How Many Miles to Babylon? In the 1824 edition of "The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia" there's a description of the rhyme and the game, giving the distance as "six, seven or a lang eight". The rhyme was originally accompanied by a singing game in which two lines face each other, with one player in the middle. At the end of the rhyme the players have to cross the space and any caught help the original player in the middle catch the others. The game seems to have fallen out of use in the twentieth century. In literature In film In music How Many Miles to Babylon?
Are You There? Are You There? Are You There? is a "farcical musical play in two acts" composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo (with interpolations by Lewis F. Muir) with a book by Albert de Courville and lyrics by Edgar Wallace. Also described as an "operette" by "Variety", it premièred unsuccessfully on 1 November 1913 at The Prince of Wales Theatre, London to a rowdy audience which almost became a riot. Its star, Shirley Kellogg, was Courville's wife. There was considerable pre-opening-night publicity in the press emphasizing the involvement of Leoncavallo, given the success in London of his opera "Zingari" the previous year A few