Ministers explained why they had decided to exempt Formula One motor racing from their proposed ban on tobacco sponsorship. John Maples (C, Health) said that it was a u-turn. A report into the conduct of Neil Hamilton found that his behaviour was short of that expected of an MP, but he had not taken money from Mr. Fayed. Labour retained the seat of Paisley South at a by-election. Michael Foster launched a bill to ban fox-hunting: it would run out of time in the Commons, but Mr. Blair would fib that it had fallen in the Lords.

The annual French lorry drivers' strike took place; the French government pledged to compensate foreign truckers caught up. Mr. Clinton claimed that the Iraqis had threatened to shoot down planes spying on the non-existant weapons programme; Iraq retaliated by refusing to allow Mr. Clinton's envoys to inspect their non-existant weapons. There were warnings of impending famine in North Korea.

A report criticised the growing dominance of cartoons on children's television: CITV's spokey said that the channel was committed to diversity. Interest rates rose by another ¼% to 7%. There were small ceremonies to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Russian revolution, and the tenth anniversary of the Eniskillin bomb; Gerry Adams voiced an apology for the latter.

Arsenal beat Manchester United 3:2. The BBC launched News 24, its continual service of cockups, errors, glitches, Gavin Esler, flags, drums, Jane Hill, way cool graphics, but mostly cockups. Blue Peter launched its annual appeal: this year, a bring and buy sale for cystic fibrosis.

UK Singles Chart for w/c 9 November 1997

Number One	Barbie girl - Aqua - 2nd week (Number 777 in seq.)
Highest new entry	Tell him - Barbra Streisand and Céline Dion - number 3
Fastest climber (within top 40)	Stand by me - Oasis - up 1 to 39
Fastest climber (within top 75)	(as above)
Lemming-like fall	Breathing - North and South - down 34 to 61
Top 40 debuts	187 Lockdown, Fabulous Baker Boys, The PF Project Featuring Ewan McGregor
Top 40 exits	Michael Bolton, Fabulous Baker Boys, Diana King, Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Top 75 debuts	187 Lockdown, Dust Junkys, Fabulous Baker Boys, The PF Project Featuring Ewan McGregor, Quad City DJ's
Top 75 exits	Coco, Randy Crawford, D*Note, Goldie Featuring KRS One, Scott Garcia Featuring MC Styles, Natural Born Chillers, Quad City DJ's, Radish, Karen Young

Another week, another ten-gallon-hatful of new entries. For the first time in chart history, the best-selling 7-inch single - Symposium's Drink the sunshine - falls short of the top 75. Karen Young came in at 68 with Hot shot '97; clearly she was somewhat more tepid than she hoped. Randy Crawford hadn't had a big hit since 1987, and her cover of George Benson's Give me the night wasn't going to change that streak, peaking at 60. D*Note's Lost and found entered at 59. Space jam from the Quad City DJs had been massive over the summer in North America: here, it was shown up as the pile of nonsense it always was, and made 57. Paul van Dyk had Words at 54, but was beaten by two former number-one hitmakers. UB40's Always there made 53, the second single off their album. Gina G was at least on single four as Every time I fall made 52; she'd be caught in a legal case for many years, and her attempted comeback at A Song For Europe 2005 was soundly beaten by a tit-flasher and an over-inflated condom.

Radish's Simple sincerity came in at 50, and the Dust Junkys entered at 47 with (Nonstoperation). Us neither. Oasis benefitted from a piece of pre-emptive discounting: falling out of the Woolworth's chart reduced the price from £4 to £2, and Stand by me advanced a place to 39. Second time around for Delirious?, whose song Deeper was making its second appearance in the top 40 this year. Number 20 in May turned to 36 in November. Fabulous Baker Boys put Oh boy to 34.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Inkanyezi nezazi (the star and the wiseman) hit 33. The group had been formed by Joseph Shabalala in the 1960s, performing in the isicathamiya tradition of close-harmonies and carefully choreographed shuffle-dances. Taking their name from a black suburb of Johannesburg, and the Zulu equivalent of machete, the choir won so many competitions that they were invited to withdraw so that someone else could win. They turned professional in 1973 when the album Amabutho sold gold.

The group was hurt both by apartheid - they could only perform to blacks - and the cultural boycott imposed on South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. Paul Simon recruited the group to work on his 1986 album Graceland, and the resulting publicity gave a massive boost to southern African music. Named as the country's cultural ambassadors by ANC leader Nelson Mandela, they accompanied him to the Nobel prize awards for 1993, played at his inaugration as president the following year, and recorded Swing low sweet chariot, the official song for the 1995 rugby world cup. The current hit single was being used in television commercials for a tinned spaghetti firm, but gave them a second hit single here. The group has continued to record, releasing roughly one album of African music per year, occasionally branching out into religious and Western themes. They also tour for about six months of the year.

