We laughed a lot when Simon Singh appeared on HIGNFY

He objected to the inaccuracy in the second verse of her song Nine Million Bicycles, which goes:

We are 12 billion light-years from the edge, That's a guess, No one can ever say it's true, But I know that I will always be with you

and wrote new lyrics which go:

We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe, That's a good estimate with well-defined error bars, Scientists say it's true, but acknowledge that it may be refined, And with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you

Here's what he says about it in his latest newsletter:

I have now embarked on a new career as a lyricist, but not with any success. I won't go into the details - it is a very long story - but it started with me writing an article for the Guardian newspaper criticising Katie Melua's reference to the age of the universe in her song 'Nine Million Bicycles', and ended with Katie re-recording her record using my lyrics, which was then broadcast on Radio 4. The original article is contained on the website below and the broadcast can be heard at the second link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1581445,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today1_melua_20051015.ram

The HIGNFY bit ended by suggesting that he also pointed out that it is NOT a long way to Tipperary and that, technically, Gloria Gaynor will NOT survive.

The programme is repeated tonight at 10pm on BBC2. I might tape it for class (it is a kind of prescriptivism, or 'verbal hygiene', after all).

B-)