Three weeks into the KLF War, and the Feared Republican Guard was still largely intact, reported allied sources. British Airways stepped up security checks, believing that the greatest threat came from Arabics wanting to blow up aeroplanes during flight.

(More: snow, mortar bombs, Tigertailz, Frazier Chorus, Claudia Brucken, the Las, That Petrol Emotion, Milltown Brothers, 808 State, Kim Appleby, Oleta Adams, and half a dissertation on My Bloody Valentine)

Britain has a new number one, and for the first time since 1969, it's by a completely made-up act. The Simpsons was an animated series created by Matt Groening. It was included in The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987, but these animations were cut from the programme when it was shown on the BBC. As a result, the show wasn't seen on British television until 1996. West London's ever-so-cheap television channel SKY Television (named after its franchise area of Staines, Kingston, Yeading, and places between) picked up the show for a few pence, and showed it incessantly, just like it showed every other show in its flimsy catalogue a zillion times.

Part of the marketing effort by Fox Television (part of the same tax-dodging corporation as SKY Television) was to release as much spin-off merchandise as possible. T-shirts, baseball caps, and an album, The Simpsons Sing the Blues. From that came lead single Do the Bart, man, a lame rap set to an uninspiring beat. The song was rescued, as much as it could be, by the animated video. If we're being brutally honest, it was amongst the bottom quarter of 1991's number one singles, but had the great advantage of being amongst the better songs at the top end of this week's chart.

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Last week, Ashley Highbrow wrote about what he wants from DAB. Big screens, a simple search, lots of text information. What this blog wants from DAB is a good trade-off between sound quality and choice. Ideally, we'll have both; realistically, we can have one or the other; at present, we have neither. This week...

It's the G-CAP Clearout Sale! Everything must go! (Except Fru Hazlitt's job.) You want a controlling share in Digital One? Not one million pounds. Not one thousand pounds. Not even one hundred pounds. A controlling share in Digital One can be yours for just One Pound sterling! We're giving it away!! Literally!!! You want jazz music on the radio? Ancient rock music on the radio? We're getting rid of it! Anyone want alternative radio stations in Wales, Scotland, Crater Manchester? Name your price! We're open to all bidders!

Mrs. Hazlitt has announced a package that will save it £9m (€12,6m) per year, and expects to increase profits by £12.3m (€17,25m) next year as a result. GWR is only making this cost-cutting because it's been the subject of a hostile takeover bid by Charles Allen, the man who ran ITV into the ground and last year took over Chrysalis's radio interests. Mr. Allen's Global Radio pounced on the group, which has stayed afloat only because it swallowed up Capital Radio a few years ago.

(More: Four plans for DAB, and other quick thoughts on GCAP's job-saving scheme)

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We've not been paying much attention to the western colonies' latest shot at this democracy lark. They've still not got it: a democratic society requires that all views are taken into consideration, not just those that would (approximately) be covered by the manifesto of Sr. Berlusconi's Taxdodger party. Our sympathies are certainly with the leader-writer of Belaruskija Naviny. It's not even going to be the next sham election where the anointed one will have power to blow up the world after having one drink too many: that's the Russian election at the end of next month.

Bless his cotton socks, Mr. GB can be bothered with the whole foul-up, and we'll quickly extract the facts, myths, and build on his work.

(More: Treating this whole nonsense with the seriousness it deserves: none at all.)

In summary: It's February. The election is in November.

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The quality of justice in the new Russia: ill man denied treatment because he won't give evidence in political trial. Welcome back to the gulag, and remember, because of its close ties to the Kremlin, Livejournal supports the jailing of people with AIDS.

The quality of democracy in Russia is just as poor: the forthcoming presidential election is to be boycotted - by international observers. OSCE election monitors have suffered from abuse from the Kremlin, which has introduced such severe limitations as to make it impossible for the monitors to do their job. Only 70 visas would have been issued, and they wouldn't arrive until a week and a half before polling. The OSCE has thrown in the towel, and deemed the Russian elections to be unfair. Remember, people, Livejournal supports unfair elections.

