19March

Hmm, it appears that Haloscan is now relying on a Javascript unescape trick to allow posting. Some of us don't allow Javascript to run without a damned good reason, and playing nice for an exceptionally flaky comment service is not a good reason.

So, one for the Bother's Bar commentariat: we worked out the probability of opening with five in a row last year, while researching a completely different matter. The chance of five in a row works out at roughly one in 1500, so to see it in game 411 is not eyebrow-raisingly inconsistent with probability - it's roughly a 3-1 shot to have seen the phenomenon by now. Odds of a seven-in-a-row: roughly one in 100,000; we would not expect to see that again before the series ends. And odds of eliminating all ten blues in 12 boxes (as happened in the previous game) is one-in-5350.

That two events of such high improbability have turned up in successive games must raise questions. We trust the auditors, but recent evidence (see: the apparent cancellation of Brainteaser) has shown that we cannot trust Endemol in general, and Endemol Bristol in particular.

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Geekery

19March

Fountains of Wayne began their chart career with Radiation vibe at number 32, but wouldn't break the top 20 until 2004. Symposium debuted at 25 with the rather brilliant Farewell to twilight - the group's three-single top 40 career would be done within six months, and that is a grade-1 shame. Fresh from the publicity surrounding their appearance on Brass Eye, Cake came in at 22 with The distance, their career highpoint; we never quite worked out why 2001's Short skirt long jacket wasn't larger than number 63.

Number 9 was The real thing, the big comeback hit single for Lisa Stansfield. She'd had her biggest hit single with All around the world in 1989, and 1991's All Woman album had spawned hit after hit after hit. The 1993 comeback had surprisingly flopped, and after just one hit single, the '97 return also ran out of steam. A shame.

(More: the top 75 dissected and set in context. And two songs to download! - 1477 words)

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Two Songs a Week

20March

Poll: with caution

SRK-one points to a poll regarding support for the UK's presence in Iraq.

It seems to indicate support for the invasion is running at a much higher level than the media consensus would suggest, says our correspondent. Not entirely sure that we agree; a headline figure of 29% support and 60% opposition is broadly reflected in the media coverage.

Do any of my readers still support the actual invasion that happened in 2003, with the actual consequences that have followed from it? We did not support it at the time. Mister Blair supported the regime of President Sadaam so long as he did not possess chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Mister Blair never presented a credible and convincing case that Iraq possessed such weapons. The actuality of the invasion, and the failure to ensure reconstruction, all follow from this original error.

SRK and his correspondent, Being JDC, attempt to draw some conclusions from the regional differences. This is more than a little depressing, as the sample sizes (128 for London, 87 for Yorkshire) are so small as to make such comparisons subject to huge sampling error; even the 24% difference between London and Yorkshire is not significant at the usual levels.

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Politics

20March

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

Monocle magazine, then. Five pounds (ouch!) for about 300 pages. Perfect binding, none of this staples lark, and printed on matt paper - not the glossy stuff of most magazines, but neither the cheap print of newspapers.

We like the concept. The magazine shows its European roots through and through, to the extent of converting all prices to euro, rather than pounds or dollars. And we like the idea of looking at something different, eschewing the lure of cheap celebrity in favour of something different. The cover story in issue 1 was on Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Force, the closest thing the country gets to a navy. We also liked an interview with the head of Lego, and a chat with an Afghan disk jockey.

However, that's about as far as our praise goes. Many of the articles, especially the briefs, are written in a very flat tone, conveying precious little enthusiasm. To accuse the magazine of coming out with shed-loads of "Will this do?" copy is rather unfair, but all the writers' zip and verve looks like it's fallen into the cracks somewhere between the style-guide and the copy-editors. This must be a down-side of appealing to an audience for whom English is not a first language.

The other criticism we have is with the magazine's size - at 300 pages, it's weighs in at something over 250g. Far too heavy to carry around on a daily basis, and perhaps lending itself to be left on a coffee table to gather dust. Maybe the mag would do better to split itself into half, and go for twice as many 150-page editions.

