17September

On 13 October 1987, the two or three viewers of BBC daytime import Neighbours saw a new character, Charlene. The actress behind the dungarees was Kylie Minogue, and she would quickly become a Grade-A Popstar, with a capital P. Already a star in Australia, Kylie released the ever-so-simple ditty I should be so lucky at the start of 1988. It took about ten minutes to write, and spent five weeks as the UK's best-seller. It was the start of five years with Stock Aitken and Waterman, and (thanks to an entirely literal interpretation of the rules) four years as the country's biggest indie music star, until S/A/W were defined as non-indie. Truth be told, Minogue's early career was a bit samey, and by 1991 the cracks were beginning to show. What do I have to do became her first hit to miss the top five, and The word is out barely scraped into the top 20. Minogue split with S/A/W at the end of 1992, and moved to Deconstruction records, with whom she put out a dance-tinged album in 1994. Lead single Confide in me hit number 2, its two successors just missed the ten. A duet with Nick Cave set the mood for her next work.

By 1997, Kylie Minogue was trying to throw off the last shackles of her wholesome past, and employed some credible writers for her sixth studio album, Impossible Princess. Kylie had writing credits on the entire album, but attention here was centred on two songs co-written with James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of the Manic Street Preachers. Some kind of bliss was one of those songs. The opening guitar figure is pure Manics, but the cheeky organ and arrival of the horns just before the vocals colour it as a pop song. The lyrics aren't up to much, a two-line verse is repeated, a two-line chorus is repeated, there's a little more adventure in the second verse, then the chorus is repeated for a minute. The song's heart is the lazy groove, as if Minogue is floating off the ground, swooping over a flower-strewn meadow. It's perfect upbeat, bouncy pop, was the obvious choice as the lead-off single ... and promptly ran into the nineteenth pillar of the Tunnel of Mawk, crashed, and the airbag deflated at number 22. It remains the only release of Kylie's career not to make the UK top 20, and we would rather expect a careful re-release would set that right.

The mawkish climate of late 1997 ensured that Deconstruction would whip out the company's airbrush and take the title off the album. Two further singles would make number 14, then Kylie would take a couple of years off before signing to Parlophone records, and making a stream of tedious and trivial post-disco records that all sound exactly the same. Ill-health has prevented Minogue from recording since 2004, and we hope against hope that her new material - due before the end of the year - represents some sort of progression.

(More: Boys to Men, Cricket Martin, George Michael, and Elton John. And the punchline to this:)

Two weeks earlier, ITV had ripped up its schedules so that it could carry pillar-to-post coverage of the aftermath of a car crash in Paris. On the way into work that sunny morning, Kate Thornton was struck by an idea of extreme evilness: set footage of one of the people killed by a drunk driver to the strains of Candle in the wind. And so it came to pass that the viewing hundreds were bemused by shots of some out-of-her-depth blonde bimbette with nothing but sawdust between her ears being played in slow motion, with some abysmal guff falling out of their television speakers.

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17September

The conservative Nea Demokratika party won the Greek general election, securing a slim overall majority in the national parliament.

The electoral is a curious hybrid of first past the post, local top-up members by open list, and national top-up members. Each prefecture is allocated a number of MPs in proportion to its population; some very small prefectures return just a single member, while suburban Athens accounts for 42 of the 300 MPs. The individual candidate securing the highest vote total in each prefecture is elected. The remaining seats are filled in proportion to the total vote each party achieved.

Three additional points come into play: a party may only receive local top-up seats if it secures 3% of the vote nationally; and a national top-up of 12 seats reduces the effect of local Overhangs and the small constituencies. Furthermore, the party winning the most votes is awarded a bloc of 40 seats, ensuring that it need only poll 42.7% of the eligible vote, a figure very familiar to Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, whose three wins in Britain were all secured with this much of the popular vote.

In the event, Nea Demokratika sneaked across the line, securing 41.8% of the total vote, but 43.2% of the vote amongst represented parties. That translated to 152 seats, down from 165 in the previous parliament. The socialist grouping PASOK secured 102 seats, down 5. Winners were the Communists, gaining 10 to 22; the Radical Left, up 8 to 14; and the racist Popular Orthodox Rally, which secured 10 seats. The Ecologist Green party secured slightly more than 1% of the vote, insufficient to enter parliament.

