MATTHEW VINCENT Apparently, “there are nine million bicycles in Beijing”. Middle-aged, middle- class fans of middle-of-the- road music will have already been apprised of this fact by Georgian/ Northern-Irish chanteuse and Radio 2 favourite Katie Melua (pictured, right), in her 2005 hit song of the same informative name
(I like to think that I only had a two-thirds chance of knowing that).
In an odd coincidence, there are also 9m copies of Ms Melua’s first two albums in circulation in the US and Europe, suggesting that consumers in mature economies have as much need for tedium as the Chinese do for personal transportation.
