23April

The definitif results from the first round of voting:

Sarkozy, Nicolas (Popup): 31,18%
Royal, Ségolène (Socialist): 25,87%

Bayrou, François (Centre): 18,57%
Le Pen, Jean-Marie (Racist): 10,44%

Besancenot, Olivier (Postman): 4,08%
De Villiers, Philippe (Veritas): 2,23%
Buffet, Marie-George (Communist): 1,93%
Voynet, Dominique (Green): 1,57%
Laguiller, Arlette (Revvolution): 1,33%
Bové, José (Obelix): 1,32%
Nihous, Frédéric (Huntin'n'shootin'): 1,15%
Schivardi, Gérard (Loony): 0,34%

The regional breakdown shows some interesting variations. Sarko beat Royal in most regions, though there was a slim reverse in Acquitaine, Brittany, and Poitou-Charentes, and larger (5%) leads in Limousin and Midi-Pyrenees. Bayrou tended to run Royal closest in the north and east of the country, but could only take second place in Alsace. Le Pen's best result was in Corsica and Picardy (3rd). Ile de France (which contains 6.7m voters) split Popup 34 - Royal 28 - Bayrou 20. On Martinique, Royal beat Sarko by 15%, with Le Pen pushed into fifth by Besancenot. There are just 300,000 voters there. In New Caledonia (145,000 voters), Le Pen fell into fifth, behind Bové. Lowest turn-out came in the Overseas Voters category, just 40% of the 800,000 bothered to cast their vote; they prefered Popup by 38-30.

Where do we go from here? We go further! Stupid question... The election is already being cast as a referendum on the odious nature of Popups, which would be a mistake. There's a clear cleavage between the visions of the two candidates. There's a France that slavishly follows the cheese-eating attack monkeys of North America, as proposed by the UMP. Or there's a France that continues to tread a path of equality and fraternity, as proposed by Royal.

One thing is certain: the Chirac years have been an almost unmitigated disaster, with the country sleep-walking through a lost decade. That's why turnout was a phenomenal 85% yesterday - there was something to play for. Not that France Profonde sees it - we have five more years of the old left against right, both set in their predictable, unexciting policies, constantly bickering, automatically refusing the other’s propositions with knee-jerk lack of thought, simply to please their own vested interests. We'll have to see: certainly, a low turnout in the second round could bear out Mr. King's point.

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Politics

23April

The Supernaturals were, arguably, the logical successors to Gun. Formed in Glasgow in 1993, the group also took forever to gain a modicum of the popularity they deserved. By this point in 1997, the group was up to hit single three - after last October's Lazy lover and February's The day before yesterday's man came Smile, new at 23. This was the high point of the band's career, unless you count this song turning up in a commercial for a bank. Good bunch of lads, really deserved a lot more success than they got, and certainly to be remembered more than for a throwawy line - there is lyrical depth in this single, just as there was in all their tunes. (See also: Little Man Tate.)

(More: long pieces on the Lightning Seeds and Robbie Williams, short blurbs on Gun, and the election campaign that will not go away. 1713 words)

The pressure is now on former bandmate Gary Barlow, whose second solo single is out in just over a week. He hopes it'll become his second number one; R. Kelly only has the one, but it's now spent a third week on top of the survey, and has sold more copies this week than in any of the previous four.

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Two Songs a Week

24April

Staff member Denise Paolucci asks after the purpose of the unofficial resistance community, no_lj_ads. Here's our response to her points.

What's the point of posting these "ha ha look at how much these ads suck" type posts?

Is the damage to the company's reputation worth more than the loss of income from a small number of commercials? The Social Contract between Livejournal and its users states quite clearly that there shall be no commercials. So far as this interested outsider can tell, the ultimate goal of no_lj_ads remains for advertising to be shown precisely to those users who have specifically chosen to see advertising. Not to people who are just browsing, and not to people who do not pay the fee to see the site without commercials.