Prime minister Costas Karamanlis has interpreted his reduced majority as a mandate for further change, saying, You gave us a clear mandate to continue with the reforms the country needs. I feel doubly responsible to be more effective and avoid mistakes.

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18September

We hear that to-morrow be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Remember: no tense other than the present, the first person to use a conditional or subjunctive dies where he stands, and bonus points for using the perpetual catchphrase: We wants ... a training day.

Obscure puns of the day: PLO is the quintessential European game. Yes, and the winner is the last person to use their head-covering to dry dishes.

Sensible News: Throw away your used DNA, says the Nuffield Institute. A respected science institute has called for the police to dispose of DNA records from people who have never been convicted of any crime. At present, the police retain this information, in a clear and flagrant breach of the EU's data protection principles. The Nuffield Institute is considering the same problem as did Stephen Sedley a couple of weeks ago, but has come to precisely the opposite conclusion. It is not yet clear if Mr. Sedley has offered his brain to store the DNA information for two streets in Munich.

The British government launched a new public relations campaign to promote genetically-altered foods. Greenpeace was quick to pour water on claims that these creations would boost food supplies. The population has comprehensively rejected GM in the UK and over most of Europe so they're constantly having to be as bullish as possible.The purpose of the crops primarily is to give intellectual property rights to biotech companies.

Gary Yonge on The Jena Six, who we mentioned a week or so back. Call yourselves civilised when you allow this to happen?

Ryanair in court after being racist bastards ... DNA pioneer against national database ... Sarkozy understands nothing about economics, says Bundesbank boss... 1.2 million Iraqis killed by invasion and occupation, says opinion poll.

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19September

Our learned friend Jaeda has pointed out the Mighty Big Teevee Controller Contest. It's a bit like Celebdaq, only based on television ratings.

• Shows that win their slots are valuable because they pick up extra points.
• Shows that show audience growth are valuable because they pick up extra points and may win their slots.
• Shows that are cancelled represent a high risk, for cancellation costs capital.
• Shows in their first season are most likely to be cancelled. Other dramas and comedies will probably see out the year.
• Shows with a high media profile are worth major bonus points from their magazine covers.
• Game shows are the most likely to be whipped off air at short notice.
• Capital growth will come from shows increasing their ratings, or new shows outperforming the network. This could fund a dip into Lost or Pop Idle Us.
• It may be more profitable to buy several small shows than one big one.

Likely slot winners:
Mon 1 - Strictly Come Dancing
Mon 2 - SCD / Heroes
Mon 3 - CSI Miami

Tue 1 - NCIS
Tue 2 - SCD
Tue 3 - Boston Legal / Lauren Order SVU

Wed 1 - Pushing Daisies / Kid Nation / Dáil or No Dáil
Wed 2 - Private Practice / Criminal Minds / Bionic Woman / Kitchen Nightmares
Wed 3 - CSI New Amsterdam

Thu 1 - Ugly Betty / Survivor
Thu 2 - Grey's Anatomy / CSI
Thu 3 - Without a Trace / ER

Fri 1 - Ghost Whisperer / Doyle or No Doyle
Fri 2 - Friday Night Lights / Women's Murder Club
Fri 3 - Men in Trees

Sun 1 - The Simpsons / NFLball
Sun 2 - Desperate Housewifes / NFLball
Sun 3 - NFLball

From that, it looks like Friday Night Lights is either going to be hugely profitable or will crash and burn; Heroes has media traction above and beyond its popularity. The first two hours of Wednesday nights are particularly hard to predict; bold and correct predictions will win the game.

We're going with two underperforming but promising shows:
* Friday Night Lights (40)
* Men in Trees (52)

A shot at Wednesday:
* Bionic Woman (46)

A ratings banker:
* The Simpsons (60)

That left us with the choice of Tea or No Tea (reliable now, but subject to cancellation) and Smallville (a reliable 20-odd points per week), or Heroes (certain to last the year, and with a high media profile) and a punt on something new on the CW. We've gone with the latter:

* Heroes (82)
* Gossip Girl (17)

That leaves 3 purchase points free for future use.

