For the interested, James Masterton has been looking at the top 40 from 1987. He does it well.

(More: Enya, Lightning Seeds, Will Smith, Five, and a big AA side)

It's make-or-break week for Robbie Williams; much was expected of his fifth single, Angels / Walk this sleigh. The lead song was co-written by Williams and Ray Heffernan, but the Dublin pub crooner sold his rights in the song to Guy Chambers for £7500. There have been cover versions; Beverley Knight made an interesting soul revision, All Angels did their over-processed nonsense, and the less said about Jessica Simpson the better. The AA side remains resolutely uncovered; Walk this sleigh is a simple ditty, all about how Williams believes in Christmas, enough to base a song on an old Muppets theme.

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Councils were urged to translate less and force immigrants to learn English. Remind us, when did Labour start pandering to the racist element in society? Ah, when it started losing control of bits of the East End to their reps.

Peter Tatchell reminds us that Robert Mugabe is a torturer.

Ten years of Konnie Huq. That she's only about the fourth-best Blue Peter presenter in that time - upstaged by Richard Bacon, Matt Baker, and Gethin Jones, possibly by Liz Barker and Simon Thomas - shows just how talented the pool has been lately.

Mr. The Soup Dragon has kyboshed a reform of worker's protection that would have allowed people to work more than 48 hours per week, and granted rights to agency workers after six weeks of employment. Right-wing forces led by M. Popup had approved the trade-off, but the far-right Dragons rejected it.

John Rentoul offers evidence that Labour wants a change of leader. When you've done it once, you'll do it again was a charge levelled at the Conservative backbenchers during Mr. Major's years in Downing-street, and again during the faintly ludicrous reign of Tony Hawkes. We haven't heard it applied to the Lib Dem deputation during their annual leadership plebiscite, but we can believe that there are soundings against the disaster-prone Soup Dragon. Steve Richards has since pooh-poohed the idea. Henry Porter ruminates on Labour's lack of accountability, and Matthew d'Ancona riffs on The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to The Soup Dragon. Wrong bit of sci-fi, tush!

London Underground is swamped by tonnes of newsprint each day. Bored commuters on the Misery, Palare, and Fleet lines leave 9.5 tonnes of paper on their trains each day. The amount has tripled since the number of free papers increased from one a day to three. By comparison, the weight of an entire tube train is approximately 28 tonnes, and extrapolating to the other lines suggests something like that much paper is left lying around every single day. 7.5 kilotonnes a year! This much mess never happened when people paid for their copies of the daily press.

Jerry Pournelle on the latest installment of Cory Doctrow -v- SFWA and Good Sense, and a pessimistic digression to the future of the mass market paperback. Mr. Pournelle writes further.

Radio Netherlands points out hyves.nl, a site that looks like Myspays, and (from the publicity) acts like Fay's Manuscript. It's European, has been cross-interpreted into English, and doesn't have any of the data protection stupidities that afflict the sites that don't believe the DPPs apply to them. Anyway, we've created a minimal-information profile. Not convinced we'll do a huge amount with it, but it's got to be better than Fay's Manuscript.

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Further to last Saturday's exhaustive piece on Sports Review of the Year, Mr. Pokery pointed out,

Most people have offered token nominations for the best golfer at the moment and the best tennis player at the moment, neither of whom won either of their sports' four majors this year.

The best golfer, Mr. Rose, suffers from the fact that only a handful of events on the European tour receive any television coverage in the UK. Compare that to the players on the PGA tour, whose exploits are beamed into a hundred million homes every Sunday for six months of the year. It's also worth noting that 2007 was not a Ryder Cup year; that event and the annual Open are the only events that cause normal broadcast schedules here to stop in their tracks. Mr. Murray is the best tennis player the UK has produced, and has had the best year of a UK-based player since Mr. Henman in 2004, but has failed to deliver in the matches that matter - indeed, injury prevented him from playing in the UK domestic season.

