The general election result in Winchester was declared void after 55 ballot papers lacked the official mark; counting these papers would have led to a Conservative hold. The travel company Suntours collapsed. Norman Tebbit condemned multiculturalism; Elizabeth Windsor praised the phenomenon. Rupert Murdoch announced his opposition to laws protecting privacy from intrusion by the press. Bill Gates said that computers would be as common as telephones. A boy in Hong Kong died after contracting 'flu from a chicken. Romano Prodi resigned as prime minister of Italy. The European Court on Human Rights held that the British government was guilty of discrimination for having a higher age of consent for homosexual men; the Labour government would give equality, but only grudgingly. British prime minister Mister Tony Blair appeared in a soap opera on Russian radio.

Tomorrow's World discussed digital terrestrial television. MEPs found that British chocolate had too much milk to be pure chocolate. A report claimed that schoolchildren were being indoctrinated by green propaganda. Scotland beat Latvia to qualify for the world cup finals; England joined them after a 0:0 draw in Italy, and the Republic of Ireland face a play-off. Greg Rusedski beat Tim Henman in the semi-final of the Vienna Tennis Trophy; he lost the final to Goran Ivanisevic. Vijay Singh beat Ernie Els in the World Matchplay golf tournament.

UK Singles Chart for w/c 11 October 2007

Number One	Something about the way you look tonight / Candle in the wind '97 - Elton John - 5th week (Number 775 in seq.)
Highest new entry	Stay - Sash! - number 2
Fastest climber (within top 40)	Tubthumping - Chumbawumba - up 1 to 6 Got till it's gone - Janet Jackson - up 1 to 8
Fastest climber (within top 75)	(as above)
Lemming-like fall	Friday street - Paul Weller - down 35 to 56
Top 40 debuts	Feeder
Top 40 exits	Catch, DJ Flavours, Omar, Universal
Top 75 debuts	Lustral, Rampage Featuring Billy Lawrence
Top 75 exits	Howie B, Edwyn Collins, Filter And The Crystal Method, House Traffic, Apache Indian, Rampage Featuring Billy Lawrence, Scarfo, Sharada House Gang

Edwyn Collins found the hits dried up quickly, as Adidas world could only scrape number 71. Scarfo put Cosmonaut No 7 in at 67. In at 66 came Apache Indian performing Real people. Back in 1992, his Arranged marriage ep became the first banghra record to crack the top 40, and he continued to have hits for the rest of the year, most notably summer's Nuff vibes ep (as in, Boom shack-a-lack) which hit the top 10. After that, nothing more was heard until two flop singles in 1997; after that, nothing more was heard.

Howie B, formerly of Soul II Soul, put Switch in at 62, dance act Lustral had Everytime in at 60, Rampage put Take it to the streets at 58, and Sharada House Gang had Gypsy boy, gypsy girl at 52; this was a re-tread of Crystal Waters' rather larger hit from 1991.

Malandra Burrows is best known for her regular role on Yorkshire Television's Emmerdale Farm, but she also had a few hit singles. Just this side of love had finished just that side of the top 10 in 1990, and Carnival in heaven entered at 49. She'd have another flop in 1998 before concentrating on her day job. New at 42 was Morrissey with Roy's keen; of his last seven releases, only one made the top 20, and this was the third to fall short of the top 40. No surprise to find that Mozza wouldn't release anything new until 2004.

We had hopes for Catatonia, new at 40 with I am the mob. Cerys Matthews had a gift for songwriting, but had the misfortune to bear the curse of a dreadful singing voice. The group would go top 10 in the new year with Mulder and Scully and Road rage, lifting album International Velvet to number 1, but would prove to be a one-joke wonder. Omar put his version of the Stranglers' Golden brown in at 37, the Aphex Twin's Come to daddy made 36, and Silver Sun had Lava at 35, an improvement on the record's number 54 placing of a year earlier.

Their record company had hopes for Universal, but the newest boy band found that Make it with you wasn't going to make it past 33, and the group wasn't going to make it past Ver Dumper. The Levellers followed up the over-commercial What a beautiful day with the even worse Celebrate, a song so bad that it makes Pierro and the Tweenies' song of the same name sound quite appealing. Best-selling seven-inch of the week honours went to the Wildhearts, Urge was in at 26. Sheryl Crow went one single too far from her album as Home could only struggle to 25.

Great things were in prospect for Feeder, their fourth release of the year is High, and it's the first to make the top 40, coming in at a very respectable number 24. They'll just scrape a place in the top 20 with Yesterday went too soon, one of four singles from their next album, but it's not until 2001's Buck Rogers that the band will hit the top 10 - that number 5 hit remains their biggest. Supergrass had their third top 20 hit of the year, with Late in the day making number 18. Busta Rhymes continued to shout his way to the chart, with Put your hands where my eyes could see hollering in at 16. Out of the top 10 went Louise (10-15), Will Smith (8-14), and Oasis (5-13). The Spices hit the top 20 on the Network Chart, joined in the 40 on pre-release by Beth From Neighbours.