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19September

Post of the week is surely Ingrid Robeyns's huge essay entitled The ingredients of the Belgian cocktail. Set aside a quarter of an hour if you just want to read it, much longer if you actually want to understand it. The chapter titles:

1. Institutional background
2. Demography
3. A federal state without federal political parties
4. The Flemish border communes around Brussels
5. Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde/Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde
6. Non-coinciding regional and national elections
7. Asymmetric governments
8. Elections 2007 - two cartels
9. Yves Leterme and the rest of the leadership
10. Divided socio-economic worlds
11. Financial transfers and solidarity
12. The politics of language
13. Divided worlds
14. Divided media
15. A one-sided divorce?
16. Scenarios for the future

Less abrasive than the Indyobit

Anita Roddick, then. The one-liner I put on the record last week was entrepreneur whose vision remained firmly rooted in the early 1990s. When she launched her chain of stores, they were something completely different: products not tested on animals, coming from ethical sources, and if not cheap, then making them somewhat more accessible. For the early 1970s, this was remarkably forward-thinking.

Yet she remained a businesswoman with a passion about the environment, rather than an enrivonmentalist who happened to make a shed-load of money. Listing The Body Shop on the stock exchange in the 1980s proved that she cared deeply about profits; selling to Nestlé in 2006 was absurdly at odds with her public declarations. More recent claims that her chain's products were not as ethical as they claimed were never clearly refuted, merely denied; and the company didn't change its serious areas of campaign once the old battles were won.

Hamish McRae hit the nail on the head: ethical businesses prosper while others fail. Mrs. Roddick was not a pioneer, such people as the Rowntrees, the Cadburys, the Levers, even the Sainsburys built highly successful businesses on firm moral principles.

Mrs. Roddick set high standards, and never quite lived up to them. She did a lot of good for the world, but her actions made it that little bit easier for the less-committed to pay lip-service to sustainability concerns. In the end, it is better to have tried and not succeeded than never to have had a go.

Psephology Update

If we're to believe Het Grauniad, a 40-32-20 score leads to a Labour overall majority, with about 380 seats. Feed those figures into DAVIDBUTLER and here's what comes out:

Lab 376 +34 - 0
Con 200 + 9 -23
LD   44 + 0 -19
Oth  29 + 2 - 1

Labour OM of 100

Slapped wrists to Het Graun for claiming that Mr. Cameron is now the country's least popular major party leader: ICM's poll only asked about Mr. Cameron, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Campbell, didn't ask about Mr. Campbell until this month, and the difference between Mr. Cameron and Mr. Campbell is statistically negligible.

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20September

Formed in Reading in the summer of 1987, the Sundays sounded like the Cocteau Twins with clear and discernable lyrics. Harriet Wheeler, David Gavurin, Paul Brindley, and Patch Hannan were signed to indie clearing-house Rough Trade by the end of 1988, and debut single Can't be sure suffered the agonising fate of peaking at 45, caught behind six Stock Aitken and Waterman tracks. Thanks, lads.

After that, things went quiet for almost a year, until the album Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic (geddit?!) staggered into the light at the start of 1990. Though it was released in a very quiet week, no-one quite expected the Sundays to crash into the albums chart at number 4, propelled in no small part by Gary Davies's limpet-like love for the track Here's where the story ends. There were no further singles from the album, though Gary's favourite track would become a top ten hit for Tintinout in 1998.

Rough Trade was the record industry's casualty of the 1991 recession in the UK, and the Sundays wound up signing to Parlophone. Second album Blind emerged in September 1992, with lead-off single Goodbye giving the group a belated entry into the UK top 40.

After that, the group rather gave up: Harriet and David married, had a daughter, and eventually got back in the studio to record Static and Silence, their third and final album in 1997. It was a more mature effort than the two previous works, with a homages to Van Morrison and 60s French music, and gave up the group's biggest UK hit, Summertime. One further single, Cry, would emerge before the end of the year.