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Name that era! Given names that were briefly popular for one year, then faded into obscurity. This data compiled for whatever considered itself to be part of the FARCE at the time, and arranged by decade back to the 1890s. According to this list, if your name was Ivor Beckham, you're born in the early 1900s. Montserrat Gwyneth? Early 2000s, obviously.

For those who like the thought of quality jollity, but can't stand flying: overland services to Alacant-Terminal (Alicante) require a sleeper train, or a night in a hotel en route, or on a coach. By train, the two distinct options are via Madrid and via Barcelona. As ever, Seat 61 has all the details. By coach, it's about 34 hours from London, with changes in Lille and Barcelona.

Guess which media organisation has jerked its knee at Mr. Williams's thoughts regarding the separation of mosque and state. Murdoch International, that well-known purveyor of lies, untruths, and stuff they nicked from Wikipedia last week. Language Log's Geoff Pullum explores how language has been twisted to string up Mr. Williams. On the same site, Bill Poser tells us about religious courts in secular life - in this case, the diamond trade.

In good news: rugby league highlights to be shown on BBC2 nationally.

Children's Commissioner calls for irritating buzzing noise that only teens can hear to be banned. Fearne Cotton will make her career in North America.

A double-act of the Education and National Heritage ministers announced this week's government initiative: 190 hours of cultural education per child per year. We'll give Burnham-Balls six-and-a-half out of ten on this idea: cultural education has been sorely neglected since the late 80s, but the root cause of this decline - the overbearing national curriculum - isn't being scaled back at all. Philip Hensher points out the more major flaws in the proposals: there's a risk of filling up every gallery, every theatre, every hall with supplicant children, drinking the UHT milk of appropriate performance. There will be far less space for anything dealing with material that the Mary Whitewashes of this world see as controversial in any way. There will be a hell of a lot of banal and unchallenging productions, and far less risky stuff. It's the cult of Paul Potts, of mezzo-brow productions, of it'll-do-ism.

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As we rather expected, Quirks had some good points regarding GCAP's attempt to leave the DAB sector.

A few years ago, the Netherlands went through a controversial exercise, re-planning its AM and FM usage as though it were starting from scratch. The Zerobase resulted in stations moving frequency, swapping between AM and FM, and caused a hell of a lot of pain. The gains were significant: the remaining stations are more stable, and radio listening in general is up. As a thought exercise, it would be interesting to Zerobase the existing national DAB multiplexes. We're not going to do the complete exercise - as C4Radio has yet to launch, we'll leave that alone for now - but will re-plan D1 and the BBC.

(More: putting the D1 space to good use, and wondering what DAB's selling point is.)

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New national number ones, and other notes...
Estonia Call the shots - Council Estate Slappers
Latvia Ona ne tvoya - Stas P'eha & Grigorij Leps
Germany In at 15 comes Scooter with Jumping all over the world. After twelve years, they're covering Status Quid.
Walloonia Parle a ma main - Fatal Bazooka, but last week's topper from Yael Naim makes the top 20 in Flanders, alongside Leona Lewis.
Ireland Onerepublic's Stop and stare enters at 8, with Duffy and Joe Dolan's cover of Let there be love at 11 and 12.

New at 73 for Phantom Planet's version of Just, in association with Mark Ronson. The original was a top 20 hit in 1995. Coral's Put the sun back can only make 64, and is beaten by Gnarls Barkley's Run at 63. Out of Office enters at 55 with Break of dawn 2008, one place behind REM's Supernatural superserious. Taio Cruz makes 42 with Come on girl, but we're more surprised to see Yael Naim and Duffy failing to make the top 40. Plummet of the week comes from Wet Wet Wet, who were one of the stars of James Masterton's podcast last week, as he detailed the 61 different live versions that propelled them to number 10 last week... and number 96 this.

