30July

Five new entries into the top ten, beginning with Last night on Earth. It's the third single released from U2's Pop album, and the third top ten hit. New at number 9 came California dreaming, in the original version from the Mamas and the Papas. The classic tune had been the group's first UK release, back in April 1966, and staggered to number 23, rather overtaken by the next release, Monday Monday. That went top three, as did Dedicated to the one I love, but Dreaming remained one of those classics that never reached the top 20. Until now; a re-release, inspired by a television commercial, gave the tune the high placing it deserved all along, eclipsing the number 13 mark achieved by the River City People's version in 1990. Quite why two of the warmest summers of the century should be marked by a winter song is neither here nor there...

(More: the relevant lottery, Edwyn Collins, Peter Cox, and does anyone at all remember Universal?)

Boyzone had the highest new entry at 2, with Picture of you. This was the last original song the group would record – from here on, everything would be a cover. They never did badly, only one of their 16 single releases missed the top three, but too many covers spoiled the broth for this group. All of which left Puff Daddy on top for the fifth week out of six. The song's a bit grating, but it's less tedious than Oasis or the Verve, so let's be thankful for small mercies.

| Permanent link

31July

The headlines

size	accounts	13492264	238147	1.80%
size	accounts_active_1	505943	-21849	-4.14%
size	accounts_active_30	1730845	-50501	-2.83%
size	accounts_active_7	1059389	-45504	-4.12%
userinfo	total	13477040	238984	1.81%
userinfo	updated	8420378	103894	1.25%
userinfo	updated_last1	192637	-11035	-5.42%
userinfo	updated_last30	984197	-28548	-2.82%
userinfo	updated_last7	550740	-34499	-5.89%

Accounts climb by the usual factor of 1.8%, but with the summer holidays, far fewer people are active.

We can begin to draw some overall conclusions. Livejournal is growing its accounts by 1.8% per month. This is a remarkably invariant figure, and we wonder if it is an accurate measure of account creation. Accounts used in the past month has risen and fallen; correspondents have previously suggested an overall 1.3% decline in the actual number of accounts per month: this reconciles with a 1.8% account growth only if 3% of existing users give up every month.

Livejournal is getting older, and is getting older faster than it would if it were closed to new sign-ups. This is probably not a bad thing in itself, but is bad news for people who sell space to advertisers. Livejournal is also spreading outside the Anglosphere - there are now ten million accounts on the system based outside the self-proclaimed United States. Six Apart's response has been to outsource the 550,000 Cyrillic users to a company run by a known gangster.

(More figures; commentary is on the latest power outage, but mostly on the company's latest one-sided revision to its term of service)

| Permanent link

1August

We've been reading M. J. Simpson's Hitchhiker, a semi-authorised biography of Douglas Adams. It covers his life in 50 chapters, which Mr. Simpson divides into 42 chapters proper and eight interludes. It's a meaty book, something over 350 pages, but the short chapters and brisk style mean that it's a breeze to read. Mr. Simpson has done a remarkably thorough job, talking to pretty much everyone who was anyone in Mr. Adams' life. He's then sorted them out into chronological order, and goes from his schooling at Brentford, through Cambridge, his credit with Monty Python, and Dr Who. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide doesn't enter the narrative until about a third of the way through, and goes on to dominate about half the book.

We've been reading the hardback version, completed in late 2002, and published in early 2003. The book is properly and copiously cited, with a dozen pages of footnotes and attributions, and an even longer and thoroughly comprehensive index. Our notes suggest that we purchased it from a remainder store in (ulp) late 2004.

(More: That review in full - 480 words)

| Permanent link

1August

If there's anyone planning to go to Ireland just to buy a lottery ticket, don't bother, the jackpot's been won. Paul Cunningham of Cork scooped the biggest prize in Irish domestic lottery history, winning €16,185,749 (€16,185,749).

How ancien prime minister Mister Tony Blair perverted justice. He let it be known that he would resign as PM if he were questionned under caution about the recent cash-for-honours scandal. Mister Blair was not cautioned before being quizzed. In March, his press office said that first reports of this blackmail were nonsense; now, the same people confirm the fact.

Extraordinary rendition: one victim's report

Oxford to Cambridge: a pleasant cycle ride of 80 miles.

News on the scare tactics of the Brown administration: A report from Parliament suggests that the government should allow intercept evidence rather than detain suspects beyond 28 days. Australian police say that Mohammed Haneef was the victim of British bungling, though that doesn't explain why the Australian interior minister refused to reinstate Mr. Haneef's visa.