We like the idea, we like the magazine's design. The content is too voluminous, and too tedious, for the high price-tag to be worth our while. Address one of these criticisms and we'll look again; address both, and we might switch our intellectual pursuit away from Prospect and the LRB.

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Consumer

21March

This week's miscellany

(This week: G****e, the Crass Spectacle, Humph, Lauren Laverne, comment spam, math(s), calendars, McJobs, and more. 708 words)

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Miscellany

22March

Quite frankly, that's rubbish

Last Saturday, a week after the official deadline, the UK picked its song to lose at this year's Eurovision Song Contest. And when we say lose, we mean really lose, in a way that will make recent lack-of-achievement look like a positive victory.

Flying the flag, performed by Scooch And The Invisible Backing Vocalists, is quite the worst song that the UK has sent in living memory. It is rubbish. It is appalling. It is abysmal. It exemplifies everything that is wrong with the UK's approach to the world's biggest cultural festival.

Twelve years ago, back when the British entry was supervised by someone who actually cared about the concept, a number of stars tried to win. Deuce came close, and we suspect that they would have done a little better than the eventual UK winners, though perhaps not better than Secret Garden.

That was a decent song. Here, from the 2004 contest, is another song that is better than the UK's entry for this year.

And, yes, there are a couple of hidden shout-outs. One song carries the subliminal message, enjoy your trip, you've earned it. The other carries the not-so-subliminal message that we've extremely happy for you, and will be doing very good vibes and little Tweenie-dances the week-end after next.

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Two Songs a Week

22March

Defeatism, Defeatism, Defeatism

Blair and those around him were defeatists. In their view the media were supreme. What the media believed was what the country believed; and what the media believed decided elections...

The PFI is just an ingenious way of wasting money. It would have been better to have excluded the private sector altogether or (arguably) to have made it bear the full costs by genuine privatisation. But that would have been impossible for a government which both believes that higher levels of public expenditure are politically necessary and is ideologically committed to the private sector...

Brown’s decision to hand over much of the direction of the economy to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England is thought to have been a brilliant stroke. But it has worked only because the comparative stability of the international economy has allowed it to. Had the MPC been in charge in the 1970s they would have been as much at sea as the Treasury.

Ross McKibbin in the London Review of Books, discussing ten years of Tony.

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Politics

24March

Radio Info

Saga Radio's turn-off yesterday was a very low-key affair. The RDS had switched to SMOOTH at about 3pm. At 5.48, Mike Baker read a traffic bulletin, and promises a warmer week next week. At 5.50, some commercials are followed by Mike introducing Fleetwood Mac's Dreams. At 5.56, he segues into Telstar by the Tornadoes. The first sign that Mike had finished came when the 6pm news began without a jingle or station ident, just the newsreader announcing the time. After the bulletin, at 6.06, the test transmission begins with Sade's Smooth operator. The station launches at 6am on Monday, just 59 hours later.

Saga Radio officially launched on 16 October 2001; test transmissions had begun around 20 September. The first presenter was David Hamilton, and the schedule included specialist music programmes between 8 and 10pm each weeknight. These were taken off air in 2004, though week-end nostalgia programmes continued until the end.

On DAB, Smooth London was taken off air at about 6.20 on Friday, replaced by jazzfm.com; Saga 105.7 was renamed Smooth at the same time. It's worth remembering that when the West Midlands multiplex launched in summer 2001, the digital label Smooth was a rebranded Real Radio, alongside Jazz FM from London. When Jazz dropped the jazz and became Smooth London in June 2005, it moved to the station labelled Smooth, and Jazz became Real. Now Saga has taken the label Smooth from Jazz, the original Smooth is Jazz FM, and the original Jazz FM is still Real.

(Does anyone understand that last sentence, because we don't.)