(In which we discuss Miss Paolucci's points further, and reach a conclusion that surprised even us. - 1110 words)

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Six Apart Is Rubbish

25April

Oh gawds, yet another bible-basher at number 10, writes Catherine Bennett. At least you know where you are with the Rev. Blair.

Illegally parked, that's where. The Indytab diary reports, An ambitious traffic warden from Westminster borough, which is among the ticketing-trade's most zealous operators, thought he'd try his luck on the PM's illegally parked motorcade, only to be bluntly told to scram by a member of Special Branch. Can we trust a prime minister who commissions criminal acts? It's a slippery slope - a parking offence here, a broken speed limit there, and before you know where you are, you're accepting cash for peerages. Oh.

A sick France is bad for Britain, says Tim Garton-Ash. For most French socialists, to be called Blairist is an insult.

John Tusa blasts the government for its singularly rubbish arts policy. Why is the demand for justification of the arts so often accompanied by the implied slur that those in the arts are engaged in a selfish activity - which they want others to pay for - by representing them as some kind of personal indulgence, constituting a private play-thing?

Why oh why oh why is the government trying to tell companies who to employ? asks the Indytab. Because the Labour party is staffed from top to toe by a bunch of apartheid freaks, people obsessed with the colour of people's skin, with their sexual behaviour, with their imaginary friends. Labour is obsessed with everything except doing a decent job.

Simon Jenkins says There's no such thing as Blairism, for an -ism requires a set of coherent ideas. On each occasion Blair has opted for the prevailing Thatcherite orthodoxy.

Clive Stafford-Smith on his job, representing prisoners at the Guantanamo jail. Part of us would be very happy to see similar treatment meted out to the inhuman monsters who devised this system. Other parts are above simple torture as retribution. See also: Naomi Wolf, on the growing facsism in the rebel North American colonies.

Boris Johnson in Good Idea shock! Let Britain colonise northern France!

One from the file labelled chutzpah: Anti-EU Polish Catholic radio station seeks EU funds.

Bizarre as it sounds, there appear to still be one or two people who need to know about The Mel and Sue Website. It explains what each of the comedy geniuses is doing these days; already this year, the blonder of the two has been on Celeb Star Ac, Eurovizh: The Great British Loser Hunt, Des Chiffres et Des Lettres et Desso Connor, and Jimmy Will Fix It Again. And that's without checking the website.

Seventeen of the more remarkable claims in popular music history ... Tasmin Little goes busking ... Tori Amos, everyone's second favourite singer from Cornwall, begins publicity for her (counts 'em) eighth studio album

One place in the world that means an awful lot... About 100m inland at Cape Spear, there is (or was, when we were last there) a small map, showing the world in a circle around that spot. Here, we suggest, is the centre of the world, at the extreme eastern end of the North American continent. That way, seven thousand kilometres of almost uninterrupted land; the other way, three and a half thousand kilometres of ocean.

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Miscellany

26April

The first in a short series (three or four weeks, no more) of songs from this century's Eurovision song contests. First, we go back to the first contest of the century, and probably one of the worst. The Parken in Copenhagen was a football stadium with a temporary roof over the top. It had about ten million people present, including Dr. Death and the Tooth Fairy. Now, we wouldn't normally give credence to the drunken ramblings of Terry Wogan, but he hit the nail on the head for the 2001 presenters. They were out of their league, and they presented the entire contest in rhyming couplets.

To add to the contest's problems, the winning song was singularly rubbish. Does anyone remember Dave and Tanar performing Everybody? Or Lindsay Dracass, who submitted the obligatory rubbish from Britain? It's not as though there wasn't some talent on display; one of the performers from the Greek entry would go on to win the whole shebang four years later, Muimy Troll and Skamp continue to have significant careers in the Baltics, and the Swedish entry got a sitcom named after them.

Languishing in fourth place was the French entry, performed by one of our favourite singers, Natasha St-Pier. As with all songs that require three or four listens to get, it didn't do as well at Eurovision as it deserved, but it has aged very well indeed. Far better than the hosts' patter.

