Simon Pearson - minor9th.com

Oh he does love his numbers…

posted in Music

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I’m quite a mathematical-yet-romantic person, I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, I rarely feel the need to croon endlessly about how life and love are all about numbers - that sort of thing is better left to other folk like Trademark (#Our love is like a sine wave… with simple harmonic motion…) and Kate Bush (#Threeeeeeeeeeeeee point one four one fiive nii-ii-iiine). I often get to wondering in an Am�lie-esque manner about all sorts of random statistics about life. Such as really, how many people are having an orgasm in London right now? And how many people have ever accidentally written organism instead of orgasm, as I almost did just now?

I’m beginning to think that my perfect job would be to collect perfectly random statistics for myself that I could attempt to palm off to other people for some amount of money. For example:

• How much did all the hair belonging to the UK population weigh in 1985?
• How often have I used the word ‘obligatory‘?
• Actually, what is the average length of all the words I spoke today? How does this compare to my peers? Am I (as I fear), an ineloquent bafoon?
• How much did all the hair belonging to the UK population weigh in 1986?
• How many cups of tea are enjoyed between 9.30 and 11am (my favourite time for tea)? Update: thanks to the fascinating tea.co.uk, which estimates that the nation drinks a whopping 165 million cups of tea every day, I estimate that between those hours, roughly 12 million cups are slurped.
• How likely am I to know someone who has matched at least 5 numbers in the National Lottery? (I still think the whole thing is a complete scam - no-one really wins more than a tenner)
• On what day, precisely, did marketing people adopt ‘Web 2.0′ as a phrase to bandy around as though it sounded like a good thing?
• How many people have skipped through Mrs Bartolozzi on Kate Bush’s Aerial when she started screeching #Washing Machiiiiiine?
• How many people started singing #Tuuuumble Dryer (this is definitely a number greater than 0)
• Has the weight of all the hair attached to the UK population ever exceeded that of their pets?

If anyone can hazard guesses at any of these, I’ll be really grateful. Oh and you should definitely give Sine Love by Trademark a whirl, it’s a beautiful track.