New at 12 came Clock, performing U sexy thing. Yep, it's another cover of the Hot Chocolate classic, barely a month after T-shirt scraped into the top 75, and one of nine cover versions Clock would have during the 1990s. The core of the group was Stu Allen and Pete Pritchard, who dreamed of making a British version of 2 Unlimited. This looked like being a fool's errand, the group's singles kept ticking over for a few years, until Axel F turned into the first of three top ten hits in spring 1995. The group struck 4 that summer with their version of The Tag Team's Whoomph! (there it is), their biggest hit. Other covers included the Four Season's Oh what a night, KC and the Sunshine Band's That's the way I like it, and Big Fun's Blame it on the boogie. James Masterton, the primus inter pares of the UK pop commentary scene, famously found this band wound him up, on the not-entirely unreasonable grounds that Clock took well-known songs and ripped out any approximation to artistic merit, leaving just a beat and a shouty rap; clearly, they were the British 2 Unlimited. In this corner, we reckoned they were completely inoffensive and rather fun in small doses, and we always had a soft spot for the almost decent It's over. U sexy thing was also a bit different from most Clock works, as it was actually an improvement on the original. Thank goodness we won't hear it again.

New at 11 came the Brand New Heavies' version of You've got a friend, a cover of Carole King's hit. What does this group have to do to get a top ten hit? It's their fifth top 20 single since 1992, twelfth to make the top 40, and fourth to appear on the Network Chart on airplay alone.

Into the top 10 came a completely non-airplay friendly act, Mansun; the Seven ep was led by Closed for business, and became their only top 10 hit. Second single in a row about matters financial, following May's Taxloss. The Lighthouse Family dropped from 6 to 9, allowing Janet Jackson to bounce back up a place to 8. New at 7 came the Propellerheads with David Arnold performing On her majesty's secret service. It's the quintissential James Bond theme, now performed with an added bass beat, some meaty brass, and helped by the bloke who put together the Live 'n' Kicking theme.

Chumbawumba went back up a place to 6, the fourth week out of nine they'd been the fastest climber in the top 40. Yes, that's a record. Eternal, the Backstreet Boys, and Dario G all dropped a place to 5, 4, 3. Highest new entry at 2 went to Sash!. Sascha Lappessen hailed from Germany, and began his working life as an electrical engineer, with a brief DJ spell on the side. His talent was obvious, and formed the collective Sash! with Thomas Lüdke and Ralf Kappmeier. They released a cover of Dr. Alban's It's my life in 1995, and had a huge hit across Europe with Encore Une Fois at the start of 1997; number 16 in Germany, number 7 in France, number 2 in the UK, and a week at the top of MTV's Eurochart. The song had a similar beat to Faithless's Insomnia, which had itself been a top 3 hit in the UK a few months before, and featured uncredited vocals from Sabine Ohmes.

The direct follow-up was Ecuador (France 12, Germany 7, UK 2; MTV 4) with the vocals of Rodriguez, with Stay the autumn release (France 23, Germany 12, UK 2; MTV 3). Like its predecessors, the song was credited to Lappessen, Kappmeier, and Thomas Alisson; Frankie McCoy was also credited on this song, and vocals were credited to La Trec. The group managed to begin their UK career with three number 2 singles, a feat never before achieved.

By now, the album It's My Life had been released, and for a dance-pop act, did tolerably well. The collective's second album was Life goes on, which came out late in summer 1998. First single from that had been La primavera, UK number 3 in spring 1998; second single Mysterious times was with Tina Cousins, and only their second English-language hit of the career, following a French, South American Spanish, and Italian entries. Move mania with Shannon put the group back in the top 10 late in 1998, but Colour the world barely made the top 20 over Easter 1999. Third album Trillennium (2000) opened with the number 2 hit Adelante; after one more release, With my own eyes, the group rather gave up on the UK.

In Germany, a slightly premature Best Of was released for the Christmas market in 2000. Sash! attempted a comeback in 2002; Ganbareh, Run with Boy George, and I Believe with TJ Davis all failed to trouble the German top 40. The group had five number 2 singles, never a week at number 1, and we can't help but think that Sash!'s upbeat electropop knocks the depressingly formulaic rap nonsense of the following years into a very deep cocked hat. The collective claimed to have a new album ready to roll in 2004, but record company politics prevented that. More recently, a well-known repository of lies, untruths, and stuff people made up down the pub at lunchtime yesterday has claimed the group will have a new single out before the end of the year, The secret, with vocal warblings by Sarah Brightman. Say it ain't so, Sash!!

Sash! sold 80,000. Elton John shifted 280,000 more copies of Something about the way you look tonight, now taking his total to almost 4 million. Five weeks looks like his limit, as there's a new Spice Girls single out next week.

| Permanent link