And if anyone from Danmarks Radio is reading this, we understand that Mr. Wogan is scheduled to pass through your country en route to this year's competition in Helsinki. If you pass a retrospective law making it illegal to compare Danes to the Bride of Frankenstein, punishable by immediate deportation back home, we're not going to object.

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Two Songs a Week

28April

In another place, we see,

I forgot/never really knew the complexities of the Northern Line interchange at Euston.

On a complexity scale of 0-10, we rank this one a 6. (The one platform at Mill Hill East is a 0, the maze that is Bank-Monument a 10.) From the top down at Euston, there's the ticket hall (direct access to suburban platforms 8-11, escalators to the rest of the station). Twin escalators in each direction. Then there's a clockwise one-way system, really a large rectangle bridging three island platforms. In order from the ticket hall, these are:

1: Northern Charing Cross Branch, S and N. Steps at the extreme Camden end of the platform (front heading N, back heading S).

2: Northern Bank Southbound (to King's-cross, Moorgate, Bank) and Victoria line Southbound (to Green-park, Victoria). Down escalators, and further steps about two-thirds of the way along the train.

3: Northern Bank Northbound (to Camden-town) and Victoria Northbound (to King's-cross, Tottenham-hale). Down a different escalator, and further steps about a third of the way along the train.

These are all along one side of the one-way system; on the other side are escalators up, escalators down. There's a cut-through from Bank/Vic S to shorten transfers to the Charing Cross branch.

What's the best way of getting from Kings Cross to Goodge Street?

We're not convinced that there is a single best for all people, but there are degrees of ease. TFL reckons it's a 19 minute walk at a reasonable pace, and that's about the maximum distance most people would be prepared to hoof it. Buses 10, 73, 390 head in the correct direction. Tube fans will probably wish to remain on the Victoria line to Warren-street, then walk. Or change to the Northern, if it's really belting it down.

If changing from Victoria to CX branch, or vice versa, we much prefer Warren-street to Euston, as there are fewer people milling around the station, there's no one-way system to go round, and it's easier to navigate.

Finally, for those people who have found this article through search engines, and are interested in connections to Euston Square, there are none. You have to surface at Euston, walk across the station plaza and garden, cross a (busy) side-street, and then descend into the bowels of Euston Square. It's officially 200m, we allow ten minutes platform to platform.

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Geekery

29April

Forty-three different green boxes, a quarter of a billion euro, and no questions. Except one:

The election bandwagon rolls on, and comes to rest in Ireland. The 29th Dáil (parliament) since independence was elected on 17 May 2002, and had to be dissolved five years after its first meeting, on 6 June.

(More: Background to the Irish election, whenever it takes place)

All we need now is for Mr. Ahern to consult with president Mary Robinson, and name his date.

fx: telephone

Yes, yes, he's still here. [giggles]. No, you can't get rid of him. Not constitutionally, no. OK? OK.

hangs up

Bertie. Bertie, Bertie, Bertie. The Elector is amazed with your tenacity. You could have left this game four years ago, when I was still protesting in favour of hunting foxes. But you didn't, and I think The Elector is rewarding you. The offer - and I think you should seriously consider it - is 24 May.

Bertie Ahern, for an election on 24 May, Dáil or No Dáil?

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News

29April

A new number one in France, as former Eurovision winner Céline Dion hits the top spot with Et s'il n'en restait qu'une; Gwen Stiffeny, who wouldn't know a decent Eurosong if it came up and boxed her in the ears, is straight in at 4. No significant change in Germany, just a five-place fall for Ver Hotel, though Olli Nena is in at 10 with Ich kann nix dafuer. Frida comes in at number 2 in Sweden, performing Dunka mig gul & blâ, a song we have yet to hear. Sonja Aldén and Linkin Park also come into the top ten. Normal service resumes in Denmark, as Trine Dyrholm's Avenuen is back at the top of the singles chart after a two-week interruption.

