For a number of weeks now Nessie has been growing seedlings in pots in our conservatory, waiting for the right time to transplant them in the garden. Indeed there are so many pots there that the collection spilled over into the sitting room (John Conolly can verify this, he stayed with us 2 weeks ago, and the conservatory doubles up as our guest room).

Now, for years there has been claptrap talked about how talking to plants is good for them, and even Prince Charles was supposed to be quite "chatty" in that respect; so with seedlings in two separate rooms I saw an opportunity to conduct an experiment, to see if music does any good, and indeed what type of music. So for some 3-4 weeks I have been playing folk songs to the plants in the conservatory, while my daughter's boyfriend (he who does the electric guitar riffs on my last album) has been practicing his rock guitar in the sitting room with the rest of the plants.

After some three+ weeks, the resulting difference is simply too great to ignore: The plants in the conservatory are a good 20% to 30% bigger and healthier-looking than the ones in the sitting room. Yet both rooms have the same temperature and the same quantity of sunlight, near as dammit. The conclusion simply HAS to be that folk music is better for the plants. I will next set up a controlled experiment to establish if there are differences between traditional and contemporary folk.

I suggest you try this yourselves - it's easy to do - and I am confident the results will prove me right.