1. |
||||
I used to be someone
Now I’m just another sun
One of a hundred thousand billion
Billion
You treat me insignificantly
Name a tabloid after me
Synonymous with paparazzi
Just a backdrop for Brian Cox on TV
Since Edwin Hubble it’s never been the same
Those pictures of other stars pushed me out the frame
You never even gave me a proper name, like
Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Tauri
Delta Librae, HR 2948
Or Kevin
You’ve achieved nuclear fusion – oh well done!
Made some helium from a little hydrogen
Well every second I do that to 600 million tons
If I was Marilyn Monroe you’d be… the one I can't remember the name of from One Direction... which is all of One Direction...
You should have stopped at Copernicus
With me at the centre of your universe
You say I’m just an average ball of gas
I say you’re talking out of Uranus
1.4 million kilometres
That’s my diameter
Tell me seriously with those parameters
Have you ever tried to put a hat on there?
Hip hip hip hooray
I’ll be a red giant one day
You earth will go up in flames
But in the meantime please join my facebook fanpage
Seriously, I've only got nine likes
Well, it's gone down to eight now since Pluto defriended me
I will shine on!
|
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2. |
||||
Darling, it's our wedding anniversary next week
My gift for you is carefully chosen
It's perfect for the couple who have everything
I'm getting us both cryogenically frozen
So it's You and Me and Walt Disney
Dancing and singing in the 25th century
Living the future
Held together by sutures
Ice cubes forming in our brains
Industrial antifreeze running through our veins
Now I've looked into this quite carefully
It turns out there's a lot of contradiction
"Disney on Ice" isn't literal
And that episode of Doctor Who was fiction
So it's You and Me but no Walt Disney
Just some baseball players and 70s hippies
Don't shake their hands
You'll get more than you planned
And please stop flirting with your great great great great great great great...
...great great great great great granddaughter's friend
Just want to please you
Just want to freeze you
You don't seem too overjoyed, my love
But it's too late to get a refund
And the truth is I never liked your body much
So I have only paid to get your head done
Don't have a seizure
It's just a freezer
It's you and me, in the 30th century
I'll keep your brain in a mechanical jar-on-wheels
First cryonic
Then bionic
And we will be together
Though our skin will be like leather
But at least we'll be together again
Darling don't complain
It's just liquid Nitrogen
Some people say I've got more money than sense
The truth is that I have neither
I bought a package from some cutprice cowboys in Russia
Who didn't build a door for your freezer
You're so lovely
But your brain is slush puppy
So it's just me at minus 200 degrees
I'm waiting for the 35th century
I have no regrets
Except not wearing a vest
And maybe I should just have bought you that
Discount home cremation kit instead
|
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3. |
||||
There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.
Update!
We've got lawrencium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, seaborgium,
Roentgenium and dubnium, flerovium and bohrium,
Copernicium, livermorium and hassium, rutherfordium,
Oganesson and tenessine, moscovium, nihonium.
Those last four elements confirmed now by the chemistry consortium
|
||||
4. |
Lullaby for Philae
02:48
|
|||
You left this Earth ten years ago
In search of distant comet
Then last November's headline news
Was that you landed on it
We knew that there was something wrong
When we saw your battery
But, thank Newton,
you weren't running any iTechnology
So now I sing a lullaby
And I dedicate to thee
The bravest little fridge-sized probe
In all the galaxy
Sleep well, little Philae
You've fulfilled your destiny
Four billion miles on the clock
To do a science – on a rock
Your jump down from Rosetta
It was so good you jumped again
And again!
Whee! Low gravity!
But when you came to land
It wasn't quite what ESA planned
So you deployed the best technology
From 2004
But that didn't stop you getting all
The data you went for
The newsrooms of the BBC
Resounded with the echo
Of presenters wrestling with these words
Chim-chim-chimeny Gary-lineker-menko
We watched with rising horror
As your batteries ran cold
Your solar panels, it turns out,
Don't work so well down a hole
Now the only true space cowboys are
Jamiroquai and you
Maybe Bruce Willis, too
Like a miracle, you woke up
When the sun came into view
So you used your last battery
To send a tweet
Which of us wouldn't!