Meanwhile, GWR's The Jazz has announced its launch line-up. After providing a continuous stream of music since 25 December, proper programmes begin on 6 April with a Jazz 500. Proper programming starts on 9 April: Mark Forrest (a free transfer from Classic FM) takes breakfast, Anthony Davis (Capital Life) 10-2, David "Kid" Jensen (Capital Gold) the afternoon show, with Margherita Taylor (yes, her from E4) and Helen Mayhew (ex-Radio 3) doing the evening shift. Week-end highlights include Mike Chadwick (Smooth) doing contemporary material on Friday night, Claire Anderson (Jazz FM) takes week-end breakfast, Tim Lihoreau (ex-Classic) does a new releases show, and there are history shows from Ramsey Lewis (Smooth), Digby Fairweather (ex-Radio 2), Courtney Pine, and Campbell Burnap (Smooth). The schedule also includes a show by Jamie Cullum, but we can't have everything.

It's worth noting that Smooth Radio's website includes no line-up for the West Midlands. Thanks for caring, people.

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Media

25March

European hits

No change at the top in France, but Cascada's Miracle comes straight in at number 2. Jüstine Nümberwang is the highest entry in Germany, at 5; Roger Cicero comes two places behind with Frauen Regier'n Die Welt, Mika is straight into the top ten, Sasha is 15, and Take That's Shine enters at 21.

In Ireland, 21 Demands' Give me a minute takes over the top spot. It's one of the singles released by this year's You're a Star finalists, and becomes the country's first download-only number 1. Winner David O'Connor is number 7. Nelly Furtado's Say it right assumes pole position in Latvia, and Grace Kelly is the new leader in Norway. No change in Denmark, where Trine Dyrholm holds for a 53rd week at the top, and 104 weeks (yes, two years) in the top 20. A mere 14 new entries into the Finnish top 20 this week, headed by PMMP's Joku raja.

North Europe's Top 20

 20  9 Sunrise Avenue - Fairytale gone bad
 19 NE Fatal Bazooka - Mauvaise foi nocturne
 18  8 Kelis - Little star
 17 NE Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
 16 NE Yannick Noah - Aux arbes citoyens
 15 17 Killers - Read my mind
 14 13 DJ Ötzi - Ein stern
 13 NE Calvin Harris - Acceptable in the eighties
 12 12 Boys Aloud - Ruby
 11 11 Ville Valo and Natalia Avelon - Summer wine
 10 15 Take That - Shine
  9 16 Justin Numberwang - What goes around
  8 10 Cascada - Miracle
  7  7 Gwen Stiffeny - The sweet escape
  6  6 Gossip - Standing in the way of control
  5  4 Pet Shop Boys - She's Madonna
  4  5 Fray - How to save a life
  3  2 Nelly Furtado - All good things
  2  3 Nelly Furtado - Say it right
  1  1 Mika - Grace Kelly

Fatal Bazooka is the rapper huge in France; Yannick Noah is the tennis player turned pop star, a sort of reverse Cliff Richard. Only with talent. Avril Scrapy Spice Lavigne has pulled on a short skirt and re-made Lolly's Mickey; her visual image is a sell-out, but the song is as bitchy as ever. Calvin Harris is a synthpop hit that we'd probably have ribbed mercilessly in the early 1980s.

Charts

25March

UK hits

Top of the pops! Norman Lebrecht reviews the all-time best-selling classical stars. And, good grief, it's the new album from Gorecki!

Nine records enter between 75 and 41, plus a re-entry for Chris Cornell. My Chemical Romance sing I don't love you, and the GBP doesn't love them, only making 66. Scooch, who may or may not have won the Eurovision selection show last week, land at 61 with Flying the flag (for you); Big Brothers, who certainly didn't win, land at position 171; Brian Harvey missed the top 200 entirely, and that takes quite some doing. Midas, the hottest thing to come out of Stourbridge since Pop Will Eat Itself, enters at 59. The sort of band that Kerrang radio should champion, but doesn't.

New Young Pony Club enter at 47, and five new entries in the positions outside the top 40. Lemar's Tick tock is at 45, Razorlight's I can't stop this feeling I've started at 44, Jamelia's No more number 43, Brett Anderson's Love is dead at 42, and the Rumble Strips' Alarm clock at 41.

Seamus Haji and Kay Jay cover Last night a dj saved my life, which was a bit pants when Indeep made it in 1983, and it's no better now. Tiny Dancers we're rather liking at 36, unlike Ciara at 35. That's this week's Highest New Entry, chart fans. Big climbs for Hilary Duff and the Ghosts as the physical singles get released, not that listeners to Radio Onelistener's chart will have heard the Duff single, as her previous hit was played instead. It will be interesting to see how quickly Gossip fall now that Skins has finished its run. No spoilers, otherwise we'll set Mr. Twatter and his moustache on you.