Paula Radcliffe came fifth in nominations, recovering from childbirth to take second in the Great North Run and first in the New York Marathon... I think Radcliffe's decision not to defend her marathon world championship counts as a black mark, as does actually losing a race this year.

Losing a race when you're only competing a few times a year, yes, that's trouble. Not going straight to the World Champs without a race under her belt is defensible, especially given the back problems she suffered early in the year. Short-term loss, including a loss of SPotY '07, in the hope of doing something more in future years.

Christine Ohuruogu picks up the tenth top-ten spot due to her 400m world championship. Now while missing three drugs tests in a year probably shouldn't kill your athletics career stone dead, I have no issue whatsoever with it killing your Sports Personality chances.

On the other hand, at the time of nomination, she was one of only two to have obviously reached a new peak in their career during 2007, alongside Mr. Toseland; Mr. Calzaghe and Mr. Hatton were defending their titles all year, Mrs. Radcliffe has had greater years (plural); while Mr. Rose and Mr. Murray have had their best years, they're not as obviously better than previously as winning a world title.

In the event, we may as well have cut the public vote from ten names to two, as Mr. Hatton finished third in the nominations and third in the phone vote; Mr. Hamilton finished second, so no change there; and the other unanimous nominee, Mr. Calzaghe, won.

Did the Overseas award go to perpetual biathlon winner Ole Einar Bjoerndalen? Did the Pope abdicate in favour of Iranian spiritual leader Ali Khamenei? Not likely, ratfans! Actually, it went to Roger Federer, the only other athlete who has dominated his individual sport to a similar extent. No excuses for the Team of the Year: the England rugby squad won no silverware, the Arsenal women won four trophies, and even Durham CC, Leicester RFU and St Helens had two things to polish.

The official televote scores were:

1. Joe Calzaghe 177,748 (28.19%; 1=)
2. Lewis Hamilton 122,649 (19.45%; 1=)
3. Ricky Hatton 85,280 (13.53%; 3)
4. James Toseland 84,570 (13.41%; 8)
5. Jason Robinson 67,061 (10.64%; 9)
6. Paula Radcliffe 34,895 (5.53%; 5)
7. Jonny Wilkinson 30,302 (4.81%; 7)
8. Andy Murray 13,242 (2.10%; 6)
9. Justin Rose 10,227 (1.62%; 4)
10. Christine Ohuruogu 4,481 (0.71%; 10)

Numbers in brackets are their rankings in the original press ballot. Justin Rose and Andy Murray were unpopular, James Toseland and Jason Robinson much more popular amongst the public.

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Such are the perils of organising your life through a computer. Hand-written, hand-delivered invites. It's the way of the future.

Here's something precisely none of you will have heard: Marcus Brigstocke's latest rant against religion. It's taken from last week's edition of The Late Edition, a live topical satire that goes out on BBC-4 at 10.30 on Thursday nights. Most of the audience seems to be watching BBC-1's Question Muck at the time, but we reckon Brigstocke is funnier. Usually. Just.

Linda Perry has been working with someone the same age as Lykie Blankcanvas, and only one year older than Gwen Stiffeny. Her new album is rocky and technically flawless. She's had two million-selling singles. Er... Céline Dion?

Matthew d'Ancona writes on the growing power of the blog. He seems to believe that it's the right-wing cabal - Iain Dale, Guido Fawkes - that are the big boys in the UK scene. Nuh-uh. We're most likely to be at Political Betting, or pointing up the Ministry of Truth or Septic Isle. We concur with Mr. d'Ancona that attempting to dictate lines from the centre is doomed to failure. It lacks spontaneity. It is false. It appears false. It is the politics of the 20th century.

Another DAB station moves towards closure: The Arrow, a dadrock station with a library of almost 200 tracks, will not renew its DJ's contracts.

The King's Cross-St Pancras Nexus: a map in the style of the tube map. Very detailed, very worth while, and it looks as though the best route from Euston to Brighton now involves a walk along a street.

