This final piece of 1997 Nostalgia is dedicated to the memory of Kevin Greening. He was the Radio 1 breakfast show host of the time, not bettered in the decade since, and his sudden death was announced yesterday.

There's very little to say about this week's chart: no new entries in either the 40 or 75, lots of re-entries, some fast climbers, the Spices secure their second straight festive number 1. And Elton John returns to the top 10, displacing Mase. It set us thinking, how much did this chart sell in total?

(More: Estimated sales figures for the entire top 40, highlights of the top 75, and record sales totals throughout.)

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Trouble on the railways, as a Notwork Fail upgrade at Rugby has over-run by an alarming extent. Originally, it was scheduled to last from the early hours of 25 December into the evening of 30 December. About three weeks before the work was due to start, NF said that it would take them 31 December as well; lead operator Vermin West Cost was hopping mad and complained to the regulator. Now, it looks as though the work won't be complete until after the week-end, re-opening in the early hours of 4 January. And that assumes there's to be no significant snowfall, as Dan The Man Corbett has been predicting for a few days.

The problem seems to be that Notwork Fail tried to do four jobs involving electrical work over the last week: there was the re-wiring at Rugby, some major work at Glasgow, a more minor job in Bedford, and piggy-backing on East London Line work at Liverpool-street. Network Fail and its contractors had only secured enough staff to do two of them properly. Glasgow and Bedford completed on time, but there weren't enough electricians to hit Rugby until after the 30th. Liverpool-street is perhaps the worst error, Notwork Fail had to insert their work around Transport for London's plans, and TfL had its job done by the morning of the 31st. NF, though, carried on until the afternoon of 2 January, dragging workers in from the Bedford project at exhorbitant rates.

The root cause of this problem is, of course, privatisation. Not the splitting of train operators from the track, but abolishing the in-house maintenance crews, and insisting on having privateers do the job for them. Jarvis may be able to do a job well - though the current shambles is no advertisement for their competence - but the company's aim is to make a profit, not provide the best service for the public good. And such is the fragmented nature of the railways that there's no alternative provision for the Birmingham - London market, not even a service running Coventry - Banbury - Reading - Paddington | Euston. It is a shambles, and a responsible government would have taken the whole system in house long before now.

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Unlike most other prognosticators (with the very honourable exception of Steve Richards on The Sunday Programme), we insist on not only repeating our predictions for last year, but reviewing them for accuracy.

(More: Last year's predictions were more wrong than right. Here's 35 for this year.)

We'll look at our successes and failures in a year's time.

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Slowly but surely, the Kremlin's strategy becomes clear. The Russian oligarchs wish to create a closed garden of Cyrillic internet users, based around web addresses in the Cyrillic script. At present, all Russian internet addresses end .ru; the Ruskies want them to end .Ƹƿ, and that's tricky to achieve under the current top-level domain (TLD) structure.

Tricky, but not impossible. The Kremlin, however, is backing an attempt to create a TLD that runs natively in Cyrillic - after all, these TLD servers are just a way of translating names that humans can remember into addresses that computers can work with. However, if such a Cyrillic TLD server catches on, it will become difficult for Russians to communicate with the outside world. Inevitably, the Cyrillic-to-Arabic bridge will be policed by forces loyal to the Kremlin, with the inevitable results for freedom of expression. It'll be a moat around Russia, cutting it off from the rest of the world.

By purchasing the largest blogging site in Russia, forces loyal to the Kremlin have a very significant carrot to dangle in front of those who are reluctant to use the Cyrillic TLD. The rest of the world, those who are not part of the Kremlin's plans to create a hundred-year reich over the entire country by foul means or fouler, will provide the funds for this venture because they support advertising on the largest blogging site in Russia, under the misapprehension that it's mostly used by teenagers with more flyaway hair than brains.

Yet again, Six Apart's decision to sell advertising on Livejournal proves to be an error of monumental proportions. Without that steady and dependable flow of income, the Russian plan to split the net would be less easy. And it will come back and bite the fools in the backside, because they'll have to pay more money, and get fewer returns, pursuing the Cyrillic market. Mena Trott, you and your acolytes really messed this one up.

