Give the next two in order of sequence: London, Birmingham, Glasgow,
leeds, Sheffield..........
Which `Madness` video featured a van dropping out of a plane?
Which is the best-selling single ever by a group up to the year 2002?

Hi,

As calebu2 notes below, the list of cities in your first query are
arranged by population. The next smallest cities are Liverpool and
Manchester.

The Madness video is *definitely* 'Wings of a Dove', but I've still
failed to find web resources to prove this. I have checked with two
other Madness fans, however, to confirm this. The video featured the
band, a steel band, and various hangers on in a plane - the van
dropping out of the plane was the dramatic finale to the video.

As for the final question, there look to be two answers. Worldwide,
the crown is *still* held by 'Rock Around the Clock', by Bill Haley
and his Comets.

"Actual sales figures for "Rock Around the Clock" may never be known
with absolute certainty. The most accepted number is 25 million, cited
by the Guinness Book of World Records, making it the second
highest-selling single of all time, after Bing Crosby's "White
Christmas." Elton John's 1997 tribute to Princess Diana, "Candle in
the Wind," sold 37 million copies, but only in CD single format. And
"White Christmas" could in no way be considered rock and roll.
Therefore, "Rock Around the Clock" remains the highest-selling rock
and roll classic vinyl recording, based on Guinness' reckoning. Other
sales tallies range from 15 million to 35 million copies sold."

Rock Around the Clock Tribute
http://www.rockabillyhall.com/RockClockTribute.html

In the UK alone, Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" is the
biggest seller by a group. The record sold 3.55 million, a figure
which was only beaten by Elton John's "Candle In The Wind". For the
full list look here:

EveryHit: Record-Breakers
http://www.everyhit.com/record.html

Hope this makes sense to you. Keep asking interesting questions,

grimace

---

Clarification of Answer by grimace-ga on 07 Oct 2002 13:24 PDT

Thanks, answerfinder.

Bradford is rather a surprise, but you can't argue with the Office of
National Statistics!

I thought that the `cities` question was about population but I wanted
you to confirm this for me,many thanks.
As for the other question, I am still not very sure I have the answer.

Hi,

The Madness song was 'Wings of a Dove', although I can't find
reference to the video anywhere online. I'm still racking my brains
over the others...

Did you not try doing a google search for the list? I just typed in
the list "London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield" as a search
item and got the following answer :

http://www.anriintern.com/eng/leseng28_It_s_interesting_to_know/menu.php?article=372

According to this article they are the largest cities in the UK. The
next two are supposedly Liverpool and Manchester. (This surprises me
because I always thought Manchester was close to Leeds in size -
anyway, I'm from Leeds myself, so it's always nice to see Liverpool
and Manchester a little lower in some kind of rankings :)

Now the issue becomes who can answer the final question and take the
gold :)

(I know that Candle in the Wind/Something about the way you are by
elton John was the best selling single of all time for a while, but
I'm not sure if it was surpassed and Elton John doesn't really count
as a "group". Possibly band aid - needs more research.

Regards

calebu2-ga

According to the latest census details (2001) released last week these
are the largest population areas(London not entered on its own as it
is broken into boroughs and inner london):
1 Birmingham 977091 
2 Leeds 715404 
3 Glasgow City 577869 
4 Sheffield 513234 
5 Bradford 467668 
6 Edinburgh 448624 
7 Liverpool 439476 
8 Manchester 392819 
9 Kirklees 388576 
10 Bristol UA 380615
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/top_ten_uk.asp