Into the top 40 goes Flo Rida's Low. We've not heard it, but we reckon we know exactly how it drones on. When was the last time a Mozza single spent two weeks in the top 40? Er, 2006, because not even he can fall 3-41. There's something good at 31 for Utah street... sorry, that's our audition for the Radio Active Rep. There's Something good at 31 for the Utah Saints, the biggest thing ever to come out of Harrogate. The song, a number 4 nationally (and 2 in Scotland) in 1992, samples Kate Bush's Cloudbusting, inspired by the song's appearance on Simon Mayo's Identi-hit Quiz for three weeks the previous year. There have been various mixes doing the rounds for some years, and this one, with Van She, makes the top end of the chart. Most people seem to be buying the Ian Carey mix. Whichever, it remains the group's biggest hit and their best song.

New at 26 for Simple Plan, the Canadian rockers whose When I'm gone has been all over the video channels all year. Dumb rock, done with a smile on its face. They had a couple of records peak in the 40s during 2005. Paramore are back, with Misery business climbing 40 to 17; the song crawled to 31 during the rainy season last year. No move for One Night Only as Hot Chip plummet. Onerepublic was the bloke doing the singing on one of Timberyokel's hits last year; his debut solo single, Stop and stare, enters at 11.

Goldfrapp climbs eight to 10 with A&E. Deserves better. Feeling are also underperforming as I thought it was over is only up three to 9. A new entry - but not the highest - for H Two O at 7 with What's it gonna be. Not a good song. Which brings us to Adele, down two to 5. David Jordan's up another place to 4, and after five weeks at the top, Basshunter drops to 3. There's no move at number 2 for Nickelback, the other co-stars of James Masterton's podcast, and Sweeping the Nation dissected the video so you don't have to watch it. Unless you're watching Q-TV, where it's on. Right now.

Mercy on us all, Duffy comes straight in at number 1 with the song. It's her first top 40 hit single, and she joins Gnarls Barkley, Mika, Rihanna, and the Sugababes in hitting the top on pre-release downloads - the single's not in shops until the 25th. Not only is the number one not Nickelback, it's not Adele, and we do wonder why the BPI insisted on giving Adele one of their BPI awards as Brightest New Talent of 2008 when she's already not the Brightest New Talent of 2008 So Far (And We're Still Only In February).

Jack Johnson holds top of the albums for a second week, with Nickelback up one to 2. Michael Kiddyfiddler Jackson's Thriller 25 makes 3, Mozza's latest hits collection hits 5, and One Night Only place at 10 with Started a fire. Climbs for Michael Bublé (13-6), David Jordan (28-13), and Whitney Houston (55-29). Lower, Bill Kenwright and Laura Marling have new entries in the top 50, and there's a big re-entry for the Housemartins / Beautiful South singles collection. No idea why.

 1 NE Mercy - Duffy
 4  5 David Jordan - Sun goes down
10 18 Goldfrapp - A&E
13 13 One Night Only - Just for tonight
15  7 Hot Chip - Ready for the floor
17 57 Paramore - Misery business
19 11 Mark Brown / Sarah Cracknell
  - The journey continues
21 16 Scouting For Girls - Elvis ain't dead
23 21 Robyn - Be mine
24 25 Alicia Keys - No one
26 NE Simple Plan - When I'm gone
31 re Utah Saints - Something good
32 30 Mika - Relax take it easy
34 31 Wombats - Moving to New Amsterdam
35 34 Scouting for Girls - She's so lovely
36 14 Morrissey - That's how people grow up
37 33 Leona Lewis - Burning love
38 28 Cascada - What hurts the most
44 42 Yaël Naïm - New soul
46 45 Duffy - Rockferry
49 44 Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr. A
50 43 Sugababes - About you now
51 41 Amy MacDonald - This is the life
54 NE REM - Supernatural superserious
66 51 Robyn - With every heartbeat
73 NE Phantom Planet - Just

.. 10 Wet Wet Wet - Weightless
.. 55 Sugababes - Change
.. 58 Freemasons - Uninvited
.. 62 Bloc Party - Flux
.. 65 Jay-Zed / Linkin Park - Numb / Encore
.. 71 Iwasacubscout - Pink squares
.. 72 Mika - Happy ending

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

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The president of Timor Leste was shot and gravely injured in an assassination attempt on Monday. Mr. Ramos Horta was taken to hospital in Darwin, where he is expected to make a recovery. The firefight claimed the life of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, and injured the vice-president. The Timor Leste government said is was unhappy that United Nations soldiers failed to intervene during the exchanges.

