(More: Yugoslavia and the USSR race towards the exits, it's Birmingham 6 Grand Slam 1, and profiles of Hazzel Dean, World of Twist, Pat and Mick, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, the Pet Shop Boys, Rod Stewart, and a stonkingly good number one single. This week's review also contains a hidden message.)

Last week's number one is this week's number 2: The Clash decide upon going, rather than staying. Climbing that last place to the top are Hale and Pace and the Stonkers, performing The stonk. Here was the single to support the 1991 Comic Relief appeal, and (whisper it softly) probably the best funny Comic Relief song ever. (Again, we're putting readers who download and like this on their honour to donate a few quid to Comic Relief or Sport Relief.)

So far, the standard had been for comedians to join with singers on amusing covers of existing songs - Cliff and the Young Ones' version of Living doll, Mel Smith and Kim Wilde on Rockin' around the christmas tree, Bananarama with French and Saunders on Help. Now, something different: a song that stood on its own merits. The stonk was written by Hale and Pace with Joe Griffiths, and produced by Bryan May of Queen - he also contributed the guitar-playing on the track. The B-side was also a quality song, Victoria Wood's self-penned The smile song.

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A sales pitch we received this week:

Domain seller announce local contact service in Serbia & Montenegro

Someone should tell them that Serbia and Montenegro split up almost two years ago, when they couldn't decide which no name act to send to Eurovision. They'll be flogging domains in Abyssinia before we can say Tippling Tanganyika!

The Indescribablyboring's list of boring is inspired by Alistair Chancellor, who started giving the budget speech at 12.33 last Wednesday, and stopped some time before we woke up. Alan Watkins appears to have leafed through the whole speech, and couches his discussion in terms of the price of the best wine. Just shy of a tenner, he reckons.

Dominic Lawson: The government doesn't believe in global warming. And Patrick Cockburn on the sheer mendacity of the warmongers.

Richard Adams on the moral hazard endorsed by Vernon Kay. (Moral hazard: banks will take greater risks if they think there is a safety net to catch them.) Larry Elliot argues that if the bankers want the taxpayer to bail them out, they have a moral duty to submit to much heavier regulation, and Bill Emmott on a necessary dose of reality. Robert Peston points out that the pound hasn't exactly skyrocketed - the euro's gained 10%. The Bank of England's response is headed by Charles Bean, which rather brings us to this interview with Vince Cable.

On the more optimistic side, Hamish McRae says it's serious, but not the end of the capitalist system. He's probably right - the collapse of any bank is always a bit of a surprise, and the lack of the trust required to underpin credit is going to make financial players much more cautious for a long time. The era of easy credit is over; people will have to come up with such things as (gasp!) a deposit and (shock!) some collateral. We agree that 2009 will be the year of reckoning, when the UK house price bubble finally deflates like a balloon with a very slow puncture.

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Red China's commitment to athletic endeavours is so great that it's closed Everest for the year so that it can stage a photo-opportunity. Meanwhile, we hear that the Red Chinese government is cutting the BBC World feed during stories about Tibet.

Sweeping the Nation looks into what BBC Radio's been playing this week and over the past two years. (We have a vague recollection that the sekrit / 6music scrobble was more off than on until April 2006, and the numbers of plays tend to bear that out.)

We note that ITV2 will finally get round to airing Gossip Girl from to-night.

Not Sneaky on how to read The Economist.

Express Sleazepapers gave an unprecedented apology to two suspects in a long-running case. The step, in which the little-read papers loudly proclaims the innocence of the suspects, shows clear contempt for the due legal process in Portugal, and pre-judges the outcome of the ongoing enquiry.

Which brings us to the file labelled Great Non-Apologies Of Our Time: Anton Nosik attacks his critics. According to Mr. Nosik, SUP is in a situation where people are trying to scare and blackmail us, threatening to destroy our business. (There has been some dispute about the quality of the translation: see a somewhat looser one here, and Mr. Nossik has subsequently written to the topic.) We shall, of course, be participating in the Great Boycott on Friday. Not in protest against anything the current owners have done, but because it's Day 709 of the We Decline To Accept Your Unilateral Change Of Contract And Shall Not Contribute Unless And Until You Honour All Existing Terms boycott.

Incidentally, we wonder what SUP proposes to do with all the user data it's building up from Open id. Remember St. Fitzpatrick's last big idea, the one that allowed Six Apart and its successors to construct huge userprofiles of those who thought YADIS was in any way cool or useful? If you're using Livejournal as an authentication token in the DNS With Bells On system, you're leaving crumbs for the Poutineists.

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We do worry about the Germans sometimes: not only have they got two songs by the dull-as-anything Amy Whingebag in their top 10, there's something new into the top 30. Chasing cars. Bring back DJ Ötzi, all is forgiven*. Meanwhile, Deus are on the loose, The architect lands at 3 in Flanders. No surprise to find Duffy back at number 1 in Ireland, but what's the attraction of Mundy and Sharon Shannon's Galway girl; in particular, why is it up from 14 to 2?