Since then, all we've heard from the group is a whole lot of silence. Hannan drummed on Kimberley Rew's 2002 album Great Central Revisited, and there was word that David and Harriet were working on a piece for a show called A Change of Light. That came to nothing. We rather hope to hear Something from the Sundays in the near future. Or the dim and distant future, the wait will be worth it.

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20September

Writer's rite

On the one side we have defence of an author's right not to be pirated. On the other we have vigorous championship of the right to have one's work available for free download on a site that consists largely of pirated – stolen – property. I fear I am unable to equate those causes.

Last month, a collective of science fiction writers wrote to a website, insisting that they remove a long list of copyrighted works. A handful of works should not have been on this list; one of those was written by Cory Doctrow. Not for the first time, Mr. Doctrow was hyperbolic in his outrage, and the regrettably-large number of people who think that Mr. Doctrow is TV's Famous God manufactured enough outrage that right-thinking people found it easier to defend nicked books than their authors.

Jerry Pournelle, one of the people whose works were stolen, has a summary of the matter, and points the finger at the real villain of the peace. There was follow-up, but it is interesting to note that, while Mr. Pournelle gave space to his critics, and credit where it was due, Mr. Doctrow and his acolytes pretended there was no criticism, and no validity in opposition.

Times table

In reference to School-times, Mr. Pokery recalls,

Our school used 35- and 40- minute periods in an unfashionably long day - 8.55 to 4.30 when I was there. From memory, they were split 2-3-3, with a "period 0" 20-minute warm-up at the start of the day.

All of which serves to remind us of two other data points from other schools we were in in the mid-90s, pretending to teach children who pretended to learn.

One school began at 8.40, had 60-minute lessons, a 10-minute registration and 20-minute break. A 2-1-2 configuration ensured lunch was taken at the civilised hour of 12.10. There was no period 5 on a Friday.

The other began at 8.35. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday had 7 x 40-minute lessons, with a 20-minute break after period 3, and a 70-minute lunch hour at 12.30, after period 5, finishing at or about 3.30.

Monday and Thursday were something different. An eighth lesson was inserted into the day, immediately before lunch. That extra lesson, the one immediately before the mid-morning break, and the last lesson of the afternoon were all trimmed to 35 minutes in length. Lunch wasn't until 12.55 on those days, and school ran on to 3.45 or thereabouts. Sadistic teachers would make a point of making unruly second-formers take lunchtime detentions on Thursday, thus ensuring the pupil would miss their lunch sitting.

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21September

At the start of 2005, we took a look at nine week-end editions of newspapers circulating in this area. With all the changes that have taken place in this area, the time has come to repeat the exercise, and to expand it slightly.

One expansion comes in the remit. We will be covering eleven papers - the Times, Telegraph, and Independent in their Saturday and Sunday editions; the Sunday-only Observer; and Saturday editions of the Birmingham Post, Financial Times, Guardian, and Morning Star.

Morning Star

The edition under review is of 8 September, priced 60p. The Star is an oversized tabloid, about 10% larger than the Independent, and is satisfactorily tactile to hold. The design is simple: Times Roman for the body, an uncluttered sans-serif for headlines and sections.

(Heading-by-heading review: 650 words)

Summary: Journalism With the partial exception of the foreign news pages, the writing in the Morning Star is rushed; writers generally do not have the space to give more than the bare facts, and when they do, they waffle on in a most discouraging manner. However, the journalism does cover the basics very well, and the writers clearly know what they're doing. **

Summary: Value for money At 60p, the Morning Star is one of two papers retailing substantially below the others. The gold standard we propose is with Private Eye, which entertains us for roughly one hour per pound of the cover price. It took us slightly less than half an hour to read the Star, and we found it somewhat less stimulating. **

Next, in about a week's time, will be the Saturday Times.

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22September

We'll stick this one in a fairly obvious place: Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency brings the Douglas Adams story full circle when it reaches Radio 4 on 3 October. Dirk Maggs and John Landon did the dramatisation, with Harry Enfield, Olivia Coleman, Billy Boyd, and Felicity Montagu credited.

