[chris (OP)]

Aaron Santos, author of "How many Licks?" and contributor to one of our previous programmes is running a mini-quiz on his website at the moment asking people to estimate how many times the game character Mario has died, worldwide, ever.

If you want to have a guestimate:

http://diaryofnumbers.blogspot.com/2010/02/fermi-contest-ii.html

My money's on the person who suggests that Mario's death rate exceeds that of the human population several fold.

Chris