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A few cross-references to other articles. The biggest singles in each country usually clog up the main page around this time of year. Not this year, they've got a little page of their own. And the first entry in what should turn out to be a regular book review is And Now on Radio 4.

Domestic politics

John Rentoul proposes that It's all over for Gordon Brown. Most of the other things that have gone wrong weren't his fault, but he managed to make it look as if they were. A remarkable talent.

BBC Parliament will be showing The Daily Politics when the Commons returns on Tuesday. Assuming the Commons doesn't run past 11.30, that day's show will go out again at 12 midnight, approximately 12 hours after the first transmission. For those of you who are working and unable to get your fix of Andrew Neil and his charming lady companion, this would be a perfect opportunity.

Hands up who's surprised? Divide-and-conquer group praises Mr. Livingstone, saying that he helps to accentuate the divisions in society. Mr. Johnson, his rival for mayor comes back with a riposte to expose the fault lines, I want to talk about the interests of Londoners. I don't care what religion they are. I want to look after people from all communities. Here's the difference: Mr. Livingstone has demonstrated that he cares about his vote, the people whose support he can count on or wishes to court; Mr. Johnson believes in being a popular candidate, both someone who is of the people, and someone who is approved by the great mass of the people.

Jeremy Laurance asks, Why does the RSPCA not advocate eating less meat? It's a luxury food that is being scoffed at an unsustainable rate, and reducing the consumption would have clear knock-on effects in reducing animal cruelty, both because there would be fewer animals to be cruel to, and because farmers could be paid to be fair to their livestock.

Foreign affairs

Language Log on the linguistic divisions in Pakistan. Imposing an alien tongue on people to force a political situation didn't work in the USSR, didn't work in Yugoslavia...

Arts

Sweeping the Nation has a long, hard look at 2007 in popular music, and wonders where it all went wrong. It's a two-coffee piece.

Classy FM has been recounting the best-selling Nominally Classical CDs of the decade; a slightly odd exercise, seeing as how the 2000s still have two years to run. Hayley Westenra tops the list, ahead of two from Russell Watson, and Katherine Jenkins has three in the top 9. Highest modern coherent work is Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace at 27. Anyway, here's the top 300 in full.

A List Apart takes a list of great advertising lines, and subjects them to a series of lexicographal and linguistic tests to determine the single greatest slogan in advertising history. Go Rusty!

Channel 4 has sold its majority stake in Oneword to UBC, for a quid. The station, which is losing £1 million per year, says that it's exploring all the options available to it. Our preferred option is to put the station out of its misery, and use its bandwidth and a small amount of spare capacity to restore both Core and Life to stereo. In the longer run, it would be interesting to see if the BBC could transfer one of its digital offerings - perhaps the Asian Network - to the commercial multiplex.

After dire warnings, the UK was blanketed under almost a flake of snow. PM With Mair had all the pictures.

Rho muses why there's a cultural acceptance of screaming first, thinking later. We reckon that it's the same in real life, people are trained to react rather than think. Why this is the case, indeed if this is the case, we don't quite know.

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New national number ones, and other notes...
Iceland Leona Lewis, Bleeding love
Denmark Lizzie, Ramt i natten
Norway Madcon, Beggin - the reign of PINO Glenn Lyse lasts just one week
Estonia Timberyokel, Apologise
Latvia Dons, Kolekcionars
Germany Highest new entry: Room 2012, Haunted, from the winners of the latest series of the Popestars casting show.

Goodbye, farewell, auf wiedershein, please don't darken our doors again to the festive oldies. Wham! drops from 40 out of the top 200. Mariargh from 20 out of the top 200. The Pogues slump from 9 to 107, the fastest fall ever from that position. Ketevan and Eva also take a remarkable slump, down 39 to 53. And Lykie Ignoume drops from 28 to 43, even though the single isn't out yet; at least for the moment, it's an even floppier flop than Some kind of bliss.