Great Old ASCII Art, Updated

   #1--Geelong-\
               |
  /---=== QF 1 *-------------------------Geelong-\
 /             |                                 |
 | #4-Kangaroo-/                                 |
 |                                               |
 |        #6-Coll'wood-\                         |
 |                     |                         |
 |                EF 1 *--Coll'wood-\            |
 |                     |            |       PF 1 *----Geelong-\
 |        #7-Sydney Sw-/            |            |            |
 |                                  |            |            |
 |                             SF 2 *--Coll'wood-/            |
 |                                  |                         |
 |                                  |                         |
 \                                  |                         |
  \ /--> loser of QF2------W. Coast-/                         |
   X                                                       GF *---------
  / \--> loser of QF1-----Kangaroos-\                         |
 /                                  |                         |
 |                                  |                         |
 |                                  |                         |
 |                             SF 1 *--Kangaroos-\            |
 |                                  |            |            |
 |        #8--Adelaide-\            |            |            |
 |                     |            |       PF 2 *---Pt. Adel-/
 |                EF 2 *---Hawthorn-/            |
 |                     |                         |
 |        #5--Hawthorn-/                         |
 |                                               |
 | #3-W. Coast-\                                 |
 \             |                                 |
  \---=== QF 2 *-----------------------Pt. Adel--/
               |
   #2-Pt. Adel-/

Semi Finals

Collingwood 13 15 93
West Coast  10 14 74

Kangaroos   14  9 93
Hawthorn     8 12 60

Preliminary Finals

Geelong     13 14  92
Collingwood 13  9  87

Port Adelaide 20 13 133
Kangaroos      5 16  45

Who is the most famous kangaroo of all time? mused the commentators on this morning's match. Our money's on Skippy.

Victims of terrorist attacks reject wrong sort of sympathy. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has been told not to visit the sites of 2001's aircraft crashes. Rudolph Guiliani was outraged, and Hillary Clinton was unacceptable. Both people are running for high office in the New Amsterdam area, and both are falsely conflating Iran with the root cause of 2001's aircraft crashes; we don't know for sure what the cause was, but it's most unlikely to be the regime in Iran, now or then. This fact has evaded those who would claim to rule over the steaming metropolis, and it's abundantly clear that they don't want our condolences any more.

Which brings us to the fact that some of the correct answers have been missed off Know Your Rebellion, a Civics quiz for people who think civil was the enemy of the Raccoons. (Oh, blimmin' 'eck, 'ere.) Q4 should be answered, Figurehead of the terrorist cells. Q9 gets, A clear defeat. Q35 should have Encouraged the dependence of the rest of the Americas on the bit in the top-middle. Q36 requires, That there is no alternative. We completely dispute the premise behind Q50. Oh, and we can honestly claim 80%, and that's not factoring in further disputes against Q4 (a matter of opinion regarding the treasonous criminal Washington) and Q36 (a bad question to begin with, but one thing a Just War doesn't require is a head of state's approval. Just war defined.)

No Rock 'n' Roll Fun is a bit harsh on Twenty-Five Years of Rock, a Radio 1 feature that ran for half of 1980, got repeated in 1981, and revised in 1985 with a slight change of title. Clips of contemporary music and news footage of the year, the radio version included newspaper reports read out by the Radio 4 continuity team. But no mention of The Rock 'n' Roll Years on the magic tellybox? That, in turn, has become the standard way of illustrating anything that happened before Tuesday last week.

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23September

There's been an awful lot of chatter about a possible election on 25 October or 1 November. (Thanks, Mr. the Soup Dragon. Thagon.) UK Polling Report looks into what an autumn election might bring; an increase for the Lib Dems, a bounce for incumbent Conservative MPs, and nothing much guaranteed for anyone.