Shy of the top 100 are new releases from Scooter and Portishead. Count and Sinden, Cassie, and Britney Spears land between 100 and 75, where Jordin Sparks and Cascada are climbing. Will I Am lands at 74, and Supergrass hit 73 with Bad blood. James Blunt's newie, Carry you home, is in at 65. Good to see Yaël Naïm rebound in at 54. The Manics' version of Umbrella rises 54-47, and the Enemy are not happy, as This song is about you enters at 41, edged out of the 40 by Scouting for Girls (18 weeks) and Amy Whingebag (37).

New into the top 40 come Gabriella Cilmi. She's an Australian singer-songwriter with a squeaky voice. Reminds us a lot of Gabriela Kulka, a reference that is guaranteed to pass over the heads of 96% of our regular readers. The backlash against Foals is under way already, down 11 to 37. Fastest climber honours to Gnarls Barkley, up 19 to 32 with Run, a song very similar to their previous works, though just different enough to confuse the people who programme radio stations. Pestside move 8-18-30. Natasha Bedingplant makes 27 with Love like this, and Sam Sparro appears at 23 with Black & Gold, which leaves us cold.

First top 20 hit for the Guillemots, Get over it lands at 20. It's the one that talks about my side of the story in a manner reminiscent of early Manics. More hit than miss. A press release stated this week that another retailer would stop stocking singles, leaving the market open to the dog and the indies and the river. Two singles with big physical releases don't get much of a lift: The Sugababes stick at 15 with Denial, and Panic At The Disco slip one to 14 with Nine in the afternoon.

After the flop that was the theme to St Trinian's, the Council Estate Slappers begin a new chain of top ten singles from scratch as Can't speak French rises 16-9, the fastest climber within the top 40. The Utah Saints rise 9-8, and new at 7 comes Madonna and Justin Numberwang with 4 minutes. According to rumour, a lot can happen in four minutes: Mark Owen issued a warning in 2004, and Britney Spears's first time was less than half that length. Anyway, it's Madge's sixth entry at number 7, and none of the other hits - Causing a commotion, Rain, Another suitcase in another hall, Nothing really matters, and What it feels like for a girl - really did anything of note.

No move at 5 for Nickelback, now ten weeks in the top 5. Third week at number 4 for Onerepublic, and Leona Lewis dips a place to 3 (and 26). Last week's number 1 is this week's number 2 as Duffy's deposed by Estelle and Kayne West's Moronican boy. There's always something new in the chart, in this case a re-entry at number 1: this track appeared at 72 two weeks ago.

On the albums, Duffy holds at the top for a third week, keeping Muse's live album Haarp at 2. Onerepublic slips to 3, Leona holds at 4. New at 5 for Elbow's The seldom seen kid, and Bryan Adams hits 6 with 11. More hoary old farts: Mike Oldfield is 9 with Music of the Spheres, and Van Morrison is 10 with Keep it Simple. We Are Scientists hit 11 with Brain Thrust Mastery, and Taio Cruz makes 17 with Departure. All of this activity briefly pushes Amy MacDonald down 9-18 and Mark Ronson 10-23, while Goldfrapp's 6-19 and MGMT's 12-34 look permanent. Much lower down, Neon Neon land at 67 with Stainless Style.

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

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Belgium has a new government, a mere nine months after the general election.

Domestic news included the publication of the judgement in the McCartney - Mills divorce; the middle classes continuing to hold up their hands in horror at the death of Scarlett Keeling, culminating in Mrs. Keeling going into hiding; and the Australians deciding to send a sex pest back to the UK, even though he's not lived here in over sixty years.

The GAA Club finals were held this week. The hurling champions are Portuma, who beat Birr by 3-19 to 3-09. The football match was much closer, St Vincent's beating Nemo Rangers by 1-11 to 0-13.

We regret to report the death of Anthony Mingella, former Grange Hill script editor; and of Arthur C. Clarke, science-fiction writer.

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A much more settled week than previously, but a cold one in generally northerly winds. The Easter week-end was marked by wintery showers on all three days. Things look a little warmer during next week, though maybe still too cold for the lawnmower...

17 Mo sunny spells       4/ 8
18 Tu sunny spells       1/ 8
19 We sun               -2/ 8
20 Th cloud              4/10
21 Fr wind, snow showers 2/ 8, 4.0
22 Sa wintery showers    2/ 6, 1.0
23 Su wintery showers    1/ 6, 1.0

Rainfall in March: 55mm; monthly average: 52mm

Degree heating days: 655½
2006-7: 456/499
2005-6: 661/684
2004-5: 531/556
2003-4: 691/754

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