More changes in Australia, as the incoming government scraps the policy of sending refugees to remote Pacific islands. We approve.

Elsewhere, we're asked, Who has USD 1700 a month to blow on "beauty" treatments? Checking the exchange rate, that's ... only slightly more than two issues of the Rusty Old Radio Times, complete with covers promoting things that aren't actually on that week, and chock-full of scintillating and fact-based commentary from Alison Graham.

Eurotrib on breaking the economic royalists. Taxing land rather than people is the way forward; using the interwebs to bring about strikes and boycotts may be less useful than we would like to think. And, when in doubt, the moneyed class will divide by pandering to racism or religionism or another entirely spurious them and us division.

Related: Europe's highest court has ruled that trade unions have a right to collective action to prevent their employers from hiring cheaper labour from other member states. Industrial action can only be taken as a measure to protect existing work conditions, not to prevent a company from moving to another member state. It's not clear how this squares with the UK's ludicrously restrictive industrial inaction laws.

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We were, at this point, rather hoping to bring you that festive smash Santa Claus is on the dole, but we've not actually been able to track down a copy. Bad us.

Instead, we go to 1987, and a song written by Johnny Christopher, Mark James and Wayne Carson Thompson. Always on my mind was a four-minute synthpop classic, beginning with sampled trumpets, and proceeding through a roaring bassline, a careful counterpoint to Neil Tennant's fragile vocals. It's not the Pet Shop Boys' finest hour - for our money, that's their 1993 b-side Shameless - nor even their greatest song that's been written by other people - 1991's conjunction of Merryl Streep has no name / Can't take my eyes off of you was, if anything, even more ludicrous.

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Time for the annual Last Post update, reminding us of the last UK inland posting dates for 1st and 2nd class mail as far back as we can source. (If anyone has details for earlier years, do please leave a comment. Doubly so if you can source them.)

Last dates for international airmail this year have now passed:
Most of the world: 7 December
North America, Japan, Eastern Europe: 10 December
Western Europe: 13 December

Somehow, we don't think you're here for the numbers so much as the graphic, showing the rise and fall of the Royal Mail.

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Gah! Wrong David Butler! Anyway, Mr. N.H.W. reviews a book edited by David Butler, a collection of scholarly essays on Dr Who, that well-known BBC programme for children. As discussed in the second essay. We've not read it, but would be interested to do so, albeit from the position of believing that Michael Greed would have been right to axe the programme in 1985. Via comments, we learn that Daniel Saunders has a different take.

While we're on the subject, anyone ploughed through Dear Angela, the anthology of essays on greatest serial drama of all time My So-Called Life yet? Corky, we could use a reading break.

Robert Peston on what the credit squeeze means for Britain. We don't fully understand it, but we know more now than before reading it. (Peston's later follow-up) Of course, it's all predicated on the banks being able to assess risk accurately, which depends on strong regulation. And in the UK, that was abolished by Mr. The Soup Dragon when he came into office.

danah boyd reminds us that Fay's Manuscript's lack-of-privacy is culturally endemic, best summarised as it's better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. We really cannot see any reason why anyone should want to give the company anything approaching real information; false names and clearly fake pictures are just the start. And, just for good measure, The Laboratorium points out how FM's probably breaking the law, but only if you believe that the rebel colonies are capable of making their own laws. Anyway, our methods to fry the bacon stand.

Following Masque of the Red Death, there's another audience participation event going on, albeit again in London: Office Party Xmas 2007. Not only do the cast play various stereotypes, but the audience is assigned into various departments, with a prize at the end of the evening. (And it looks like someone's already done a spot-the-murderer, as we proposed earlier. Ho hum.)

Shepherd moons: how Saturn's rings are so young that they're really old.

Ten years after the official launch, and something like six years after the last revamp, the BBC has tinkered with its homepage. Not brilliant, but getting there.