Bad news from Ireland, as Brian McBoringfart is back. The ex-Westlife twunt was dropped after poor sales of his poor solo album a couple of years back, but his self-released single Like only a woman can has gone straight to the top of the charts in his native Ireland. By comparison, the new Manic Street Preachers single can only make number 18. On the other hand, this could only mean that he's sold about ten copies, as lurking at position 26 is Mark McCabe's Maniac 2000, the big number one from seven summers ago.

20 NE Linkin Park - What I've done
19 NE Maximo Park - Our velocity
18 NE Mark Ronson - Stop me
17 NE Mika - Love today
16 12 Justin Numberwang - What goes around
15 13 DJ Ötzi - Ein stern
14 15 Yannick Noah - Aux arbes citoyens
13 NE Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm
12 11 Alex Gaudino - Destination Calabria
11 14 Ville Valo and Natalia Avelon - Summer wine
10 10 Beyonce / Shakira - Beautiful liar
 9  9 Timberland et al - Give it to me
 8  4 Pet Shop Boys - She's Madonna
 7  7 Boys Aloud - Ruby
 6  8 Gwen Stiffeny - The sweet escape
 5  6 Nelly Furtado - All good things
 4  5 Fray - How to save a life
 3  3 Nelly Furtado - Say it right
 2  2 Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
 1  1 Mika - Grace Kelly

Charts

29April

In the complete top 200, there are seventeen (count 'em!) Arctic Monkeys tracks. The band's new album is entirely available as individual tracks, and all eleven new songs chart this week, joining first single Brianstorm and five songs from their first album. However, only three of those songs are in the top 75, which really gives the elbow to suggestions that the Beatles could control the top 20 in one week.

In other news outside the top 40, re-entries for Mika's Lollipop and Tiesto's Adagio for strings. What we assume to be a different song called Lollipop from Dada is in at 58, just one place behind the Wurzels' I am a cider drinker, in a new version featuring Tony Blackburn. Too narrow an escape. Laura's Release me is huge in the Baltics, 52 here. The re-release of Jamie T's Sheila has failed to give him a sizable hit, crashing in at 46. And Michael Buble's version of Everything is looming ominously at 42.

Amy Whingebag returns to the 40, albeit in the bottom place. Shirley Bassey is back! Back! BACK! at 37, performing The living tree. She's been having hits since February 1957, and if we're not mistaken becomes the first living performer to have new hit singles over a half-century career. Cliff Richard won't be able to do that until September next year, though he might point to a rather large hole in Miss Bassey's career, as she had no new hits between 1973 and 1987, and no solo hits between 1973 and 1999.

From an established Welsh act to one of the better new ones, and the Lostprophets bounce in at 34 with 4am (forever). It's nothing particularly novel, treading similar ground to their other hits Rooftops and Last summer, but it's enjoyable as it goes. The View also have something familiar, The don is new at 33, and almost identical to their other hits. Groove Armada has a dull new song at 32. Puff Daddy's Last night holds for a third consecutive week at 27. This particular feat has only been done twice before - by Santana's Samba pa ti from 12.10.1974, and Sympathy by Rare Bird from 14.03.1970 (yes, it is the song that Marillion covered in the early 1990s. Close misses include the Carpenters' Top of the world, a non-mover here in the last chart of 1973, and there was no chart for the first week of 1974. Europe's Carrie went 27-27-22-27 during May 1987, and Barbra Lyon's Letter to a soldier entered on 22.12.1956, after which it went 27-27-28-27, the closest we've had to four-in-a-row.

The Manic Street Preachers are on a hat-trick of number 2 singles, dating back to 2004. Their first new single in a very long time is Your love alone is not enough, with vocal extensions from Nina Persson of the Cardigans. It enters on downloads at position 26. Thanks to their reliance on physical sales, The Enemy have the fastest faller entirely within the top 40, and still have a top 20 place. We can't recall if this has happened before.

