(More: Local election results, Icke on Wogan, the Sunday Times being inconsistent, ELO Part II, cup final songs, Radio 1's breakfast show and the Eurovision Song Contest. With songs from Elvis Costello and Frances Nero.)

Blur reach the top 10 with their second single, There's no other way climbs that last one place. James dip five to 9 with Sit down, and Electronic continue to Get the message, up one to 8. The other joint fastest climber is Cathy Dennis's Touch me (all night long), up 18 to 7. No move at 6 for Vic Reeves and the Roman Numerals' interpretation of Born free. Chesney Hawkes is down three to 5 with The one and only; with 11 weeks in the top 75, he's now got the longest-staying single in the chart. Zucchero and Paul Young climb three to 4 with Senza una donna (without a woman), and OMD are up two to 3 with Sailing on the seven seas, now tying with 1981's Souvenir as their highest-charting hit. The KLF climb one place to 2 with Last train to trancentral, and it's a second week on top for Cher's The shoop shoop song (it's in his kiss).

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One final point from the election night coverage that we needed to research. Prof. King mentioned the worst results for the government in recent history: the 1985 county council elections had a projected national share of Lab 41 C 30 All 29. (Yes, we remember the Liberal / SDP Alliance.) Young whippersnappers...

The closing summary: that just about wraps it up for the New Labour project. The party smells of decay, it is a busted flush, and the work to get the Conservatives out, and get Jessica Duchen in, begins here.

Mayor Johnson has decreed that no-one shall consume alcohol on London's buses, tubes, trams, or stations. The final hedonistic Circle Line Party can take place on 31 May: afterwards, it's nothing stronger than ginger beer.

The leader of the Scottish Labour party has called for an early referendum on independence for Scotland. Mrs. Alexander clearly believes that this would spike the guns of the SNP, and settle the constitutional position for a generation or more.

The government-appointed Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has published its third report in five years into cannabis, and concluded that there was no evidence to change the penalties attached to cannabis. Consumption has fallen since 2004, and the incidence of mental disturbance amongst regular users has also decreased.

(More: On referenda in Scotland, the difference between The Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats, and the government ignoring good advice to pander to the tabloids.)

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Sometimes, on the very rare occasion, there is something of minor value in spam. So it was with one that plopped through our inbox recently from someone who was trying to sell us snake oil search-engine optimisation:

We can guarantee you top ten positions in G****e, or your money back [...]
The number of incoming G****e links: 0

Two thoughts arose. First, given that we already have an optimal position in G****e, why should we pay these people one new penny. And second, hey, we have an optimal position in G****e. Our main aim, of disrupting G****e's operation to a point that its index becomes clearly less useful, is complete.

For instance, a search for John Major's mistress on Clusty recently returned our feature article in top place, ahead of the column from Steve Platt of the New Statesman, and a re-print of an interview with Ms Latimer. Run the same search through Scroogle, and we're nowhere. The single most useful article (as determined by Clusty, it's not just us blowing our own trumpet) about Clare Latimer is invisible to G****e's remaining few users.

(More: further thoughts on comments, and it all comes back to a fair distribution of resources.)

The first part of our campaign has finished: G****e is now demonstrably less useful than it would be were it indexing our site, and does not feature any links to us. We can therefore reduce the aggressive re-directs in our campaign. With effect from 3 May, the following rules have been in effect:

• G****ebot remains barred.
• Any references in from a G****e site remain barred, unless they are allowed. This should be an academic point.
• References in from G****e Mail to specific HTML pages are allowed. We aim to allow links to the front page, but our code has yet to be tested.
• References in from G****e Mail to graphics files are barred. The first link in we got from this relaxation was some twerp remotely loading one of our graphics, and we can't be doing with that kind of nonsense.

The readme file has been amended.

We still believe that G****e is a fundamentally evil project, and that those who continue working for it are - at the very best - acting in an ethically poor manner.

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We were rather distracted by other things this week...

In the Netherlands, top hunk Marco Borsato is back, and Wit licht is the new number one. Lost highway is the new number one in Norway, and it's from reigning World Idle Kurt Nilsen.