Scouting for Girls take the top of the airplay chart, with new ones from the Hoosiers and Adele cracking the top 10; we're not entirely sure about either. Jack Johnson's also in the top 10, and we know he's as tedious as James B***t.

Regular commentator Mr. Choccers will be pleased to hear that ABBA make the top 200 with Happy new year, the song's first ever appearance on a singles chart. There's something new from the Wombats, Moving to New Amsterdam at 91, Queen and Paul Rodgers combine on Say it's not true at 90, Duffy re-enters at 89 with Rockferry, the Plain White Ts have a follow-up: Hate (I really don't like you) at 84, and Queen's original Don't stop me now makes 81. New into the top 75 come Mutya Buena - B boy baby stalls at 73 on full release; and Maroon 5's Won't go home without you at 69. Robyn's Be mine is new at 54, and the Council Estate Slappers hit 51 with the Theme to St. Trinian's. Climbs include Filo and Peri, whose recent history is now 39-70-54. Robyn's number one is back up 22 to 46, and Kayne West's newie Homecoming climbs 28 to 41.

In the top 40, and we've finally seen Amy MacDonald's video clip. Who wakes up from a night on a friend's sofa with perfect eyeshadow? Top 40 re-entries for Take That (Shine, a chart-topper last March), Mika (Grace Kelly, now a year old), and Katherine Nash (Foundations from last monsoon). First new entry of the year is from top pop band the White Stripes, Conquest sounds like the theme from a particularly unbelievable 70s television western, and has some of the smuttiest lyrics in the top 40, all of which appears to be the general idea. It's been released on three 7-inch vinyl records. Three Rihanna records in the top 30, but it's Katherine Nash who has the fastest climber within the top 40, up 16 to 23 with Pumpkin soup. Booty Luv also has a new peak, up 8 to 21.

Mika continues to have hits, Relax take it easy is double-A sided with Lollipop - it's the latter that's been attracting the video airplay, the former hits on the radio. Birtney's Pears climbs 27 to 19 with Pizza me, a fair hope for top five when it's released. Scouting For Girls put their newie up 9 to 17, the Sugababes have positions 16 and 13 - the newie is still in the lower place. Not so for Rihanna, whose Don't stop the music is up 4 to 12.

Regular readers of this website will remember how we noted the success in 2006 of Basshunter, whose Boten Anna was a number one hit in Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and Swindon, and finished second only to the all-conquering Trine Dyrholm in Denmark. Indeed, it was the eighth biggest hit in Northern Europe that year, the only record to make the top 30 without being scheduled for release in the UK. The somewhat belated English-language version is slightly inferior, called Now you're gone, sounds even more dated than the original, and is new this week at 14. Does that mean that, this time next year, we'll be marking the return of DJ Ötzi, the UK's most-ignored hit in 2007?

Into the top 10 returns Alicia Keys, and goes Nickelback. Rockstar first appeared the week before the clocks went back, and has since gone 64-58-45-34-20-21-19-22-25-25-15-8. It's the longest run into the top ten since the 2000-01 re-release of Dancing in the moonlight, which took 13 weeks to move from 11 to 8 via 26; and it's Nickelback's first top tenner since 2002. Not much move elsewhere - Take That at 5, their 11th week in the top 10; Timberyokel at 4, 12 weeks in the top 10; Leona slips to 3, her 11th in the top 3; Soulja Boy hits a new peak at 2, a mere five weeks in the top ten; and Leon Jackson's third week at the top.

On the albums, Radiohead take over at the top with the physical release of In Rainbows. Take That move up to 2, ahead of Leona, Mika, and Michael Bublé. Amy MacDonald is up 12 to 6, and there are also climbs for Scouting For Girls, Newton Aycliffe, Katherine Nash, Plant and Krauss, and Robyn. Plummets include Westside (2-11), Les Zep (8-16), Andrea Broccelli (6-18) and Shayne Ward (7-26).

