Boosted by a paucity of campaigning because of covid-19, the 90-minute, ad-free event in Cleveland was watched by an estimated 80m, over half the electorate.
A big producer of carbon dioxide had to close its factories because of soaring natural-gas prices, which in turn led to warnings from the chicken industry about a possible paucity of poultry.
Then there is the peculiar paucity of British “sanctions” imposed under an international bribery convention: two between 1999 and 2009, compared with 88 in America, 26 in Germany and 40 in Italy.