Stacey Ferguson moves into the top ten at 10, and Maximo Park storms up from 30 to 9, showing the power of the physical single; see also Alex Gaudino, up from 18 to 5. Three weeks ago, a cock-up at one of the digital distributors led to Scrappy Spice's Girlfriend scraping into the chart at number 73. The formal embargo was lifted this week, and the song shoots back in at number 3. There's a first time for everything: a short-order re-entry becoming the highest entry of any kind.

Just as in 2005, the Comic Relief silly song outpaces the official one. Then, ...Amarillo beat McFly, now ...500 miles does for the Sugababes and Slappers. Nineteen years after original release, and fourteen years after becoming a Canadian chart-topper, it finally hits the head of the UK list. Can't keep a good song down. We do worry about the Children In Need Of Assistance song, though. Bet it'll be Angels...

On the albums, Take That re-take the top spot, displacing Ray Quinn to number 2. Kaisers back up to 3, with Enter Shikari! straight in at 4. Nelly F and Justine N climb back into the top 10. Good Charlotte can only make 13, and a lot of last week's Mothering Sunday records drop like stones - Ben Mills 3-14, Donny Osmond 7-29. Neil Young has a 1971 live album in at 30, Bowie 80-87 in at 34, The Rakes's Ten new messages at 38, and Aliens's Astronomy for dogs at 46. Gossip climb 9 to 31, My Chemical Romance up 20 to 50. Creeping into the 75 are the best of John Barry (64) and Picture of perfect youth (65), a Feeder b-sides album.

 3 re Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
 6  5 Fray - How to save a life
 9 30 Massimo Park - Our velocity
11  7 Mika - Grace Kelly
15 32 Twang - Wide awake
16 10 Calvin Harris - Acceptable in the eighties
18 13 Gossip - Standing in the way of control
19 12 Kelis - Little star
25 59 Ghosts - Stay the night
26 37 Proclaimers - I'm gonna be (500 miles)
27 26 Killers - Read my mind
29 60 Hillary Duff - With love
31 27 Just Jack - Stars in their eyes
34 35 Pink - Leave me alone
36 NE Tiny Dancers - I will wait for you
37 25 Lily Allen - Alfie
39 24 Fratellis - Baby fratelli
42 NE Brett Anderson - Love is dead
44 NE Razorlight - I can't stop this feeling I've got
45 NE Lemar - Tick tock
46 43 View - Same jeans
52 39 Jojo - Too little too late
55 52 Fratellis - Chelsea dagger
57 47 Nelly Furtado - All good things
68 72 Arcade Fire - Keep the car running
72 50 Enter Shikari
  - Anything can happen in the next half hour

Charts

25March

This week, we've been watching...

* The Trap (BBC2) misrepresenting John Major. Again.
* Are We There Yet? (BBC2) explaining why Manchester is the best city in Britain for thoroughly fucked-up bus operators. There is some merit in WMPTE's effective monopoly, and they seem no more expensive than the Mancunian mess. Transdiffusion combine the two.
* The Day Today (BBC4) The cat was full of nitroglycerine.
* Raven (CBBC) They're good, this week.
* Skins (E4) The singing is a betrayal, but not the end of the action.
* Fort Boyard (TV5) It's Bizutage, people, not cherchez l'aiguille dans un meule de foin.

... and listening to...

* The Moral Maze (Radio 4) Slavery commemorations are boring already.
* Feedback (Radio 4) Local radio, and reports from Iraq. Can you tell it's the penultimate show?

Media

25March

The election results in Finland showed the Centre Party of Matti Vanhanen retaining a lead, with 51 seats. The righter-wing National Coalition Party increased its share to 50 seats, while the left-wing Social Democrats look set to be out of coalition after falling to 45 seats. The minor parties scored: Left Alliance (17 seats), Greens (15), Christian Democrats (7), Swedish People's Party (9). A Centre-NCP coalition is expected, as Centre-SD would fall just short of a majority.