The latest let's take an old song and dance it up and put half-naked sluts in the video is Sunblock's cover of Baby baby, one of Corona's Eurodisco hits of the mid-90s; it is number 16, fully eleven places below the original. And the original was already dancey and had half-naked sluts in the video, too! Travis storms up 26 places to number 10 following the physical release of Closer, it's only their second top ten hit since the start of 2002. The Gym Class Heroes move to 8 with their Supertramp cover. Mika's new single continues to run up the chart like a knife through butter, making number 6, but we're wondering if the song's getting a little dull. Neyo hits a new peak at 4, Scrappy's back up to 3, Timberland et al to 2, so Bouncey and Shakira bore the pants off all challengers at 1.

No surprises on the albums chart, where the Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare take the number one spot. Mark Ronson holds number 2, and Scrappy's down to 3. No-one quite knew what to do with Bouncey Knowles' Bidet album, so they bunged a second CD with it, and it's back in the charts at number 8. An Ella Fitzgerald compilation is new at 20, and Joe is in at 25 with Ain't Nothing Like Me. Nine Inch Nails slump 6-30. Hurrah for Feist, The Reminder is in at 52; and The Wildhearts comes in at 55. The Switches have the last new entry, Heart Tuned to Dead at 64. Good climbs for Pink (26-19), the Joseph soundtrack (52-42), and Jamie T (72-49).

 3  4 Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
 5  5 Mark Ronson - Stop me
 6 18 Mika - Love to-day
 7  2 Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm
13 11 Fray - How to save a life
20  8 The Enemy - Away from here
25 22 Mika - Grace Kelly
26 NE Manic Street Preachers
  - Your love alone is not enough
30 26 Calvin Harris - Acceptable in the eighties
33 NE The View - The Don/Skag Trendy
34 NE Lostprophets - 4am (Forever)
39 38 Massimo Park - Our velocity
41 32 Just Jack - Glory days
43 49 Pink - Leave me alone
44 16 Ash - You can't have it all
45 31 Matt Willis - Crash
51 39 Meck - Feels like home
52 NE Laura - Release me
53 43 Gossip - Standing in the way of control
55 47 Just Jack - Stars in their eyes
60 NE Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent adolescent
62 37 Bloc Party - I still remember
63 61 Killers - Read my mind
65 60 Kelis - Little star
68 41 Dan le Sac / Scroobius Pip - Thou shalt always kill
72 72 Proclaimers - I'm gonna be (500 miles)
74 NE Arctic Monkeys - 505

Charts

29April

This week, we've been watching and hearing...

* Shopping for England (BBC4), a rather disappointing review of Mr. Selfridge and Mr. Woolworth's stores.
* The Unbelievable Truth (Radio 4), which is better than a new series of Quote Unquote, but not as good as King Stupid.
* Death to America (Radio 4), Justin Webb's review of anti-Americanism worldwide. This week's episode came from the southern part of the continent, and Webb made some good points about the knee-jerk reactionary politics of Sr. Chavez. He didn't bother to give airtime to the view that each society is entitled to pick its own social course, and the continued attempts by the Americans to promote their values as the only acceptable lifestyle do threaten the hard-won and much-prized independence of these countries. An elephant in the room that almost completely undermines Webb's argument.
* The Poulson Effect (BBC4) An investigation into how John Poulson corrupted the people in power and spread his atrocious architecture like a cancer across the land.
* XFM Breakfast this week has been hosted by Tonks, clearly a graduate from the Martin Brown school of broadcasting. It's a shame they couldn't network Dominik Diamond's show for a month.

Media

29April

François Bayrou was set to be the kingmaker of the campaign. He's abdicated his role, declined to endorse either candidate, and will not accept any ministerial posts he might be offered by either side. The latter point is directed at Mme. Royal, who was rumoured to be considering Minister Bayrou. Just to be seen to be fair, he said that he had declined a pact with M. Sarkozy against M. Chirac, had the incumbent president run for a nineteenth term.

M. Bayrou criticised M. Sarkozy for his proximity to big business, and his taste for intimidation and menace. Mme. Royal is a democrat, unlike her opponent, but relies too heavily on state intervention to solve all the problems of the country.

