We've all heard about the Celtic Tiger, and how Ireland has moved from bog to bonanza in two decades, but even the Irish must have been surprised to discover that their capital is the world's fifth speediest city - way ahead of London, which comes twelfth.

Someone has gone round measuring how fast people walk, which is taken to be a measure of how much activity they pack into a day, according to The Times

It seems Singapore is speediest, part of a trend which has seen the East speed up 20 percent since the nineties. Copenhagen is second; Edinburgh, weighed down by sporrans, is twentieth; and Cardiff is 31st.

Personally I would have put in a vote for Calcutta, at least as it was back in the days when it had hand-drawn rickshaws. Its speed had nothing to do the number of activities, and everything to do with these surprisingly large vehicles. The biggest effort for the wretched drivers was in starting and stopping, which they would avoid until absolutely necessary. Even so, reputedly, they worked themselves to an early grave.

There would come a point when the city centre became one vast people jam in which the rickshaws, the rickshaw pullers, and the seething mass of humanity around them, all jogged along in the sub-tropical heat at the same insane pace. No wonder Calcutta built itself an Underground.

The latest figures come from a Professor Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, and appear in his new book Quirkology. No information is given on how the speeds were measured. But Kevin Mills, chief executive of Socket Mobile (see below), had his own theory today on how laid-back Dublin scored so high. "I think someone must have announced that the pubs were about to close," he said.