We can't say that to GWR, which has managed to score another spectacular own goal, closing down the moderately successful Classic FM television station, which mostly played modern crossover music, something that couldn't be seen anywhere else. The company has already stuck up two fingers at DAB listeners, leaving Core and Life as soul-free jukeboxes, and broadcasting its tedious jazz station in disappointing mono. Can it do anything right?

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16December

The December slowdown arrives, but not in Sweden. Marie Picasso puts This moment in at 1, Kent have Columbus at 3, and Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah makes 5; it made the Irish top 20 in June, and Leonard Cohen's version is also in the top 20. Lower, Mariargh Cantsing's version of All... enters just three places ahead of Måns Zelmerlöw and Agnes Carlsson's recording. Fatal Bazooka takes over in France, where Lorie puts Je vais vite in at 3. New topper in Denmark, Hvad nu hvis by Alex. In Norway, Mariah Cantsing and Josh Groban are in the top five. Mika's Happy ending secures the top spot in Estonia. And in Ireland, Brendan Grace hits the top ten with The safe cross code. No relation to a similar green feature on the mainland. Just like RTÉ's People In Need Of Assistance show...

That's not a misprint, the last Elvish Presley release in this year's copyright-dodging campaign really has fallen an eye-watering one hundred and thirty one places. Only a limited edition release from Muse has fallen further, faster.

Amongst the entries outside the top 100 are Lee Ryan, Cascada's version of Last christmas, Mutya Buena, some old Eva Cassidy, some even older Frank Sinatra, Kate Bosh, the Wombats, and Robyn's newie. If you know who has been downloading copies of Bo Selecta's Proper crimbo, please take them outside and shoot them. Space Pirates come in at 94, new Plain White Ts at 89, two Led Zep tracks, and huge numbers of festive songs in the bottom quarter.

In the top 75, new entries from Jack Penate (73, Have I been a fool, he wonders. Yes.) and Filo & Peri (62, Anthem.) Sixteen festive songs in the top 75, including re-entries for Stop the cavalry and Boney M. Crowded House looked set to make the top 40 in the midweeks, but Pour le monde only makes 51. David Guetta is up 22 to 50, Led Zep's Stairway to heaven re-enters at 47, Amy Whingebag puts Love is a losing game in at 46, and Michael Buble's Home re-enters at 45, for reasons we'll explain later.

Back into the 40 goes Happy xmas (war is over), the Lennin / Ono song from 1972. Officially, it was a number 4 in 1972, number 2 in 1980, 28 in 1981, and 33 in 2003. Unofficially, the song replaced Lennin's Imagine for a week in a chart that was compiled in the week to 27 December 1980, but never formally published. The Foals enter at 39 with Balloons, a rather decent new-rock number. Rhianna's in at 37 with Don't stop the music, which is adjacent to Umbrella, the third time she's had back-to-back entries this year, and the third time she's had three hits in the 40. In at 35 comes Chris Rea's Driving home for christmas; it made 53 on first release in 1988, reached a new peak last week at 51, and now appears in the top 40. Rea's only had 12 top 40 hits in a thirty-year career, this is his first since 1994. Elvis ain't dead proclaim Scouting For Girls, up 20 to 33; not according to his chart positions. Down 131! Readers are cautioned that The Stereophonics have entered at 32 with My friends, a song about the empty set.

Amy MacDonald has her second hit of the year, This is the life gets in at 28. Good tune. The entirely predictable festive classics climb, but only a little: Band Aid II to 27, Shakin' Stevie to 23, Slade to 22, and Andy Williams to 21. In amongst them is the Sugababes' new single, only number 26 a week before physical release.

This year's Right Said Fred is Shaun the Sheep, performing Life's a treat. The voice on the song is provided by Vic Reeves, who had a number one hit himself in 1991 with the Wonder Stuff. Muchael Bubble storms in at 19 with Lost, it originally peaked at 51 three weeks ago, and wouldn't have risen higher if it wasn't for the Ruddy X Factor. After ten weeks, Amy Whingebag is elbowed out of the top ten; Alicia Keys and Shayne Ward also make their excuses and leave.

