At the latest appeal by the Birmingham Six against their convictions, it was revealed that the scientific evidence against them was completely unreliable. Rather than handling nitroglycerine, the men may have handled nothing more dangerous than liquid soap, of the sort used in police stations in 1974. It also emerged that ten detectives made unexplained alterations to their notebooks, all of which helped to manufacture evidence against the suspects.

Commentary on the forthcoming referendum in the USSR included It is an odd fact in the history of modern democracy that regimes that hold victorious plebiscites usually lose power humiliatingly within a year or two. Rajiv Gandhi ended two years of exile from India, hoping to lead his Congress (I) party to victory in May's election.

A by-election at the Conservative safe seat of Ribble Valley was dominated by the poll tax, and resulted in a surprise LIB DEM GAIN, returning Mike Carr on a transfer of 12.4%. Defeated Conservative Nigel Evans was elected in the 1992 general election on a 5.4% transfer-back, and has remained the constituency's MP since. Lambeth set the country's highest community charge, a nominal £620 per person. Michael Heseltine's review will report in two weeks. The Labour party ruled out paying the television license fee for OAPs. Former British prime minister Mrs. Margaret Thatcher gave her first audiences since leaving office, saying of her fellow MPs, They just ran away. They were frightened.

The Stone Roses played their latest gig: their own faces, at the High Court. The group was trying to get out of their contract with Silvertone Records, which they said was a restraint of trade. But it's a contract, said Silvertone. Holiday firm Intasun collapsed. Hungary applied to join the European Community, aiming for entry in 1996. Roy Greenslade (Daily Mirror) and Ian Watson (The European) were both sacked by Robert Maxwell. Kit McMahon was resigned as chairman of Midland Bank after lower-than-expected profits.

UK Singles Chart for w/c 10 March 1991

Number One	Should I stay or should I go? / Rush - The Clash / BAD II - 2nd week (Number 661 in seq.)
Highest new entry	Today forever ep - Ride - number 14
Fastest climber (within top 40)	Secret love - Bee Gees - up 16 to 21
Fastest climber (within top 75)	Cherry pie - Warrant - up 21 to 39
Lemming-like fall	Only you - Praise - down 35 to 66
Top 40 debuts	Definition Of Sound, Warrant
Top 40 exits	Vixen
Top 75 debuts	Bizarre Inc, Brothers In Rhythm, Curve, Digital Underground, Scritti Politti Featuring Shabba Ranks
Top 75 exits	Jimmy Barnes, Caveman, Dream Warriors, Praise
Simon Mayo's Record of the Week	Senza una donna - Paul Young and Zucchero

No place in the top 75 for Big Dish's Big town, for Soho's Love generation, or for the Apples' Eye wonder, all top 40 in Scotland. No place for Anthony Head, his recording of Sweet Transvestite peaked at 87. It'll be six more years before he'll be known for something other than coffee commercials.

New at 74 come Mike + the Mechanics with Word of mouth. Tony! Toni! Toné! climb 2 to 69 with It never rains (in southern california). New at 68 come ultra-goths Curve, with The blindfold ep. Just to confuse, the lead track was Ten little girls, though Blindfold was included on some formats. Brothers in Rhythm came in at 64 with Such a good feeling, a song we'll hear more of later in the year. Tom Jones was Carrying a torch at 63. It's his second single of the year, and perhaps best forgotten. Bizarre Inc. come in at 58 with Playing with knives; this single will also be re-issued later in the year.

New at 54 come the Beautiful South with Let love speak up itself. The story begins in 1985 with the Housemartins, the fourth-best band from Hull. They had a run of top 20 hits between 1986 and 1988, but split due to artistic differences. Norman Cook went off to become (in turn) Beats International, Freakpower, Fatboy Slim, and Mr. Zoë Ball. Meanwhile, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway joined with three session musicians to form the Beautiful South. The group's debut album was 1989's Welcome to the Beautiful South, which gave them top ten hits with Song for whoever and You keep it all in, plus the very minor hit I'll sail this ship alone. Brianna Corrigan joined the group for 1990's Choke, and sung on A little time, one of the very few adversarial duets to top the chart. Second single from the album was My book, which just missed the top 40 in December, while this third single will become their smallest hit yet. Two more albums, 1992's 0898 Beautiful South and 1994's Miaow, passed by without much success, but the group's singles collection Carry On Up the Charts was the biggest success of christmas 1994. Nowt so queer as the Grate British Public, is there? 1996's Blue is the Colour yielded Rotterdam, their first top 10 hit since A little time, and the still-filthy-in-radio-edit Don't marry her. 1998's Quench had the number two hit Perfect 10, but that was the beginning of the end. Four more studio albums came out to very little interest, as did a second singles collection in 2001. The group disbanded in 2007, and released a third hits collection, Soup, this time including the Housemartins' work, later that year. The quintissential Beautiful South work is probably their version of Dream a little dream, recorded in 1995, played to death on the radio, but not commercially released until it turned up on 2001's Solid Bronze collection.