The Australian prime minister offered a full apology for governmental mistreatment of native Australians. Mr. Rudd expressed his, and the government's, sincere regret for a policy of splitting children from their parents during the middle of the last century. More: ABC television, radio.

The backlash against this summer's Crass Spectacle in Peking has begun in earnest. The British authorities insisted that her representatives sign an agreement promising not to use their platform to make political statements, even though the human-rights abusing murderers will spend three weeks doing nothing else. Then one of the mercenary designers walked off the project, objecting to Red China's proxy war in Darfur.

Battle-lines continue to be drawn in Italy's election, with the opposition Democratic party confirming it would be lead by Walter Veltroni, who resigned this week as mayor of Rome. Television journalist Giuliano Ferrara announced that he preferred not to debate modern questions, like the interplay between foreign aggression and internal dissent, but would continue with the talking points from the 18th century. Sr. Ferrara has established a party purely to campaign against choice in abortion matters. Police in Naples quizzed one person after she secured a termination.

A senior member of Hizbollah was killed in Damascus; the organisation threatened open warfare against Israel, though it's not immediately clear that there was any link.

As we rather suspected, ancien British prime minister Mister Tony Blair personally halted the inquiry into Saudi Arabian bribes. To be honest, we couldn't trust him to run a shoe shop, never mind the European Union.

In the Italian election campaign, Sr. Berlusconi said that Italy was in financial trouble because Sr. Prodi had been tough on people who don't pay their taxes. His party is proposing the abolition of stamp duty on first-time homeowners, and making overtime free of income tax. These policies have been quietly nicked from other parties: FF proposed the stamp duty reform in Ireland, and M. Popup the reduction of income tax. The Christian Democrats confirmed that they would be running under their own banner, rather than cowering under the shell of Sr. Berlusconi.

And now, Expected Rejoinder of the Week. London attacks justify torture, deluded drunkard believes the victims support him. Enter, stage right, Rachel North London, who would - surely - be able to dismiss the rantings of an incoherent moron in approximately eight letters, then provide a more considered view. This is the politics of revenge and hate as well as the politics of fear.

Kosova proclaimed her independence from Serbia, becoming the seventh independent state to emerge from the six-republic Yugoslavia. Following allegations of Serbian aggression against the Albanian majority in the province, NATO led a two-month campaign of air bombardment. Though the west is expected to recognise the new state, Russia and Serbia will not.

Alistair Chancellor announced that he would nationalise the Northern Rock bank. Mr. Chancellor insisted that this was the best deal, that everyone would win, and that the government was in control of everything. Honest.

We regret to report the deaths of Edward Bramah, gone for a nice cup of tea; Badri Patarkatsishvili, Georgian politician.

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Though high pressure dominated the week, conditions varied tremendously. The early part continued the very warm days and very cold nights from last week-end - both Monday and Tuesday had ranges of 17°C, the highest in February this decade. A warm front moved west-to-east on Wednesday evening, bringing a thick layer of cloud, keeping night frosts and daytime sun away. The front retrogressed during Friday night, allowing deep frosts to develop. With the airflow now coming from the east, it took some days for the sun to build the temperatures. Saturday had an average below 0, and Sunday was the coldest night in the West Midlands since 1991. It's not a misprint, it did - briefly - reach -10°C just before sunrise.

The high pressure is set to continue until about Thursday; it's likely that fog will form overnight, and may linger into the day. The change will arrive, bringing westerly winds, with the prospect of rain the northern parts. Sharp night frosts until midweek, so do wrap up.

11 Mo sun               -5/12
12 Tu sun               -4/13
13 We sun               -5/11
14 Th cloud              2/ 4
15 Fr cloud              4/ 5
16 Sa sun               -6/ 5
17 Su sun              -10/ 8

Rainfall in February: 28.5mm; monthly average: 54mm

Degree heating days: 518
2006-7: 338½/499
2005-6: 464½/684
2004-5: 388½/556
2003-4: 501/754

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