The missing last verse to E. Idle's "Universe" song, from the Python film, "The Meaning of Life":


The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of life, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is

So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
'Cause there's b****r all down here on earth.


****


In a BBC programme devoted to the Python's music, Mr. Idle accompanied himself on the guitar, while singing this. Neither I, nor most of the guitarists I know, could follow his fingers as they attacked the neck of the guitar. Nor do many of us have his singing voice's register. However, I sometimes do this song in informal company as:


Just [G]remember that you're [D]standing on a [C]planet that [G]evolving,
And revolving at nine [C]hundred miles an [D]hour.
It's orbiting at ninety miles a [D7]second, so it's reckoned,
The [D]sun that is the source of all our [G]power.

The sun and you and [D]me and [C]all that we can [G]see,
Are [Am]travelling half a million miles a [C]day,
In an outer spiral arm, at twenty [G]thousand miles an [Em]hour,
Of the [D]galaxy we call the Milky [G]Way.




As I am told, a bit fact-heavy, but easier to remember than all those philosophers.