Peter Wilby of Het Grauniad pours scorn on William Rees-Mogg for suggesting that, if the swing from the recent Westminster by-elections were repeated across the land, the Conservatives would be the largest party in a badly-hung Commons, still about 46 seats short of an overall majority. Curiously, when we ran these swings through our calculator, this is what we found:

It's quite remarkable, that. We would ask Mr. Wilby for an apology, or a correction, but we're still waiting for the tenth tabloid edition of the Sunday Correspondent so that we can cut out the mastheads and claim our fiver back.

Radio mainstreamness for w/e 29 July
Radio 1: 28.42%
Radio 2: 18.28%
6 Music: 21.18%
1Xtra: 8.86%
Virgin 1215: 23.15%
Virgin Extreme: 38.08%

The M6 widening project is estimated to cost £1000 per inch. At the same rate as the French do it, that money could build almost two feet of TGV line.

| Permanent link

2August

We're interrupting the series labelled Germans Have All The Best Hits for a shorter series labelled Look It's Amy MacDonald. First in this series, Amy MacDonald.

It's very early in her career; two singles, one that flopped, one that's a hit, and an album in its first week of release. Perhaps too early to do more than raise a few eyebrows. According to the hype machine, Miss MacDonald has been gigging for about four years, and moved from her roots in Bishopbriggs to the national stage. There are clear influences from Travis; the official bio credits One Of The Bluebells, and there's something of the jangly nature and minor-key optimism in her work. We're also detecting a faint whiff of the likes of the Silencers and Love And Rockets, but that could be our imagination.

After spending a year or so touring acoustic venues in Glasgow while playing the Alex Parks back catalogue (as Everybody hurts and the slow version of Mad world has to be), Miss MacDonald was signed to Mercury records this year. First major-label single Poison prince came out in May, and - according to legend - was inspired by that professional hat wearer Peter Doherty. Current single Mr. Rock 'n' roll has a chorus that variously reminds people of Johnny Cash's Ring of fire, the well-known Handytone La grande valse, and some incidental music from Who wants to be a millionaire?.

Commercially huge but critically reviled, suggested Het Grauniad in February. It's either going to be that, or critical darling who sells about fifty copies, and half of those are to her family. Time will tell.

| Permanent link

3August

Mat GB asks, have you watched Firefly? Yes, is the short answer; there may be one or two episodes that we've not seen, and it took about four airings in a nine-month period to get so far. That's one of the advantages of Sci-Fi circa 2004, they had so few shows that they repeat the ones they do have every few months.

Did we enjoy it? Enough to continue watching, enough to fill in (most of) the gaps, but not enough to watch again and again. It wasn't as tedious as Angel, but closer to that show than to Buffy. The last episodes are decent, but the early ones are so dull as to be not worth watching. And that's what's going to kill a show: boring early episodes setting up the better ones later.

We liked Simon, the doctor. We had time for the captain bloke. We warmed to River in the later stages, and always had time for Kaylee. Heck, even the priest bloke was worth the screen time. But the entire show was somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

For our money, the best Firefly is the song by relatively-obscure UK rock band Inme. A top 40 hit in early autumn 2002, but the band is best-known for the lead singer looking like the iconic Angela Chase. (See Wednesday section.)

Discussions on Crooked Timber about the philosophy of blackmail, personal nomenclature (discursing mostly into France and Japan), and bringing people back from the dead. The last examines a study that purports to refute the Lancet's finding of excess deaths in occupied Iraq, but only works if people are able to die, and then come back to life. Even ancien British prime minister Mister Tony Blair finds that a rather difficult trick to pull off – he couldn't manage it with the cabinet careers of Peter Mandelson or David Blunkett, and the people weren't what you might term as deceased.

Brig argues of the various Setanta Sports channels, It's a bit My First Sky Sports. Never ones to accept a glib line without checking it out, what was on BSB's The Sports Channel when it launched in 1990? Off The Telly recalls, The Sports Channel featured an impressive portfolio of FA Cup, Italian, England and Scottish football, cricket, boxing, golf and tennis. Setanta has Scottish, English, Italian, German, French, and Dutch football. There's golf, Golden League athletics, Irish sport, baseball highlights, live Aussie rules. It's true that there's no cricket (better on the radio anyhow), no boxing (ITV), no tennis (Eurosport), but there's no money going to that bar steward Murdoch, and that more than makes up for the odd gap here and there.