New at number 52 came Digital Underground's Same song, which sounded rather similar to something else we'd heard, but couldn't quite place it. The Stereo MCs's Lost in muic rose 7 to a peak at 48, and the Eurythmics' Love is a stranger scooted up 12 to 46, also a peak. New at 43, and not getting any higher, is Gary Numan's Heart. He had remarkable success between 1979 and 1983. Eleven top 20 hits in a row is remarkable, even more so when we remember that he was vilified in the music press for not being punk, not being New Romantic, and being an out-and-out lover of wealth. Here was pop for the Thatcherites, and if there's one thing the inkies hated, it's the original Essex Boy. Numan didn't advance artistically, and his brand of robotic synths was sounding increasingly dated by the mid-80s - his only top 20 hits after that streak were two re-releases of Cars and a single with Bill Sharpe of Shakatak. Numan had been a prolific act, averaging one single every five months for a decade. Heart was his first release in almost two-and-a-half years, and became his third consecutive release to fall in the 40s. After further poor noodlings in the 1990s, Numan was slightly rehabilitated in the eyes of the Foo Fighters and Marilyn Manson (a definite case of damning with faint praise), and actually started to receive neutral coverage in the dwindling music press. He's best remembered for Cars and providing the instrumental bit of the Sugababes' Freak like me.

In at 41 for Scritti Politti and Shabba Ranks's She's a woman, and a 14-place climb for the Definition of Sound's Wear your love like heaven. The fastest climber, up 21 places to 39, for Warrant with Cherry pie. The group had met with significant success in their native Arizona, but Heaven - a number 2 hit there - failed miserably to reach the top 75 here. The group wore tight lycra, big hair, and PVC trousers, a look that did not flatter them. Neither did their one UK hit single, which had originally grazed the top 75 in autumn 1990. It was the dumbest sort of cock rock, without any attempt at subtlety, poetry, intelligence, or anything other than banging and grinding. MTV - at this early date, the channel still played music videos - fell over the video like a dog with its tongue hanging out, wowed by the prospect of lots of women wearing very little, and trying to ignore the band. Canadian equivalent Muchmusic had far more sense, and never played the clip, stating that it was offensively sexist. Warrant never established any traction in the UK, and are rightly relegated to a very minor footnote in British chart history.

New at 38 came Feargal Sharkey with I've got news for you, and in at 37 was Vixen with Not a minute too soon. If Warrant was the wrong sort of glam metal, Vixen was the right sort; they'd been founded by Jan Kuehnemund (no relation to Big Country's guitarist Mark Unpronounceablenameofbigcountry) in 1980, and broke into the big time with their eponymous 1988 major-label debut, which gave the group their biggest hit, the number 27 Cryin'. 1990's Rev It Up had three more singles in and around the top 40. Just when we thought that the future of rock was the rather cheery sight of hard-rockin' women in tight spandex trousers, the group failed to emulate their trews, and split. Various re-formed groups have been in circulation since 1997, including a re-union for Bands Reunited on one of the obscure cable channels.

LL Cool J's Around the way girl climbed four to 36, Echo and the Bunnymen advanced two to 34 with People are strange, and Jesus Loves You put Bow down mister up 5 at 32. New at 30 came Megadeth's Hangar 18, a song about the supposed location of the UFO involved in the 1947 Roswell incident. Megadeth was Dave Mustaine's thrash metal band; they'd formed in 1985, and broke through in the UK during 1988. They'd had their biggest hit in early 1990, a cover of Alice Cooper's No more mr nice guy which made number 13. Hangar 18 was the second single from the group's Rust in Peace album, and became the second top 30 hit, following Holy wars, a commentary on the civil war in Northern Ireland. The group lifted two top 20 hits from 1992's Countdown to Extinction album, but lost their UK record deal in 1995; the biggest success in North America came in 1997. The group is perhaps best remembered for their long-running thin-skinned feud with Metallica (of whom more later in the year), following lead singer Dave Mustaine's ejection from the band in 1983. Megadeth released a greatest hits album (2000) before splitting (2002) and re-forming (2004).