Peter Cox has never been a consistent hitmaker. His original group, Go West, had a handful of hits in 1985 (including their biggest, the number 5 smash We close our eyes), but didn't chart again until The king of wishful thinking in 1990 and Faithful in 1992. His solo career was scarcely more successful: If you walk away came in at 24, two more singles failed to trouble the top 40, and that was it.

Faithless had Don't leave in at 21, we've already covered this release. Roni Size and Reprazent had somehow won the 1997 Merc, to the consternation of almost every observer. Brown paper bag made number 20, only 2000's Who told you was higher-placed, at 17. More drum 'n' bass nonsense from 187 Lockdown, Gunman entered at 16. A re-release the following summer would make 17. Cast's run of top 10 hits came to an end as I'm so lonely could only make 14, and Jon Bon Jovi's third single of the year, Janie don't take your love to town entered at 13. Had they come out a week previously, either record would have made the top 10. Cast would continue to spiral away before breaking up in 2001; Jon Bon Jovi rejoined his eponymous band for releases in 2000 and every few years since.

Something of a clear-out in this week's top 10: out go Embrace (8-26), Peter Andre (6-22), Dario G (10-15), N-Trance and Rod Stewart (9-12), and the Backstreet Boys (7-11). The Network Chart was chock-full of pre-releases: Connor Reeves, Lutricia McNeil (three weeks already!), Hot Chocolate, and even Pulp appeared in the list from airplay alone.

Into the top 10 came Texas. The group, formed by former Altered Image and Hipsway bloke Johnny McElhone and helmsed by the photogenic Sharleen Spiteri, had burst onto the scene in 1989 with the bluesy I don't want a lover. This proved to be a false dawn: three more singles from Southside failed to trouble the UK singles chart, and one of the releases from 1991's Mother's Heaven couldn't even make the top 40 in Scotland. Non-album track Tired of being alone was more commercial blues-pop, managed to hit the airplay spot in the sunny spring of 1992, and made the national top 20. But this proved another false dawn: three singles from 1993 album Rick's Road made the top 40 but achieved no traction.

The group went away to consider things. Blues-pop had received some level of success in the late-80s, but Texas had stubbornly clung onto the same formula. Peers such as Deacon Blue and Wet Wet Wet had subtly reinvented themselves with each release, but Texas had stayed in the same area. The product of this soul-searching was the cod-soul album White on Blonde. For a group with two hits to their name, this was a final roll of the dice.

Texas finally got a break in late 1996, when Chris Evans used his television and radio shows to champion their comeback single Say what you want, getting it into the top 10 first week out, and eventually helping it to number 3. Halo and Black-eyed boy followed into the top 10 before Put your arms around me rounded out a magnificent year with a number 10 entry. By now, White on Blonde had sold almost 1.3 million copies, and would be the year's second-biggest seller. Texas appeared at the BPI awards in February 1998, and the recording of Say what you want with the Wu-Tang Clan became an unorthodox number 4 hit.

1999's follow-up album The Hush followed a similar sound: two top-5 and a number 12 hit. The group's greatest hits album was released in 2000, and the two new tracks both peaked at 6. 2003's Careful What You Wish For did represent something of an evolution, less soul and more power pop. The lead single was the rap-heavy Carnival girl, and was probably the greatest misjudgement of Texas's career: it was radio-unfriendly, and offended more people than it attracted. It does make second single I'll see it through the greatest slipped disk of their career. The group learned from its mistakes: a more assured neo-disco album Red Book emerged in 2005, and an album of BBC sessions came out in September 2007. An eighth studio album is provisionally scheduled for 2008.

Sash! drops four to 9, and Moby's contribution to a James Bond-themed album came in at 8. We'd already had the Propellorheads' version of On her majesty's secret service, now Moby's radical interpretation of the James Bond theme made its way in. Fourth single for Gary Barlow, and Open road became the third top-tenner, entering at 7. New at 6 for the PF Project's Choose life: we'll have more about this next week.

The big guns are stacking up: Elton John has now shifted over 4 million copies of Something about the way you look tonight, dropping one to 5. The Spice Girls, biggest band on the planet, slipped one to 4. New at 3 came the double-headed hydra of Barbra Streisand and Céline Dion on Tell him. Babs had never concentrated on the singles market - though Woman in love hit the top in 1980, she wouldn't return to the top twenty until Til I met you (with Don Johnson) in 1988. The late 90s were her most consistent era, with consecutive top 20 hits As if we never said goodbye, I finally found someone (with Bryan Adams), and this one. Céline was still basking in the afterglow of the career-defining million-seller Think twice and the sustained success of The Colour Of My Love and Falling Into You - only in the last few months has the albums chart been a Céline-free zone, she'd had a presence every week for two and a half years.

All of this meant no change at number 2 for Natalie Imbruglia, and a third week at number 1 for Aqua. Natalie's sold 340,000 copies of Torn in two weeks, the Danes have shifted almost 880,000 units of Barbie girl in a month, and it's behind Elton, Puff, and within spitting distance of Will Smith for the best-seller of the year. Even Natalie's song is knocking on the door of the top 30 for 1997, with still six weeks to go.

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