British finance minister Gordon Brown presented his budget. The headline-grabbing move was a 2p cut in the basic rate of income tax to 29p; this is funded almost entirely by his abolition of a 19p rate on the first £2000 (€3000) of taxable income. Relief on charity contributions will fall from 28% to 25%. Other changes included some tinkering with business taxes, increased taxes on some cars, increased fuel duty for all, and changes to benefit poorer pensioners. Brown will attempt to sell off the business of student loans; a shot at this end failed some years ago. Losers from this budget include the working poor - those earning less than about £17,000 (€25,000) per year will find themselves worse off; those who do not or cannot have children will be significantly worse off. Government spending will rise by 2% a year, trailing overall growth by about ¾%.

The EU has agreed to an open skies agreement with the FARCE. Under the rules, any EU airline will be able to fly into any airport between the Lawrence and Grande, and any of their airlines can fly anywhere here. However, EU airlines will not be allowed to make domestic hops over there, an imbalance that must be rectified by the terrorist regime within two years otherwise the deal will be off.

A family of three, illegally detained while en route from Iran to Canada, finally completed their journey this week. The two adults and one child were marched off their plane by invading FARCE stormtroops when it made an unscheduled stop in Puerto Rico; the occupying power refused to recognise their pass-ports.

At least 70 people were killed when a munitions depot exploded in Maputo.

Iranian forces captured 15 British soldiers off the coast of Iraq. The following day, the United Nations discussed increasing sanctions against Iran.

Russia's supreme court has dissolved the Republican party. According to the court, the party - one of the few to oppose Vladimir Poutine - has too few members to count. The party members, Boris and Doris Bonkersovitch of Neasden-am-der-Volga, have said the move is anti-democratic.

Pakistan and India have left the cricket World Cup after the first group stage. The two cricket powerhouses suffered unexpected defeats to Ireland and Bangladesh, respectively. Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room on the morning after the loss to Ireland; foul play is suspected.

News

25March

(Look, if you want straight coverage of La Presidentielle, go and read F2. We're going to do our own spin on it, culminating in an audio post immediately after the election results are announced.)

Two full teams of six will run in the Chaisse aux Clefs, after M. Bové lobbed enough menhirs into the sea to build a causeway to the electoral college. M. Bové joins Team E, alongside M. Le Pen, M. Nihous, M. de Villiers, M. Popup, and Mme. Buffet. Team Keep will consist of M. Bayrou, M. Besancenot, Mme. Laguiller, Mme. Royal, M. Schivardi, and Mme. Voynet.

L'enigme du Bayre Françrou answers a few questions in Het Grauniad.

Ségolène Royal is in search of la republique sixiéme, promising a referendum this autumn on a proposal to reduce the president's power and increase that of parliament. M. Popup, of course, is against this kind of sensible reform.

M. Popup has also been dismissed from his post as the interior minister. Outgoing president Jacques "Leport" Chirac gave his grudging backing to the right-wing candidate. M. Popup said that he was touched. He then went off to see L'Etrangier on Guadeloupe. Bit of an obscure place to pick up a key, we reckon.

The press made much of a single poll this week that showed M. Popup and Mme. Royal in a dead heat. All the sondages are showing a small but significant first-round swing from Popup to Royal, with M. Bayrou and M. Le Pen also gaining ground.

Four more weeks to the first round of voting.

Politics

25March

A remarkably cold week, as high pressure persisted off Scandinavia and strong northerlies were the order of the day. The last week not to break 10°C was 5-11 February; this week was only saved late on Sunday afternoon.

19 Mo wintry showers     1/ 7, 5.5
20 Tu sun, cold wind     2/ 5
21 We sun               -3/ 7
22 Th drizzle to cloud  -1/ 8, 3.5
23 Fr cloud              5/ 8
24 Sa cloud              3/ 8
25 Su mostly cloudy      6/12

Rainfall in March: 66mm; monthly average: 52.3mm.
Degree heating days: 484½
2005-6: 760/808
2004-5: 614/677½.

Weather