Cascada make the top 10 following their physical release: this stands to be top five when we reach the first chart of January. T2 slumps 2-9, Pogues back up to 8. Here's the deal: we'll let festive oldies chart this year, because it's too late to exclude them now; and we'll let anything chart if it's got a physical component. Otherwise, next year, no dice. Take That slip to 7, Timberyokel to 6, Council Estate Slappers to 5. Up to 4 goes Mariargh Cantsing, Soulja Boy lurks up 7 to 3, and Leona Lewis dips to 2 after seven weeks at the top.

The UK has a brand new number one, a cover of Louis Armstrong's 1968 chart-topper, What a wonderful world. There have been covers in the past, Johnny Nash made 25 in 1976, Nick Cave 72 in 1992, and Cliff Richard went to 11 in 2001 merging the tune with Over the rainbow. Earlier in 2001, the UK had given the nod to Eva Cassidy's recording of ...Rainbow. It was particularly unexpected because Cassidy had died from cancer in 1996, leaving just one studio album, about 150 minutes of music from bar concerts, and a handful of demos. Cassidy had been promoted by Paul Walters, the producer of Terry Wogan's radio show, since 1998, and his constant plugging finally paid off in the early days of 2001. Parent album Songbird became an unexpected number one, and Over the rainbow spent nine weeks in the top 75. In the years since, just about everything Cassidy recorded has been released, and she's been replaced as Radio 2's favourite lady by the very much alive Ketevan Melua. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, the two can share a single, available only through Tesco, and supporting a military charity. It's Ketevan's first number one single, she's had a couple of top tens before, but it's the first appearance in the top 40 for Eva Cassidy.

On the albums, Leona and Pestside remain at the top, but Michael Bubble advances 21-3, and Led Zep move 8-4. Mika's up 19-11, but Lykie Blankcanvas slumps 5-19. More than her nonsense deserves. No new entries in the entire top 100 this week, but other winners from the ITV Royal Variety Show included Teatro (62-43) and Enrique Ingleseas (77-59).

 1 NE Ketevan Melua / Eva Cassidy - What a wonderful world
 2  1 Leona Lewis - Burning love
 8 12 Pogues / Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New Amsterdam
15 14 Sugababes - About you now
21 25 Andy Williams
  - It's the most wonderful time of the year
26 26 Sugababes - Change
28 46 Amy MacDonald - This is the life
29 24 Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr. A
30 17 Bloc Party - Flux
31 18 Freemasons - Uninvited
33 53 Scouting For Girls - Elvis ain't dead
39 NE Foals - Balloons
41 34 Mika - Happy ending
47 re Led Zeppelin - Stairway to heaven
51 NE Crowded House - Pour le monde
52 49 Scouting for Girls - She's so lovely
72 re Jona Lewie - Stop the cavalry
74 66 Hoosiers - Worried about Ray

