The Problem

Lyrics

[Verse 1] If a man A who weighs eleven stone Leaves from his home at 8:30 in the morning In a car consumption is 16.25 miles per gallon At an average speed of forty miles an hour To his office which is twelve miles away And he stops for a coffee on the way for fifteen minutes And also puts air in one of his tyres Which has a slow puncture Letting out air at a rate of two pounds per square inch Per mile travelled When the car is moving at thirty-two miles an hour And he picks up a hitchhiker B Who weighs fourteen stone plus suitcase But hitchhiker B who is a political activist Distributes leaflets from his suitcase Each of which weigh an ounce At the scale of two leaflets per person At every bus stop And every vehicle on either side of them At every red traffic light during the journey Which includes twenty bus stops With an average six people per stop Five lorries each with a passenger One of which exchanged a Yorkie Bar Weighing an ounce for twelve of the leaflets And two coaches each containing fifty-one people Seven of which from one coach returned the leaflets And sixteen people from the other coach Who asked for a further leaflet Each for a member of one of their families Assuming that man A Then had to travel a further 2.86 miles Out of his way to drop off hitchhiker B How late would man be [Bridge] In arriving at the office by 9:30 If he still had six miles to travel And his watch was running twenty-three minutes slow But the clock at the office was running Two minutes faster than his Was in fact seventeen minutes and three seconds ahead Of the correct time Which was 2:30 in the morning in Caracas If when five miles from the office He telephoned to his boss [Verse 2] To apologize for being late But was told by his boss C To pick up a package 2.63 miles away From his present location And deliver it to client D in Bristol by train By 4:30 that afternoon And at the same time man D Was mistakenly told to come to London To receive same package from man B Now man A's train, train one Left thirty minutes late But man D's train, train two Left five minutes early So when the trains passed each other Train one was travelling at seventy-five miles an hour To make up for lost time And train two was travelling at fifty-two miles an hour Would man A reach Bristol earlier or later According to his watch Which was now running five minutes slower Than man D's would have been Had he not got off the train And checked the correct time At a station between Bristol and London And stopped to phone A's boss, man C To double check A would be there, meet him And discover his mistake Catch next train, train three, back to Bristol Which unlike A's train one Which stopped at four stations on the way For six minutes each stop Was an express train [Outro] D's train caught up with A's train one Four miles from Bristol As the trains drew alongside each other A's train one was travelling at twelve miles an hour And D's train three was travelling at 13.6 miles an hour And man A sat in the front How long would it take to fill the bath?