Our analysis of the local election results gives some interesting results. Forget Labour gains in Worcester and Birmingham, and concentrate on the bigger picture. We now have 13 weeks of results since ancien British prime minister Mister Tony Blair resigned, and here's the average net transfer over that time:

The Conservatives continue to lose ground to Labour, but the gap is only closing by 1% per quarter. The Lib Dems are regaining some of the ground they lost to the Conservatives early this year, and continue to chip away at Labour votes.

If the council swings were repeated nationally, Mr. the Soup Dragon wouldn't even be the largest party.

Even looking at just the last month's by-election results - and these were mostly in areas where Labour did particularly badly last time out, and had much room to recover - we still find a 3.7% swing from Labour to the Conservatives, and a central projection of Lib Dems holding the balance of power.

In short, if Mr. the Soup Dragon were to call an election this autumn, he would be taking a needless risk. If there's one thing we know about Mr. the Soup Dragon, it's that he doesn't take risks.

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23September

Martin Stenmarck has the new number one in Sweden, 100 år från nu holds off Kent's Ingenting, a new entry at 2. Rihanna hits number 2 in Germany, but her single there is Don't stop the music, not the one promoted elsewhere in Europe. Chinaski is the new leader on the Czech airplay charts, Zadarmo deposes Nelly Furtado from the top. Mika's Big girls returns to the top in the Netherlands. Bruce Springsteen's Radio nowhere comes into the top 10 in Norway, joined by Westside's poor version of You raise me up. That's two years old! Laura's Muusa is an instant top ten hit in Estonia. No change in Finland, Nightwish hold for an amazing third week running. Two local acts hit the Irish top twenty: Kanyu Tree place at 17 with Tanglewood, and Paddy Casey anchors the 20 performing Addicted to company.

20 NE Scouting For Girls - She's so lovely
19 19 Åvril Lavignnesøn - When you're gone
18 NE Rihanna - Shut up and drive
17 15 Ich + Ich - Von sielbern stern
16 NE Nightwish - Amaranth
15 20 Julien Dore - Moi ... Lolita
14 14 Rihanna - Umbrella
13 13 Kayne West - Stronger
12 12 Marquess - Vayamos campeneros
11  7 K T Tunstall - Hold on
10 17 Culcha Candela - Hamma
 9  9 Sean Kingston - Beautiful girls
 8 16 24 New Pence - Ayo technology
 7  4 Robyn - With every heartbeat
 6  5 Mika - Relax (take it easy)
 5  6 Plain White Ts - Hey there Delilah
 4  8 Mika - Big girl (you are beautiful)
 3  3 Stacey Ferguson - Big girls don't cry
 2  2 Timberyokel - The way oi are
 1  1 James Blunt - 1973

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23September

Runner-up in Lemming-like fall is Andy Lewis and Paul Weller, sinking from 31 to 87. For no adequately explored reason other than it's a cracking track, Natalie Imbruglia's Torn is a re-entry at 70. Ryandan is big in their native Canada, but Like the sun only makes 69 here. Little Chris's version of We don't have to take our clothes off can only make 68, and Fightstar's We apologise for nothing is 63. Didn't he used to have top two hits by sneezing? Ida Corr and Fedde le Grand hit 64. Travis's My eyes can only make 60.

Enrique Iglesias covers obscure Polish pop band Ringside; his inferior version of Tired of being sorry joins us at 58. Katherine Nash is up 18 to 57, and Gallows enter at 56 with In the belly of a shark. Jordan Catalano's The kill reaches a new peak at 52. Jack Penate puts Second minute or hour at 48 - we've not heard it, so can't tell which song he's ripping off this time. Kayne West is up to 45, and Milburn's What will you do (when the money goes) enters at 44. Amy Whingebag puts Valerie, the old Steve Winwood number, in at 41.

In at 40 comes more Canadian talent, Feist's 1234; it's not a prequel to a Steps song, but has been used in a television commercial. Sugababes put About you now in at 35 on two days' downloads, it's a tremendous grower of a song, though it would be a bit better if it weren't so over-produced. Billiam's very gay-disco Beautiful ones makes 32; the group is no relation to Sir Billiam Idol, but have been put together by a casting agency. Akron's up to 31; old singles from Hoosiers, Ingleseas, and Whingebag also move back up.