So, sleep well, my little Philae
You've fulfilled your destiny
You rocked that rock
And that's how you roll!
On comet 67P
|
||||
5. |
||||
The tap goes off when I brush my teeth
My children’s bath is one inch deep
Our dishwasher stays off till it’s overflowing
The ideal shower time’s just four minutes
Well my showers four *seconds* is the limit
Is that really true Helen?
With social distancing there’s no way of knowing
I’m obsessed with eco schemes
Because life is better with *live* streams.
There’s just one thing to spoil it
And it happens every time I use a toilet...
So if I can’t cut down on water that’s flushed
My eco status will be totally crushed
But here’s the good news
On every modern bathroom loo
There’s not *one* button, there are *two*
A short flush for a golden stream
A long flush for, how can I put this? More to clean
But which to choose?
There are no clues
And that’s when I realise…
Oh my god I don’t know how to flush a toilet
This decision is taking so long
I’ve been standing by this toilet for a couple of weeks
And I know I’ll still get it wrong
I’m praying right now to all that’s holy
Just label one button with a poop emoji
Oh my god I don’t know how to flush a toilet at all
Please, if you’re in charge of toilet design
Be a friend the earth, and send us a sign
Cos if you can’t fix this complication
I’m going to get a serious urinary tract infection
Cos I won’t go
If I don’t know
This dual flush
Turned my brain into mush
No I can’t go
If I don’t know
How to flush a toilet at all
Alright I’ll just press both of them!
|
||||
6. |
Mersenne 51
02:08
|
|||
The other night Patrick Laroche and his computer found a number
Not an ordinary number, but a number that’s humongous
So I don’t want your mince pies, you can keep your mulled wine
Cos all I want for Christmas is the world's biggest prime
It’s 2 to the power of 8 2 5 8 9 9 3 3, minus one
Mersenne 51, bring it with you and - *boom!* - a party has just begun
So give me, oh give me, this Christmas time
A twenty five million digit Christmas prime
Rarer than a cracker joke that actually makes you laugh
As useful as a pair of roller skates for a giraffe
If I had one I could do whatever I like with it
Well, anything I want, apart from dividing it
Except by itself and one
It’s 2 to the power of 8 2 5 8 9 9 3 3, minus one
If I tried to sing it in hours I’d need about sixty nine hundred and some extra seconds
So give me, oh give me, this christmas time
A twenty five million digit Christmas prime
Type it and text it or write it and post it,
Bake it in Stollen then slice it and toast it
If you can’t wrap it and send it in time
I’ll take 25 million decimal places of Pi
So give me, oh give me, this Christmas time
a twenty five million digit Christmas prime
One more recursion!
Give me, oh give me, this Christmas time
A twenty five million digit Christmas prime
|
||||
7. |
Fruit Fly Elements
01:18
|
|||
There’s cleopatra, capulet, cap-n-collar, chickadee
Breathless, bric a brac, hairy, ken and barbie
Jelly belly, swiss cheese, genghis khan and gooseberry
Sloppy-paired, slowpoke, slipper, slouch and say Yippee!
Prospero and pangolin, Pavarotti, pygopus
Crocodile, clootie dumpling, currant bun and klumpfuss
Sex-lethal, saxophone, son and bride of sevenless
Brainiac, amnesiac, giant, runt and tailless
There’s double parked, deadpan, daschund and dodo
Mastermind, menage a trois, nautilus and nemo
Hopscotch, hunchback, highwire, hedgehog, homeless, Hamlet, and hippo
Tubby, tinman, takeout, teashirt, tolkin, tango, torpedo
A fruit fly’s DNA has lots of code that is just dross… or filler...
BUT it’s *these* genes and some others that will make it a Drosophila.
|
||||
8. |
The Algorithm Song
04:14
|
|||
Love
Oh, love
Love
Sweet love
How do I mend a broken heart?
How can I tell you how I feel?
How can I make you love me?
I just want to hold you close
Just want to make you happy
But I can’t find the words to say I love you
We shared a night together
Tell me when will I see you again?
