This most be the most bizarre way of promoting an album, ever - The Scotsman - Top Stories - Silence is costly for composer

A SAGE once asked mysteriously: "What price the sound of silence?" It is a question without answer, unless you are Mike Batt, the musical genius behind The Wombles.

In his case, it is approximately £2,000 per second and surely the most expensive piece of nothingness in musical history.

Batt paid a "six-figure sum" yesterday for a period of silence lasting just one minute on an album by his classical rock band, The Planets. He was accused of stealing it from a work by John Cage, the late US composer, whose composition 33 was totally silent. Batt was taken to court but settled by paying the undisclosed sum to the John Cage Trust. He handed a cheque to Nicholas Riddle, the managing director of Cags publishers, Peters Edition, on the steps in front of the High Court in London.