Birmingham opened its new visitor attraction: the Convention Centre. In Symphony Hall, it has one of the best concert halls yet built, and rightly the home of the city's symphony orchestra. The convention hall itself functions as a theatre, though is perhaps too vast and too dehumanising to be a proper conference venue. The centre is far more sensibly laid out than such creations as the Barbican. In essence, it's a straightforward covered walk from the canal up to the new Centenary Square, a plaza alongside Broad-street that houses the city's war memorial, a statue of industry, and plenty of grass and seating. Further on, past two anodyne glass blocks (one office, one hotel) is the 1970s Central Library, where Paradise Forum has been created in the lightwell at the centre of the inverted ziggurat. At the back of the centre by the canal is a patch of scrubland that (we're promised) will become a hive of shopping and activity, both commercial and arts, by the mid-1990s. Just alongside is a large indoor arena, just the size for sporting events like the world indoor athletic championships or made-for-TV circus-style spectaculars.

A month after the end of the Allied Carpet bombing, Iraq was in ruins. A rebellion by the Shias in the south had been supported by words, but no deeds, from the carpet-layers, and forces loyal to President Sadaam were now suppressing Kurds in the north of the country. The Iraqi embassy in London was stormed by Kurdish protesters, and Mr. Bush ordered his plane to start dropping clumps of food, blanket, and other relief items that could be dropped from a great height without damage, such as his sons. Former British prime minister Mrs. Margaret Thatcher loudly intervened on behalf of the Kurds, much to the irritation of the new prime minister Mr. er, erm, oh that bloke.

After five-and-a-half years in a Tehran jail, Roger Cooper was freed; he had been arrested for spying but never charged or tried, and compared conditions in the Iranian prisons to those in an English public school and the ranks of the British army. There were violent clashes in Tirana and Shkoder after rural voters ensured the communist party won Albania's elections. We can't be ruled on the say-so of these peasants, said one urbanite. Protests grew as full results were not published for almost a week, leading to suspicions of ballot-stuffing and result-doctoring. Boris Yeltsgin was granted emergency powers by the Russian Congress of People's Deputies, lasting until presidential elections on 12 June.

The IRA campaign of urban renewal continued with firebombs in Manchester and at a shopping centre in south Belfast. London Zoo announced that it would close unless the government coughed up £13 million. A by-election was held in the ultra-safe Labour seat of Neath; it was won by former apartheid activist Peter Hain, with Plaid Cymru coming second and the Conservatives barely retaining their deposit. Proceedings were thrown out against parents in the Orkney satanic abuse nonsense, with the RSSPCC ignoring all rules of evidence and procedure in their zeal to create a prosecution from thin air.

Sport: the Football Association moved to back plans to create a Premier League of 18 clubs, starting in August 1992. The FA's figleaf is that the new structure will be good for the England national side; the clubs are interested because they would get much more television income - possibly £5 million per side per year, almost three times the current figure. The Grand National steeplechase was won by Seagram, 12/1.

UK Singles Chart for w/c 7 April 1991

Number One	The one and only - Chesney Hawkes - 2nd week (Number 663 in seq.)
Highest new entry	Rescue me - Madonna - number 4
Fastest climber (within top 40)	Deep deep trouble - The Simpsons - up 13 to 9
Fastest climber (within top 75)	Seal our fate - Gloria Estefan - up 29 to 44
Lemming-like fall	Love rears its ugly head - Living Colour - down 37 to 69
Top 40 debuts	Zucchero
Top 40 exits	Banderas, Hale And Pace And The Stonkers, Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers, Xpansions
Top 75 debuts	Frances Nero, Quadrophonia
Top 75 exits	High, Two In A Room
Simon Mayo's Record of the Week	Get the message - Electronic

Shades of Rhythm enter at 74 with Sweet sensation, then comes a run of huge fallers: Queen are down 26, Jesus Jones slump 28, Jesus Loves You is down 31, and Living Colour plummet 37 places. Oleta Adams is in Follow That! mode, with a re-release of Rhythm of life, backed with new song You've got to give me room. It's in at 65. That well-known misprint 22 Top come in at 63 with My head's in mississippi, and Roachford are back at 62 with Get Ready!. A disappointingly low entry - number 58 - for Cher with The shoop shoop song (it's in his kiss), and another fantastic song - Frances Nero's Footsteps following me - enters at 54. People of Britain, these are brilliant songs, we will ram them down your collective throats until you love them at least as much as we do.

New at 52 comes Quadrophonia with Quadrophonia, and The Alarm enter at 51 with Raw. The Alarm was to Wales as Big Country were to Scotland: earnest, anthemic, and after a few early hits, deeply unfashionable. The group formed in 1981 around singer / songwriter / guitarist Mike Peters in Rhyl, and took influences from the Sex Pistols, Clash, and Jam. The group signed to large indie label IRS in 1982, and broke into the mainstream when supporting U2 the following year. Their first hit - 68 guns - would turn out to be their biggest, peaking at number 17 in October 1983. The group toiled on for four more albums, and received consistent, if not overwhelming, success - their singles reliably made the top 50, the albums went top 20 for a week or two. But greater success continued to elude them, with only three more top 30 singles: 1984's Where were you hiding when the storm broke, 1986's Spirit of '76, and 1987's Rain in the summertime. 1989's album Change was an honest appraisal of their Welsh roots, including the minor post-mining classic A new south Wales. By 1991, the cracks were showing, and the group would split by the end of the year. There's a minor coda: Mike Peters had inherited the group's name and formed a new Alarm in 2004, releasing the single 45rpm under the fictitious group The Poppy Fields. It went top 30 before the taste snobs were called on their bigotry.