Loving you is easy
Let’s make this moment last
Cos I’m loving this feeling
When you wish upon a star
It makes no difference who you are
If you don’t say you love me
All you need is love
And I think I’m in love with you
Love is in the air
So please, let me love you
Love… is a verb
Love… Actually
Love… Island 2018
Love ...lace, Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of
How do I mend a broken zip?
How can I tell what iPhone i have?
How can I make You… Tube safer for my child?
I just want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Just want to make a phone call
But I can’t find the format file PDFlatex.fmt
We shared a bowl of sugar
Tell me when will I see results from the gym?
Loving you is... complicated
Let’s Make America Great Again
Cos I’m loving angles instead
When you wish upon a brunch
Makes no difference who you vote for
If you don’t say “UNO!” how many cards do you pick up?
All you need is love and a dog
I think I’m in love with myself
Love is in the hair
So please, let me Google that for you.
|
||||
9. |
Statistically I Love You
02:26
|
|||
Baby, I’ve looked at this empirically
And I think you’re the one for me
Plus or minus three
You’re my man
And I want you to understand
How it feels when I hold your hand
So I’ll draw a Venn diagram
Statistically I love you
Mathematically I need you
Graphically I want you
And on average, I’m going to make you mine
You’re beautiful
My love for you is irrational
It’s constant, it’s recurring* and it’s infinite
And you can use it to calculate
The circumference of a circle of any known diameter
Maybe that’s not love
Maybe I’m just thinking of pi
Aah… pie…
Statistically I love you
If you were a logarithm I’d be your exponential
When you grasp my arithmetic I find it very sensual
Give me your raw data and I’ll show you my conclusion
Give me a new equation and I’ll name a biscuit after you
Like Choco Leibniz
Fig Newton
Petit Four-ier **
Chocolate Neils Bohr-bon
Thomas Hobbes-Nob and
Pythagoras Cream
Statistically I love you
Therefore logically I need you
And rhetorically: do I want you?
And theoretically, you are already mine…
* the word “recurring” should be “non-recurring”, of course :)
** Technically a cake
|
||||
10. |
||||
I’ve been watching your behaviour
And I think you’re in the mood
So if you’re lonely, well I’m here to save ya
Let’s get out of here and get us a room
Let’s make love like animals
I think you know what I’m talking about
Let’s make love exactly like other animals
Get your zoology textbook out
Let’s make love like rabbits, a hundred times a week,
Let’s make love like hedgehogs, you know… carefully
Let’s make love like salmon living in fresh water
You leave it in the bath I’ll come and pick it up later
Let’s make love like animals
It’s been happening since the stone age
Let’s make love exactly like other animals
Open up that Wikipedia page
Let’s make love like angler fish, yeah
It’s kind of complicated but it’s worth it
You use your highly developed olfactory sense to swim towards me for several days
And then you bite me
That releases an enzyme that then dissolves your skin and your flesh and your fins
Leaving only a pair of genitals attached to the side of my body
For me to use
When it’s convenient.
I’ve been waiting to find someone so animalistic
Misunderstood just because I like badgers and whippets
And seagulls and snails, who incidentally fire love darts
Well I’ve brought some chocolates
If you like them I’ll dance like a squid
Or croon like a humpback whale
Let’s make passionate love, a beast with two tails
Or a porcupine: I’ll spray you with wee and if you don’t scream we’ll get to it
Actually, skip that one, let’s not do it
Let’s get it on like pygmy chimpanzees
You know – constantly
Not rest until we’ve done some things that even seem odd to me
I am the man to put the “ooh” in “zoology”
You can be my queen I’m the drone in our colony
But let’s leave the metaphor there because as everybody knows
When a gentleman bee is done his genitals explode
Oh no, I’ve said too much, now I’m alone, confused, waiting
Like a self-cloning lizard, too much pseudo-copulation
Let’s make love like animals, yeah
It’s like a biology GCSE but sexy
I know what will get you in the mood to love like an animal
I’ll get out my David Attenborough DVDs
So we’re sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea
This is not getting us anywhere
I’ve never seen a praying mantis in HD
I guess we’ll end up being the same animals we’ve always been...