The only person charged in the Bre-X case has been cleared of insider trading, after selling stock worth C$84 million (then €57.5m). Within days of his transaction, it emerged that Bre-X's supposed find of gold at Busang in Indonesia was a fraud. The geologist who exposed the facts died after being falled from a helicopter into the jungle in 1997, and the company's president died in 1998. More: The Current podcast (CBC / 9MB)

| Permanent link

5August

Patrick Fiori has the highest entry in France, with 4 mots sur un piano, but it's just one place ahead of Rihanna. Blast. Justin Nümberwäng pips the combo of Nelly Furtado and Juanes for the highest new entry in Germany. Nanne's into the Swedish top 20, with Ännu en dag. Mika's Relax (take it easy) hits the top in both Flanders and Walloonia.

Incredible scenes in Denmark, not so much that Timberwank is the best-seller, the first number one single by a non-native act since U2 and Green Dull were deposed at the start of last December, but that Trine Dyrholm's Avenuen is down to number FOUR!!! It's not been out of the top three in two years and a week. That's 105 weeks, knocking Rihanna's record in the UK into a cocked hat. There's a top 20 entry for Bette Davis' eyes, a recording by Kim Carnes that was a hit elsewhere in 1981. In Ireland, highest new entry honours go to Hans Zimmer, with his theme from Going for gold. Er, Spiderpig. Just behind comes Mundy and Sharon Shannon, recording Galway girl. This week's Finnish number 1 is Tytöt tykkää by Tea. It's outsold Dancing lasha tumbai, the Ukranian runner-up from this year's Eurovision.

20 NE Enemy - Had enough
19 16 Michael Bublé - Everything
18 19 Gregory Lemarchal - De temps en temps
17 17 Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent adolescent
16 14 Mark Medlock - You can get it
15 12 Christophe Willem - Double je
14  9 Mika - Grace Kelly
13 11 Monrose - Hot summer
12 10 Mutya Buena - Real girl
11  5 Nelly Furtado - Say it right
10 18 Amy MacDonald - Mr. Rock 'n' roll
 9  7 Linkin Park - What I've done
 8 13 Mika - Big girl (you are beautiful)
 7 15 Marquess - Vayamos campeneros
 6  8 Timberyokel - The way oi are
 5  4 Enrique Iglesias - Do you know?
 4  6 Stacey Ferguson - Big girls don't cry
 3  3 Mika - Relax (take it easy)
 2  2 Åvril Lavignnesøn - When you're gone
 1  1 Rihanna - Umbrella

5August

Eleven new entries into the top 75, starting with Teardrop, an old Newton Faulkner song, re-activated on release of the album. Lumidee's Crazy enters at 74, and this year's re-release of Higher state of consciousness is in at 70. It just feels as though this comes out every summer - the original release, in October 1995, made number 8; a re-release the followin August went one place higher. Fab Macca's Dance to-night re-enters at 67 on the release of a seven-incher. Akron's in at 47 with Mama Africa. Lemming of the week, from last week's 10 to this week's 45, the Manic Street Preachers. It's the fastest plummet from the top 10 since Cliff Richard went 7-43 last December.

Eight move into the 40, beginning with Paul Weller and Graham Coxon. It's as dull as it sounds. Cribs' Moving pictures is in at 38, and the group's songs are all beginning to sound a bit the same. See also: Amy Whingebag, up and in at 37. Coral have their first hit in a year, Who's going to find me at 25. It's sandwiched by two of the shortest records in chart history - Green Dull's cover of The Simpsons (81 seconds) and Hans Zimmer's Spiderpig (67 seconds, and Jay Kay and Or Joel talked over a quarter of the track.) No such relief for Dizzy Rascal, still hurt by the Curse of Band Aid Ill, his Pussyole (old school) enters at 22. Amerie climbs twelve to 21 for no good reason.

Bouncey Knowles enters at 17 with Green light. Why? Fastest climber honours to Yves Larock, up 26 to 13. Plain White Ts are up from 26 to 10. Highest new entry honours go to Robyn, who made her debut ten years ago next week performing Do you know (what it takes), and put Show me love into the top ten the following spring. She's been Between Labels for much of the time since, but comes back in at 5 on downloads with With every heartbeat. Rihanna drops to 4, swapping places with Stacey Ferguson. Katherine Nash stays at 2, behind Timberyokel: her five-week run in second place is the longest for a non-number one since All For One's I swear got stuck for seven weeks behind the Wets in 1994. Last to have five weeks in second place overall was Hips don't lie, which also had five on top.

