  It has recently been pointed out that CDF data for the cross section of
high-p_t charged particles show an excess of up to three orders of magnitude
over QCD predictions, a feature tentatively ascribed to possible violations of
factorisation. We observe that for p_t > 80 GeV the measured charged-particle
cross sections become of the same order as jet cross sections. Combining this
information with data on charged particle distributions within jets allows us
to rule out the hypothesis that the CDF data could be interpreted in terms of
QCD factorisation violation. We also comment on the difficulty of interpreting
the excess in terms of new physics scenarios.