The Enemy's song called You're not alone is not a cover of the Olive classic, but is a new piece of punk work. It's new at 18. Phil Collins's In the air tonight completes its climb back into the top 20 for a third run, this week at 17. Ahead is Ian Brown and Sinead O'Connor's song Illegal attacks, readers can probably guess the subject. For the fourth week in a row, Elvis Presley has a re-entry at 14, this week's re-issue is Don't. Peter, Bjorn and John's Young folks becomes the smash hit it's always threatened to be, climbing 20 to 13 on physical release. Physical release also boosts the Foo Fighters, up from 21 to 8 with The pretender.

Scouting For Girls also advance, moving 10 to 7 with the rather good She's so lovely. Highest new entry honours for Babyshambles; after two years when Pete Doherty has been more interested in the craic than anything, Delivery does the trick, making number 6. In the top five, James Blunt, Kayne West, and Plain White Ts all drop a place, making way for 24 New Pence and Justin Numberwang climbing three to 2. Still no move for Sean Kingston at the top, though.

No surprises on the albums list, James Blunt's All The Lost Souls crashes in at the top, displacing Kayne West, Amy Whingebag, and 24 New Pence. Reverend and the Makers put The state of things in at 5. Pavarotti's supply problems are solved, and his 1990 Ultimate collection rises to 8. Mark Knopfler puts Kill to get crimson in at 9, Phil Collins's Hits re-enters at 10, Booty Luv put Boogie 2nite in at 11, and Scouting For Girls make 12. Status Quo go In Search Of The Fourth Chord at 15. Lower down, good climbs for Enemy (31-23), Enrique (45-24); new entries for Peter Grant (29), HIM (31), Turin Brakes (36), Manu Chao (41), and Rumble Strips (70); and hits collections from Barry Manilow (27), Diana Krall (35). Mark Ronson (75-48) also climbs well.

 6 NE Babyshambles - Delivery
 7 10 Scouting for Girls - She's so lovely
11  8 Robyn - With every heartbeat
16 NE Ian Brown - Illegal attacks
18 NE Enemy - You're not alone
28 30 Hoosiers - Worried about Ray
29 12 Luciano Pavarotti - Nessun dorma
30 29 Newton Faulkner - Dream catch me
32 NE Billiam - Beautiful ones
33 24 Hard-Fi - Suburban knights
35 NE Sugababes - About you now
38 28 Reverend and the Makers - He said he loved me
39 37 KT Tunstall - Hold on
40 NE Feist - 1234
42 35 Mika - Big girl (you are beautiful)
43 18 White Stripes - You don't know what love is
44 NE Milburn - What will you do
48 NE Jack Penate - Second minute or hour
51 42 Natalie Imbruglia - Glorious
59 50 Åvril Lavignnesøn - When you're gone
61 63 Moby - Extreme ways
63 NE Fightstar - We apologise for nothing
69 NE Ryandan - Like the sun
70 re Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
75 49 Editors - An end has a start

.. 54 Dead 60s - Stand up
.. 56 Puressence - Drop down to earth
.. 58 My Chemical Romance - Teenagers
.. 59 HIM - The kiss of dawn
.. 60 Amy MacDonald - Mr. rock 'n' roll
.. 61 Dykeenies - Stitches
.. 62 Ash - End of the world
.. 68 Rooney - When did your heart go missing
.. 70 Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent adolescent
.. 73 Reverend and the Makers
  - Heavyweight champion of the world

