Doylend.

No competition this week - but extra "Numeracy" from next week.