Pandas.
|
||||
11. |
||||
Seventeen, twenty-eight, thirty-six, thirty-four,
Forty-seven, thirty-three, count the hours: twenty-four,
Thirty-eight, forty-five, twenty-nine and forty-three,
Seven, eight, sixteen, Magic number? Yes it’s three!
Forty-one, thirteen, twenty-seven, thirty-five,
Twenty-three, fifteen, Jonny says he’s Five Alive,
Nineteen, twenty-six, thirty-one, and twenty-two,
Forty-six, fourteen, all the answers: forty-two,
Forty-four, twenty-five, thirty-seven, thirty-nine,
Thirty-two, forty-eight, legs eleven, forty-nine,
Two and four and six and nine and eighteen twelve and twenty-one,
Fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten and end with number one.
Thanks for your applause, I cannot claim to be a hero,
If Matt was here he’d make me to do it all again but start from zero.
|
||||
12. |
||||
From a poem by Bec Hill.
Did you hear about the act at the circus?
Tonight she’s trying a new part
You’ll be on the edge of your seat with her amazing feat
She's a Strongwoman with the Broken Heart
The Strongwoman with the Broken Heart
She fell in love with a handsome clown
And they began a glorious affair
But life can be cruel and not all fun
Ironic when you live at the fair
The woman who was mightier than 20 men
Was slowly falling apart
But she had been taught "On with the show!"
The Strongwoman with the Broken Heart
She’s the Strongwoman with the Broken Heart
The pain in her chest grew intense, in tents, and
She booked in a doctor to treat her
He said: "Your heart is just a muscle like all others
Don’t let this set-back defeat ya"
So she took his advice and began training
Cos she needed somewhere to start
Remembered the saying, “No pain, no gain”
The Strongwoman worked out her heart
The Strongwoman worked out her heart
Every time she used her heart, it grew and grew
She learnt to laugh again at clowns
Lifted weights while she juggled dates
Toned up her smile and lost her frown
Did you hear about the act at the circus?
Tonight she’s trying a new part
She’s mightier than 20 men - plus one
The Strongwoman with a strong heart
The Strongwoman with a strong heart.
|
||||
13. |
||||
Use your mind
And you will find
Countless zeroes before each number starts
Though Matt explains
It hurts my brain
Digits to infinity fill those parts
To the left
It’s not bereft
Zeroes continue till whenever
Do you know
How far they go…?
Digits are Forever
Forever
|
||||
14. |
||||
Widely digitally delicate primes.
Infinitely many fragile primes.
A N plus B plus all the values of D times 10 to all the values of K where K is just every possible positive integer.
Forever.
Digits are forever.
|
||||
15. |
||||
One is a person or a place or a thing
One head on your shoulders
One note that you sing
You could use the word “it” but there’s another way
When you’re counting
One’s what you say
And that includes you
Yes, you’re a One too!
One person
Unique in the things that you do
Doobee doobee doobee doo
You’re the one
You’re the one
You’re the one for me
In the thoughts that you think
In the dreams that you dream
That’s what makes you One:
Your identity
Now, back in your brain, in the place you see One
What games can One play
When One wants to have fun?
Come on let’s play some games!
Hide and seek?
Catch me if you can?
Pass the parcel?
This doesn’t work when you’re on your own…
On a blank canvas
One can get around
It can move left and right
It can move up and down
But among so much nothing
Poor one can’t begin
To tell where One is
From where One has just been
You’re the one
You’re the one
You’re the one for me
When One’s the only one
There’s one thing wrong
That One needs another to know they’re not lonely
One needs a friend to run from or run to
Doobee doobee doobee doo
You’re the one
You’re the one
You’re the one for me
In the thoughts that you think in the dreams that you dream
Doobee doobee doobee doo
|
||||
16. |
||||
What’s the equivalent of...
An X-ray at the dentist?
About 50 bananas
What’s the equivalent of...
A weekend in Cornwall?