 3  2 Leona Lewis - Burning love
10 11 Alicia Keys - No one
11 10 Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr. A
13 12 Sugababes - About you now
15 13 Cascada - What hurts the most
16 17 Sugababes - Change
17 26 Scouting For Girls - Elvis ain't dead
20 49 Mika - Relax take it easy
25 25 Hoosiers - Worried about Ray
28 31 Bloc Party - Flux
30 NE White Stripes - Conquest
33 35 Scouting for Girls - She's so lovely
35 48 Mika - Grace Kelly
39 32 Mika - Happy ending
40 37 Amy MacDonald - This is the life
46 68 Robyn - With every heartbeat
47 53 Freemasons - Uninvited
53 14 Ketevan Melua / Eva Cassidy - What a wonderful world
54 70 Filo and Peri - Anthem
55 NE Robyn - Be mine
62 55 Feist - 1234
70 re Mika - Big girl

..  9 Pogues / Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New Amsterdam
.. 64 Andy Williams
  - It's the most wonderful time of the year

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

• Three Men in Another Boat (BBC-2) In which Griff Rhys-Jones, Rory McGrath, and Dara O'Briaiaiaian take Griff's wooden yacht to Portsmouth, and race. It's a miscellany of little adventures, more comedy than Coast.
• UK Confidential (Home Service) Labour is worried about a Conservative revival and pleads for wage restraint while worrying about Iran developing nuclear wrapons. Plus, why there's no culture in London, but not what Liz Battenburg thought about being gobbed at by Johnny Rotten.
• Sixty Years of Sports Report (Radio 5) Or, to be exact, sixty years of sport on radio. Lots of great moments, assisted by Des Lynam and James Alexander Gordon, but rather spoiled by the pointless carping of Alistair Campbell, a man who should be led away from the microphone at every opportunity.
• The Now Show! (Home Service) Resolutions.
• Dance Britannia (The Fourth Programme) Episode 3 went from Northern Soul through disco and punk to acid house and Strictly Come Dancing. Viewers are cautioned that this programme contains unexpurgated footage of Agadoo, and hence should only be seen under the most carefully controlled circumstances.
• Pick of the Pops (Radio 2) Dale counts down the top 20 from 1990, and has to segue from the Quireboys to Adamski. No time for the guru.

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After three days of counting, it looks as though the Kenyan election has successfully been stolen. Incumbent president Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner on 30 December, and immediately sworn in for a second term before defeated candidate Raila Odinga could formally raise objections, or he could receive congratulations from a drunkard in the Potomac Sinktank. Instead, supporters of both men have been left to do battle on the streets, with at least 50 killed in Kisumu, a city loyal to the opposition.

Pakistan's electoral commission has decided to postpone elections until 18 February, almost six weeks after the original date of 8 January. The lengthy delay occurs because the islamic new year will take place on 10 January, and the following month is deemed holy by devout followers of that particular faith. Campaigning won't resume in earnest until about 8 February. Almost inevitably, there have been claims of bias from both opposition - who were in favour of a quick poll to capitalise on the sympathy vote - and Musharraf - who wanted the poll delayed for many months.

We regret to report the death of Kevin Greening, outstanding radio DJ. (Also: Trevor Dann and Major Holdups write); of George MacDonald Fraser, author and journalist; Phil O'Donnell, footballer.

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The westerly airflow swung round to the south during New Year's Day; by the following morning, it had been replaced by an easterly, bringing three days of particularly cold weather. It was in turn replaced by a westerly airflow, which had a sharply-defined rain event on the leading front. Sunday was somewhat calmer, but the westerly airflow looks set to persist for the week ahead, with some particularly windy and wet days ahead.

31 Mo cloud              5/ 8
01 Tu cloud              6/ 8
02 We cloud, wind        6/ 6
03 Th cloud, wind       -1/ 1
04 Fr cloud, rain pm     1/ 7, 1.5
05 Sa cloud, showers     4/ 9, 3.5
06 Su sunny spells       1/ 6

Rainfall in December: 72mm; monthly average: 67mm

Rainfall in January: 5mm; monthly average: 71mm

Degree heating days: 344
2006-7: 143½/499
2005-6: 276/684
2004-5: 263½/556
2003-4: 333/754

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