Alison Moyet climbs 16 to 50 with It won't be long; it's her first hit in four years, and we'll be reviewing her career in full during October. A one-place climb to 49 for Vanilla Ice's I love you; still on the annoyingly useless tosspot front, the Milltown Brothers are new at 48 with Here I stand. Far more appealing is the 29-place climb for Gloria Estefan's Seal our fate, now number 44. It's the right sort of Spanish pop. There's no luck for Katherine E, I'm alright is up 5 to 41.

New at 39 comes Pete Wylie and The Farm with Sinful! (Scary jiggin' with Doctor Love). Wylie was better known as The Mighty Wah!, responsible for the rather wonderful top three hit The story of the blues (1983) and the almost as wonderful Sinful (1986). This was, at least nominally, a live recording in conjunction with fellow Liverpudlians The Farm, and failed to match the charm of the original.

Which brings us to number 38, and the most long-awaited comeback of the year so far. Transvision Vamp was blonde bombshell Wendy James and a backing band that would eventually be deemed Sleeperblokes, though Sleeper, at this early date, had yet to be invented. James's projected image was the lovechild of Madonna and Debbie Harry - punky, rebellious, provocative, a five-times-a-night shag. In spite of general critical scepticism, the group had proven popular with the public - slightly edgy pop singles I want your love (1988) and Baby I don't care (1989) are almost indistinguishable apart from small chunks of the chorus, but helped to propel their parent albums into the top five.

The trouble was, ver Vamp had two (well, one-and-a-bit) huge hit singles, and everything else was vapid filler - three other singles from debut album Pop Art managed a week at number 30, three other singles from Velveteen scrambled for top 20 positions. If they were serious about their third album, it needed to have more than one hit. The lead single was much awaited, and once heard is never* forgotten. (I just wanna) b with u is new at 38, and will climb a little next week. The album, The Little Magnets Versus the Bubble of Babble, was even less coherent than its title. Though la James appeared in the music press wearing little more than her underwear, this made matters far worse - she was treating the album as an extension of her body, and lad mags (at this early date) had not yet been invented. The album received after another critical mauling, the record company got cold feet, and the disk was pulled from the release schedules with just a couple of weeks to go. It was released in Germany, and eventually came out in the UK in 1993 as a contract-filling curio. Did it deserve better? On the evidence of the lead single, probably not.

OMD have their first top 40 single since September 1986, as Sailing on the seven seas breezes up 15 to 36. New at 35 comes Silver Bullet with Undercover anarchist. Mr. Bullet (his birth name is not widely known) had released a successful hardcore rap single in 1989, 20 seconds to comply. This top 20 track had got him signed by Parlaphone, for whom this was his first release. Mr. Bullet was released from his contract in 1993, and continues to work for a small but loyal following.

Zucchero and Paul Young climb 15 to 34 with Senza una donna (without a woman), and Morrissey's second hit single of the year is new at 33, Sing your life. It's beaten by The Clash, cynically cashing-in on their sell-out with a greatest hits album and a re-release of Rock the casbah, new at 32; their previous single moves 13-24. The Shamen climb 8 to 30 with Hyperreal, and Alison Limerick is up 10 to 29 with Where love lives (come on in). Monie Love vs Adeva climbed 9 to 27 with Ring my bell.

Two long climbers continue their progress - Mike + The Mechanics' Word of mouth is up 12 to 23, taking five weeks to climb from 74. The Mock Turtles have taken six weeks to climb from 46, and this week are up eleven to 22. Just a one-place climb for C&C Music Factory and Freedom Williams, Here we go peaks at 20, and Black Box reach 18 with Strike it up. A massive clear out from the top ten: Hale and Pace and the Stonkers (9-26), Pet Shop Boys (6-17), Quartz featuring Dina Carroll (8-16), Simple Minds (7-15), Snap! (10-14), and the Bee Gees (5-11). Not taking their place are the Gary Clail On-U Sound System, Human nature is up two to 12.

Denny Minogue follows her big sister Lykie into the top ten, with more anodyne bubblegum pop; Love and kisses is up 5 to 10. The Simpsons move up 13 to 9 with Deep deep trouble, and N-Joi are up 11 to 8 with Anthem. This was a production duo from Sarfend in Essex, whose only other significant hit was 1992's Live in Manchester ep, a number 12 hit. Vocalist on that track was Saffron, who would go on to greater things with her band Republica. Roxette slip three to 7 with Joyride.

A new entry at number 6 for the Wonder Stuff with Size of a cow. Ver Stuffies were the largest act to come out of Stourbridge, and were fronted by the charismatic Miles Hunt. They were signed to a major label almost within minutes of forming, and made their top 40 debut in September 1988 with It's yer money I'm after baby. The group continued to build their presence during 1989, and very wisely went missing during 1990's baggy explosion. Size of a cow took its title from seminal cartoon The Banana Splits, and became the group's first really big hit. There will be more on this group through the year.

Down two to 5 went Rod Stewart with Rhythm of my heart, and Madonna had the highest new entry at number 4 with Rescue me. It's the second new song from her greatest hits set, the Immaculate Collection, and feels like a b-side with designs above its station. Up eight places to number 3 went the Waterboys with The whole of the moon, of which more next week. No move at number 2 for James's Sit down, and a third week as the UK's best-seller for Chesney Hawkes's The one and only. Surely four weeks is beyond him. Isn't it?

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