300 bananas
What’s the equivalent of...
Lying next to someone as you sleep?
About half a banana
What’s the equivalent of...
Eating a banana?
That’s one banana
What’s the equivalent of...
A handful of Brazil nuts?
100 bananas
What’s the equivalent of...
Flying from London to New York?
800 bananas
What’s the equivalent of...
One month living in the UK?
About 3,000 bananas
What’s the equivalent of...
One month of living on the International Space Station?
133,000 bananas
What’s the equivalent of...
The maximum annual limit allowed for employees of the US nuclear industries?
500,000 bananas
Or 1,400 bananas a day
Radioactivity looks kinda harmless
When you measure it out in bananas
In actual fact it’s more complicatey
So please don’t use this song for your Health and Safety
Potassium in your body doesn’t accumulate
So don’t go putting radioactive stuff on your plate
Unless it’s a banana
|
||||
17. |
Space Traveller
02:19
|
|||
Snug and warm, tucked up in bed
Dozing off, your sleepy head
Is still upon your Ikea flatpack bower
But as the earth rotates you’re moving at 600 miles an hour
As you lay down to sleep tonight
Don't let those existential bed bugs bite
So while you sleep, I’ll let you know
That’s not the only place you’ll go
Cos the earth’s revolving round and round the sun
At 67,000 miles an hour, give or take a tonne
I find this helps me to know my place
Which is insignificant in the vastness of space
Because our galaxy is turning, spiral arms all in a spin
515,000 miles an hour for the bit our solar system’s in
This queasy feeling may disappear
In the coming weeks, months or possibly years
Because our Milky Way is still moving from the moment of the Big Bang
We are currently cruising at 1.3 million miles an hour
You might be feeling still and tiny
But you‘re moving faster than lightning
With relativity
You’re a space traveller in your sleep
|
||||
18. |
||||
The first time that I jumped out of a window
I’d just turned five
And gravity released its hold on me
Oh, boy, it was really somethin’
Life began right there and then
I wiped my knees and climbed again
Risin’ up and fallin’ free
I wanna fly
I wanna soar
I’ll spread my wings
Like no-one else has ever done
Before
I won’t say “try”
It’s do or die!
Just watch me fly
These Flight School guys, they tried to give me backtalk
Oh, they sure did try!
“Are you the air hostess?” they said
Did I respond? I did not.
Who’s got time for all that shtick?
I grabbed my Stearman by the stick
This pilot did what pilots do instead
I’m gonna fly
I’m gonna soar
I’ll show the world
What I can be then give them
Some more
I’ll hit that high
Queen of the sky
Just watch me fly
Why do we do it?
Why do we do it, oh!
Feel elation
Wind whippin’ through my hair
Exploration
I’ll take you anywhere
Elevation
Lift my sisters up right there (Ninety Nines!)
Aviation is a woman’s place
A woman’s place is in the air
We’re gonna fly
We’re gonna soar
We’ll break the ceilin’
Smash the glass
Make it our floor
Wave goodbye
As we pass
Each and ev’ry guy
See ya later!
On the flip side, honey
We’re headin’ above the sky.
Just watch us fly!
Yes, I have some firsts in my credential
That’s right, I do
And I won’t waste one second of my time
Oh I’m sure of that, honey
I know that every life has limitless potential
If only others help them as they climb
I was born to fly
I was born to soar
I’ll do ev’rything
That it is possible to do
WALLY 22 What if it’s not enough?
WALLY 82 It's enough. It's been... exquisite. And you know what? The best bits are still coming for ya. You ready?
WALLY 22 I’m always ready.
So…?
What’s in store?
|
||||
19. |
Bertha Benz Takes A Ride
09:11
|
|||
20. |
Helen Arney London, UK
"Geek Songstress" Helen Arney is the UK's finest purveyor of comedy songs with a scientifically verified
twist.
"Champion of musical whims" Evening Standard
**** ”Harnesses the spirit of Ben Folds & the Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon… delightful” (Chortle)
Also one third of Festival of the Spoken Nerd and author of "The Element In The Room"
... more
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