Nicolas Sarkozy, I believe, will aggravate the problems with democracy and the fractured society. Segolene Royal, through her programme, is going to aggravate the economic problems, and one as much as the other is going to unbalance the deficit and the debt.

Ségolène Royal and M. Bayrou agreed to discuss their differences live on national television, but this idea was frowned upon by the Conseil de Tenebrae. The masters there suggested that M. Bayrou would have to give equal airtime to M. Popup, to which M. Bayrou suggested that he'd rather spend an hour in the company of the spiders and scorpions of Room 223. However, Mme. Royal challenged one of the Maîtres to a game of Nim, which she won (as everyone does), so the debate took place on Saturday. M. Bayrou didn't endorse Mme. Royal, but she did demonstrate that she was able to bridge the left-right cleavage. M. Popup sat in his hotel room in Valenciennes and fumed.

To the surprise of no-one, Philip de Villiers (Suspiciously Like Robert Kilroy-Silk) has invited his voter to back M. Popup. Dominique Voynet (Green) says that the left needs to win. Marie-George Buffet has been slain as leader of the Communists, making way for a more spiky chum.

M. Popup gave a lengthy television interview love-in, in which he showed worrying signs of already suffering from the same brand of megalomania as afflicts his soulmate, prochain ancien British prime minister Mister Tony Blair. It's part of my programme, voted by the people, you have no democratic right to object. There will be no further debate. The logical conclusion: if you have any reservations about any part of Sarkozy's platform, you must vote against him.

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Politics

29April

Obscure Backbencher Proved Right: Obituaries this week included Boris Yeltsin, ancien president of Russia, a mere eleven and a half years after his death was announced to the Commons by Tim Devlin C, Stockton South. We understand that the Foreign Secretary (Europe) will not be making a statement. Also dead: Ivica Racan, first Croatian prime minister; and Boris Pickett, author of the Monster Mash.

Goodness, is there a domestic election on? So there is. You wouldn't tell, seeing as how the placards that have been a common sight throughout the borough are completely absent this year. We also seem to have missed last week's broadcasts, but Tuesday's PEB was from the Lib Dems, going on about the rise in violent crime. Which, er, isn't within the remit of local councils. The local schemes to reduce crime are valid, but the knocking copy is a constitutional red herring. Wednesday: David Cameron discusses life with some hand-picked Conservative party members members of the public, and manages to end each conversation by expounding his own views. Respected the devolutionary model, but don't be overpowered by fumes from the artifice! Labour, meanwhile, plugged their national achievements over the last ten years, but were more concerned with knocking the Conservatives than actually talking about their own local policies. Lib Dem 3 was partly a re-hash of LD2, but then went on about local generation of electricity.

Activists in Estonia have removed a statue commemorating members of the Soviet army killed during the 1940-45 war. The statue, erected in 1947, will be moved from Tallinn's central square, and will re-site it in the city's military cemetery. Estonians see the statue as a symbol of Russian occupation in the old U.S.S.R.; Russians are outraged, and have been threatening diplomatic and economic sanctions, and may not vote for the Estonian entry in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

News

29April

As expected, the first significant rainfall took place, though it was slightly later arriving than we expected, and concentrated in the second of two fronts. After those passed, the winds have mostly been from the easterly quarter, bringing occasional showers; with the high pressure still blocking, there's been much sunny weather.

23 Mo drizzle            8/15, 2.0
24 Tu rain am           13/19, 7.5
25 We cloud to sun      12/16, 1.0
26 Th sun                7/17
27 Fr cloud to sun       9/17, 1.5
28 Sa sun                6/20
29 Su bright             7/16

Rainfall in April: 12.5mm; monthly average: 64.6mm
Degree heating days: 511
2005-6: 683/684
2004-5: 555½/556
2003-4: 744½/754

Degree cooling days: 5
2006: 0/360
2005: 0/238
2004: 2/198
2003: 10/328

Weather