.. 64 Runrig / Tartan Army - Loch Lomond
.. 74 Feist - 1234

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16December

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

• More or Less (OU / Radio 4) How bad publicists annoyed the pregnant, the mystery of clothes sizes, and more league table stupidity This show
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio 4) Taking the piss out of Victoria Beckham. Shockingly modern!
• Never Had It So Good (The Fourth Programme) Reviewing 1957 through the eyes of someone who was young at the time. Colin Shindler and an unusual set of talking heads (none of the usual suspects) explore hire-purchase, education, and recall Independence for Ghana.
• Demob Happy (The Fourth Programme) Purported to tell how television usurped radio during the 1950s; was little more than a nostalgia trip with pretensions.
• The Spice Girls On Trial (Channel 5) Loosely-structured examination of the social and cultural impact of a candy-pop band. +12 for crediting Girl power back to Shampoo; minus several million for having the whole show structured as a premium-rate phone-vote - and at the distinctly non-premium 0870 rates! We gave up barely half-way through.
• A Game of Two Eras (BBC Bristol for The Fourth Programme) Telling the story of English football's loss of insularity through lots of footage of the 1957 final, and a few clips from 2007. Tom Finney's expert commentary was a class act, John Inverdale's commentary hit the right note (he's a class act, too).
• The Late Edition (The Fourth Programme) Rannulph Feinnes cannot use a microphone, Ed Byrne presents his claim to be the next Ron Stoppable, and the nativity gets even sillier than last week, which was very silly indeed.
• The Zinoviev Letter (BBC Parliament) Crikey, a bit of drama on Parliament, and explaining how a combination of the Conservative party and the Daily Hell conspired to influence the 1924 election. The Labour government approved the sending of a telegram to Russia, precipitating the publication of the letter, and only did so after trusting the evidence of the intelligence services. Those who do not learn from history, even after a full enquiry in 1998, are doomed to repeat it.

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16December

Prochain ancien British prime minister Mr. The Soup Dragon announced that British troops would withdraw from the streets of Occupied Basra by the end of the year. They would remain in their barrack near the city, waiting for the call from the local police force.

Russia's next president will be Dmitry Medvedev, nominated by outgoing dictator Vladimir Poutine as the candidate for the Untied Russia party. Such is the parlous approximation for democracy in that country that Mr. Medvedevil will face no credible opposition. In an entirely unrelated move, Mr. Medvedev announced his preferred prime minister: Mr. Poutine, who will be at a loose end come next Easter.

The commitment of Mr. Poutine's regime to the free and frank exchange of ideas has been re-inforced by news that it is to close down the British Council outside Moscow on the flimsiest and least-consistent of pretexts.

Two bombs in Algeria killed 62 people, including workers for the United Nations.

There's been outrage in Australia after self-confessed child rapists were allowed to walk free from court when the prosecutor failed to ask for a prison sentence. The judge compounded the error, opining that she asked for it. The prosecutor has been suspended.

This week's domestic brew-ha-ha was on police pay. Independent arbitration offered 2.5% for the September 2007 rise. The Ministry of Funk and its head funker Jacqui Marginal offered 1% last September and 1.5% next April. Police are balloting over whether they wish to reverse 150 years of tradition and claim the right to strike.

Half a century of consensus politics in Switzerland has ended. On Wednesday, deputies voted the suspiciously-like-a-racist Christoph Blocher out of the seven-member Council of Ministers. On Thursday, his SVP party flounced out of government, becoming the first official opposition in over half a century. The SVP has withdrawn support for its two ministers, and looks set to split into hardline and traditionalist factions.

The Lisbon treaty was signed by all the prime ministers, presidents, and foreign ministers of the 27 EU states. All? No! One incorrigable shirker couldn't be arsed to turn up and scribbled on his copy many hours late. What a Sulk Dragon.

We seek your leadership. But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way. The governments of the world met in Bali to discuss global warming. Their conclusion: do nothing now, but prepare for a further meeting in Køvehaben. In 2009. Where they'll discuss deep cuts. And not stall for more time. Honest.

We regret to report the death of Karlheinz Stockhausen, electronic composer.

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16December

High pressure became the dominant feature on Monday, bringing settled but increasingly cold weather. Friday suffered from persistant mist and low cloud.

10 Mo cloud to sun       5/ 6, 1.0
11 Tu sun               -4/ 7
12 We sun               -5/ 5
13 Th sun               -4/ 4
14 Fr fog               -3/ 1
15 Sa cloud             -1/ 3
16 Su cloud to sun      -1/ 2

Rainfall in December: 49mm; monthly average: 67mm

Degree heating days: 212½
2006-7: 56½/499
2005-6: 163/684
2004-5: 163½/556
2003-4: 212/754

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