How Many Holes Does It Take To Fill the Albert Hall?

How Many Holes Does It Take To Fill the Albert Hall? We need to ponder this voluminous matter.

In June 1967, the Beatles made a statement on their latest long playing record:
“I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.”

What are the facts?
On January the 17th. 1967 the Daily Mail stated: "There are 4000 holes in the road in Blackburn Lancashire, one twenty-sixth of a hole per person, according to a council survey. If Blackburn is typical then there are over two million holes in Britain's roads and 300 000 in London."
[Were John and Paul inspired to read the Daily Mail because of a reference in “Paperback Writer”? Or was that just a newspaper that they read – I sense a future topic.]

The Royal Albert Hall is nearly elliptical in shape with a volume of 3,060,000 cubic feet and holds 5,222 seated patrons plus 500 standing.

One might conclude that each of the 4000 holes would have to be 765 cubic feet by volume. But where does it say that the holes are identical? I mean we could have a myriad of hole sizes, some 23 cubic feet, some 1,457 cubic feet etc. Let’s assume that John and Paul were referring to an average volume, which would be 765 cubic feet. Yet we also know that “the holes were rather small”. 765 cubic feet is hardly small.

What about the seating? Roughly 1.3 holes per seat would do the trick. Heck, you’d only need an eighth of a hole for each standee. But wait …. How many holes DOES it take to fill the Albert Hall? Just because there were 4000 holes in Blackburn at that time, we must not assume that all were necessary to fill the Hall.

John Lennon makes a coy reference “now we know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall”. Is it just insider information? Can we ever know?

Let's move forward to modern scolarship: In an article from the June 1, 2007 Lancashire Telegraph:
“George Bell is the man in charge of filling Blackburn's potholes.
And he reckons that today, rather than the 4,000 in 1967, there are just "a couple of hundred" potholes in the town.”

This might imply that the Royal Albert Hall would today be smaller by a ratio of 200 to 4000, or one twentieth of the size it used to be. Perhaps the new holes are 20 times larger, in which case the Royal Albert Hall would be the same size. Should the new holes be the same as the old? The size of any given hole in “A Day in the Life” might be an absolute.

Gentle readers, you see the dilemma. Please help......

 

John!!!!!

Where the hell have you been?

Now get a new avatar. It's summer!

 

Einstein knew.

But,alas, it died with him.

But, from what I understand ,if you play it backwards its not holes that fills the hall.The song in reverse actually makes reference to those ACME holes that the coyote used. Its REALLY hard to hear.. but its there.

 

Thanks Steve, it's good to be back.

 

It may be summer for you but I live in Canada. I've missed you and your knowledge of 17th century water buffalo.

John

 

Did they give a new suit and $20 when they let you out?

 

Hi Gary,

It's good to be back. I hope you are well???? Joseph too??

John

PS I thought you owed ME lunch .....

 

Steve,

Did you analyze my post or are you merely being polite? You did after all meet the Beatles. How many holes do you think are needed to fill the Albert Hall?

 

Ok - maybe it's an apocryphal story, but the version I heard was that the holes were being drilled into a field somewhere where the British authorities were looking for the remains of corpses that had been buried in unmarked graves of come kind, like a Potter's Field of some sort....Did anybody hear that one? This sounds more interesting to me than a mere tally of potholes....

 

Zep,
Your story does sound good, but the reality is more innocent, though no less inspired.
John

 

I've got a hole in me pocket.

 

Well I'll be a Blue Meanie (again). Welcome back, John.

 

Welcome back! That made my head hurt though...

 

I've always wondered if John, with his love of playing with language, was really saying "(****)holes".

 

Help? Help?? Someone disappears for a few days (OK, years) and wants help???

Fine.





Oh and BTW, welcome back! Don't let Gary scare you away with food, or eating. He still gets all bent out of shape when we talk about our yearly nauga BBQ...

 

Good on you we need those holes ....

 

No.

John did love playing with language but in this case, there is no way.

 

How many holes does it take to fill the Albert Hall? The same as the number of licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.... in other words, the world may never know

 

Welcome back, John B!!

 

Thanks Sckott. Great to be here.