Up 7 to 26 for the Banderas with This is your life, and up 16 to 25 go the Happy Mondays with Loose fit. Their story is absurdly well-documented, and we really can't be bothered to repeat it here. Suffice to say that the group only had two top-15 hits, and both of those - Step on and Kinky Afro - made number 5. We'll hear from them again in November.

Second single of the year for Queen, and I'm going slightly mad can only make number 24. Attention here was focussed on Freddie Mercury's gaunt appearance in the promo video, eclipsing a rather decent pop art song. Inevitably, there will be more from the group later in the year, as there will be more Jesus Jones - Who? Where? Why? rose one last place to peak at 23.

Fastest climber within the top 40 was Secret Love from the Bee Gees. It's now twenty-four years since their first hit, and the group had remained popular into the early 1980s. Apart from 1987's chart-topper You win again, the rest of the decade had been a bit of a disaster - three singles finishing up around number 50, four more just outside the top 75. So, how did the Bee Gees make a return to the charts? By covering themselves. In 1986, the Bee Gees had written Chain reaction, a massive number 1 hit for Diana Ross. Five years later, they take the same rhythm and the same backing track, write some new words, and - look! Another massive hit! It's the beginning of a reneissance for the group: they'll only have seven more hits in the next decade, but all will make the top 30, and two will hit the top five.

Rod Stewart's back, Rhythm of my heart is straight in at number 20. Up seven to 19 goes REM with Losing my religion. Again, the history of this band has been documented to the point of tedium: suffice to say that they'd had one top 40 hit (Orange crush, number 28 in 1989), and four near-misses (Finest worksong, 50 in 1988, The one I love, 51 in 1987, and Stand made 51 and 48 in 1989). Losing my religion is the group's UK breakthrough hit, and marks the start of a huge run of hits - twenty smashes between here and December 1996. The greatest hits emerged in 2003, but the reunion tour has never happened, because the band never broke up.

Well, blow us: Chesney Hawkes is up 14 to 18, and actually threatens to become a massive hit. Hurrah! No move at 15 for the Charlatans' Over rising, and new at 14 for Ride's Today forever ep. The long-haired Oxford louts had had three minor hits during 1990, but timed their big breakthrough well. Ride were the most visible exponents of the shoegazing scene, and had received the blessing of the music press, in love with their loud guitar feedback sound. This ep was a stopgap following the release of album Nowhere the previous autumn, and represented a subtle change. Ride's 1992 album Going Blank Again is the apotheosis of their particular sound, a wall of cord and discord. By 1994, Ride was jumping on the Britpop bandwagon, and split while recording their fourth album the following year. Andy Bell former Hurricane #1 in 1997, and later joined Manchester bores Oasis. Slightly surprisingly, there's no one-disk summary of the band's work.

Making the last climbs are Massive Attack, Unfinished sympathy is up 4 to 13; and Living Colour rise 2 to 12 with Love rears its ugly head. Yes, though Unfinished sympathy is one of the most-played, most-covered, and most-sampled records of 1991, it only ever made number 13. Out of the top 10 go Oleta Adams (9-16) and Free (8-11). Nomad drops five to 10, and up 12 places at number 9 goes Quartz featuring Dina Carroll with It's too late. The song has now moved 44-42-40-21-9, showing the power of radio airplay. Roxette's radio-friendly Joyride advanced 10 places to number 8, and began an 11-week reign as Europe's most-played song.

There's no move at 7 for Xpansions's Move your body (elevation), nor at 6, Stevie B's Because I love you (the postman song) had failed to deliver on its top-five potential. The Source dropped a place to 5 with You got the love, and Madonna's Crazy for you was down two to 4. No move at 3 for the Simpsons' Do the Bart, man, and the Comic Relief song - The stonk by Hale and Pace and the Stonkers - storms up 8 to 2. There's no change at the top, The Clash remain for a second week with Should I stay or should I go? The listed B-side to this single was Rush by Mick Jones's new band Big Audio Dynamite II, itself a re-packaging of his occasional hit-makers Big Audio Dynamite.

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