No change at the top of the albums list, Paul Potts is there for a third yawn-inducing week. If Amy MacDonald is only selling records to 25 fans beyond her family, then she has one of the largest extended families in the nation, for This Is The Life enters at 2, ahead of Newton Faulkner's Hand-built By Robots. Prince has gone to Hell and back, giving away enough copies of Ultimate with the Hellon Sunday to see it in at 6. Korn have an Untitled album at 15, a big climb for Akron (43-24), and Common's Finding Forever enters at 35. We should also mention Feist, into the chart at 66 after a month or so on release.

 5 NE Robyn - With every heartbeat
 7 16 Newton Faulkner - Dream catch me
 8  6 Hoosiers - Worried about Ray
11  9 Mika - Big girl (you are beautiful)
12  7 Åvril Lavignnesøn - When you're gone
16 13 Amy MacDonald - Mr. rock 'n' roll
18 14 Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent adolescent
20 12 My Chemical Romance - Teenagers
25 NE Coral - Who's going to find me
29 24 Jack Penate - Once and never happy hour again
38 NE Cribs - Moving pictures
41 30 Reverend and the Makers
  - Heavyweight champion of the world
42 31 Mutya Buena - Real girl
45 10 Manic Street Preachers - Autumnsong
50 37 Enemy - Had enough
53 55 Åvril Lavignnesøn - Girlfriend
55 50 Mika - Grace Kelly
57 51 Mika - Love to-day
65 62 Daniel Merriweather - Stop me
66 59 Fray - Over my head
67 re Paul McCartney - Dance to-night
71 61 Kelly Clarkson - Never again
75 NE Newton Faulkner - Teardrop

.. 42 Nine Black Alps - Burn faster
.. 68 Holloways - Generator
.. 70 Editors - Smokers outside the hospital doors
.. 40 Funeral For A Friend - Walk away

5August

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

• Mountain - Griff Rhys Jones goes up a Munro, and comes down in a post bus. BBC-1
• Coast - East Anglia, including top secret military listening posts, Mark Horton going down a pier, and Alice painting watercolours to the sound of MGV. BBC-2
• The People Versus - deserves a revival.
• Feedback - why were so many network reporters sent to the floods, why is DAB so shit, and the jews and mohammedians weigh in on the side of Marcus Brigstocke. He's only gone and offended absolutely no-one!

5August

After almost 38 years, the British army withdrew from Northern Ireland. Troops were first sent in August 1969, to help the police keep the peace at the start of the christian versus christian conflict. 5000 troops will remain in various bases across the area, but this is for operational reasons, and they will be deployed to other perpetual troublespots, such as Cyprus or Iraq.

British Airways has been fined £121.5m (€180m) after fixing its fuel surcharges in collusion with Vermin Airways. Terrorists in the Americas demanded a further 300 million of their dollars, but this is demanding money with menaces, and will scarcely buy a handful of penny chews. Because Vermin went to the Office of Fair Trading with evidence, that airline has escaped without any penalty. Senior staff from both companies apologised to their customers; neither corporate contrition extends to a refund for the ripped-off customers.

An independent whitewash committee claimed that no police procedures were violated in the police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. Sr de Menezes was shot on board a tube train at Stockwell in July 2005, having not been challenged by police, while not wearing bulky clothing, and while not carrying a bomb. The whitewash board determined that police chief Ian Blair was not told about the blunder until the following morning, even though reporters were told at 4.30, and the whole world by 5.10. This is either a fib or gross incompetence amongst Mr. Blair's subordinates; either way, his position is untenable.

Libya has placed an order worth approximately €300 million with French companies. This is widely seen as a kickback for French involvement in the release of some Bulgarian health workers maliciously blamed for infecting children with HIV. M. Popup has welcomed a parliamentary enquiry instigated by the opposition Socialists. (en plus)

Vets detected foot and mouth at a farm near Guildford. It swiftly emerged that the contagion had been spread from a nearby pharmaceutical plant, working on vaccines against the disease. Possible vectors included the wind and a wild deer.

5August

A settled week, with long sunny spells tempered by cool northerly winds. Until Sunday, when the breeze shifted to the south, and temperatures soared. This was the first day to break 25°C this year, and - by the looks of the forecast - will probably be the last. July's final rainfall figure came in at just over 300% of the long-term average, and almost an eighth of degree cooling days so far this summer have been scored in one day alone.

30 Mo sun                9/18
31 Tu sun                7/21
01 We sunny spells       8/22
02 Th rain o/n, sun     13/20, 3.0
03 Fr sun                9/22
04 Sa sunny spells, wind17/22
05 Su sun               10/27

Rainfall in July: 181mm; monthly average: 69mm

Rainfall in August: 3mm; monthly average: 69mm

Degree cooling days: 57
2006: 287/360
2005: 148/238
2004: 113/198
2003: 190/328