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23September

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

• Michael Palin's New Europe: War and Peace (BBC-1) began with a trip through Former Yugoslavia, and on to Albania. Or, to be precise, four-sixths of Former Yugoslavia: Montenegro was bypassed along the coast, and Macedonia looks like it'll come next week. Lots of local colour, perhaps a bit too much war porn in the Bosnia-Herzegovina section, but a worthwhile hour. Series website
• Comics Britannia: Boys and Girls (The Fourth Programme) Episode 2 covered the papers for boys like the Eagle; and the papers for girls, from Girl through Bunty to Jackie, Tammy, and a side-bar to Battle. Again, the story stopped in the late 70s - there was, for instance, no mention of the Eagle's return in the 1980s and 1990s, and no excuse (yet!) to remember Doomlord (see also). Programme page
• We were going to set a tape for Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (The Fourth Programme), but the promotion annoyed seven bells out of us. Brooker walking through a perfectly good Fourth Programme ident has a certain subversive charm, but to force the credits of Comics Britannia to become unreadable so that he can opine about promotions relying on shrunken credits just makes him come over as a worthless appendage, and his show as a pointless waste of space. No link.
• The Protestant Revolution: Sex (The Fourth Programme) looked into the establishement and the Establishement of the Church of England, with much more interest than last week's discussion of the Civil War. Again, too much time was spent on fringe groups - in particliar, the Southern Baptists, without explicitly tracing their lineage back to Luther. No website.
• Feedback (Radio 4) grilled Robert Peston on his handling of the Northern Rock story; had Sue MacGregor talking about vaginas; and talked to Winifred Robinson about her report from Liverpool.

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23September

The run on the Northern Rock continued on Monday, but was running out of steam even before finance minister Alistair Loverly personally guaranteed the entire deposits of the bank. This was for values of personal guarantee backed up with - potentially - £24md (€35md) of taxpayers' money. This set a dangerous precedent, briefly raising the prospect of wholesale nationalisation of the mortgage sector. The government has promised a review of its deposit protection arrangements, perhaps looking to increase the £35,000 (€49,000) upper limit to refunds.

Northern Rock had encountered difficulty because it had borrowed on the short-term markets so that it could lend money that wasn't due back for many years. When the time came to repay the short-term debt, NR had to take out more short-term loans. Eventually, the price went up, and the bank began to worry that it could not meet the fees demanded.

The run on the bank was the sort of thing that was previously confined to the history books (the last one, apparently, was Overend Gurney in 1866. Us neither) and repeats of Mary Poppins. In the event, £3 md (€ 4.35 md) was withdrawn from the bank. The cost in confidence to the banking sector may be incalculable, particularly from the property speculators and other parasites: is it a coincidence that everyone in the queues seemed to be reading the Daily Hell? The 'credit crunch' is not a freak act of nature, but the inevitable outcome of the turbocapitalism propounded by Mr. Keynes and his disciple Mister Blair.

The conservative Nea Demokratika party won the Greek general election, securing a slim overall majority in the national parliament.

The European Union's Court of First Instance upheld the Commission's ruling that Microsoft are a bunch of snivelling wretches who couldn't compete on a level playing field if they tried.

Israel declared the Gaza Strip to be an enemy entity. Israel claimed that it was a response to repeated rocket attacks: Gaza says that it's another part of the economic warfare against the country.

The European Commission announced plans to force its member states to split the distribution and generation arms of its national electricity companies. The Eurosceptic British media did not object to this idea, presumably because it happened here almost twenty years ago.

British supermarkets were found to have colluded to keep the price of milk, cheese, yoghurts, and other dairy produce artificially high. The parasites paid 35p per litre for milk from the farm, then sold it for as much as 75p. They also conspired to raise and lower prices in concert; only the latter offence has tickled the authorities.

The Dutch cabinet has declined to hold a referendum on the EU reform treaty. The cabinet may yet be over-ruled by the parliament, and there may be a split between lower and upper chambers.

We regret to report the death of Jeremy Moore, commander in the Falklands; and of Ian Gray, the father of Gnasher and the Comic Library.

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23September

Northerly winds brought cold nights early in the week; the passage of a front from the south-west in the early hours of Thursday brought much warmer and wetter weather.

17 Mo rain early         9/15
18 Tu sun                4/14, 0.5
19 We showers            9/18, 1.5
20 Th rain o/n, cloud   14/20, 7.5
21 Fr cloud, rain late  14/18, 9.0
22 Sa rain o/n, sun      8/19, 1.5
23 Su cloud             12/18

Rainfall in September: 23mm; monthly average: 61mm

Degree cooling days: 87
2006: 359/360
2005: 236/238
2004: 198/198
2003: 328/328

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