In the UK, trouble for David Jordan, whose third single Move on can only make number 100. Noah and the Whale and Vampire Weekend also miss the canonical chart. There is space for Paramore's That's what you get, which we think is their best single so far; but also for Aerosmith's I don't want to miss a thing, which is nine-and-a-half years old. Lil Mama and Taio Cruz climb into the top 75, while Captain's Keep an open mind makes 53. Captain were EMI's big priority a couple of summers ago, but their rather decent track Glorious fell short of the top 40. Time's not been good to them, unlike Scooter, climbing 18 places to 49 with The question is what is the question.

Santogold breaks the top 40 with Les artistes up 14 to 37, a song that's beginning to grow on us. No such slowness for Sara Bareilles, Love song is up 22 to 30, it's one of those wonderfully upbeat and optimistic tunes that worm into the brain after about half a listen, but have depth. Unlike Nickelbore, whose Rockstar finally drops out after its 845,442nd week in the top 20.

Former Eurovision contestant watch, and James Fox (UK-04) has a second hit; Bluebirds flying high is recorded with the Cardiff City FC squad, and it's the first Cup Final single to chart in a surprisingly large number of years. Indeed, we reckon that it's the first substantial hit since Manchester United's Lift it high (all about belief) just missed the top ten in 1999. Remarkably, one of the actually decent cup final songs, though no Come on you reds. Since then, we've had Chelsea's Blue tomorrow (22, 2000) and Millwall's Oh Millwall (41, 2004), plus releases from Arsenal, Lincoln City, Yeovil, Bristol City, and supporters songs from Brighton and Hartlepools.

More Welsh talent as Duffy rises 12 to 17, but last week's Highest New Entry is this week's Fastest Climber, as Kely Rowland's Daylight rises 22 to 14. Kylie Minouge's In my arms is the fastest climber within the top 75, storming up 36 to 10. Shame it's rubbish. Coldplay have the highest new entry at 8 with Violet hill, a fact that marks a U-turn by ROPRA. The chart body has previously barred downloads of tracks that were available for free, but has now overturned its (rather ludicrous) original decision. For the moment, it's the highest place a digital-only song has made. Will I Am is the significant mover within a mostly-static upper tier, going 8-4 with Heartbreaker, and Wiley displaces Sam Sparro from number 2. Still no getting past the forty-nine-year-old-mother-of-two and Justin Numberwang. This top five pattern (1-3-2-8-4) has happened three times in the past, most recently the week before christmas 1995 with Wacko, Bozone, the Beatles, Bjork, and Everything But the Girl.

If the singles chart is staid to the point of predictability, the albums chart is remarkable. Scooter (yes, Scooter!) have the number 1 album, with their singles collection Jumping All Over The World. Mad Nod drops to two, Duffy holds at 3, and Sam Sparro has a new peak at 4. Def Leppard, Hadouken!, and the best of Willie Nelson enter into the top 20, with Jack McManus, The Delays, Steve Winwood, and hits of the Four Seasons entering the top 40. David Jordan, Vampire Weekend, and Paramore all see big rises on the back of small singles.

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

Also... there's only one reason why we're watching Gossip Girl, and it does help that it's one of the stars who a) doesn't look like her screen mother and b) can act.

The Advertising Standards Authority has finally decreed that advertisements must not be excessively noisy or strident, and will bar noisy stuff from the start of July. In particular, the maximum subjective loudness of the commercials must be the same as the maximum subjective loudness of the show it's interrupting. We're not throwing out our mute button yet...

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Johann Hari gave a useful manifesto for those who wish to cut the ground from underneath the BNP: build more council houses, boost the minimum wage, kill faith schools and ethnic centres. In short: follow the French model.

Dmitri Medvedev has been sworn in as Russia's new puppet, and pledged to ensure civil and economic freedom so long as it's what the KGB wants.

A cyclone hit the reclusive country of Burma. Though the ruling military junta has been reluctant to release numbers, it's believed that at least 50,000 were killed, and many more left homeless. The military junta was also reluctant to accept foreign aid, impounding much of the produce flown in by the UN, and declining visas for aid staff. Some countries muttered about launching an invasion to ensure that human rights were upheld; other powers, which don't treat human rights as rights, demurred, with Red China failing to exploit its considerable sway in Burma.

Forces loyal to Hizbollah gave a show-of-strength in west Beiruit, invading part of the city during three days of fierce fighting. The group withdrew after agreeing a ceasefire with the government and army.

This week's domestic spat was over the leadership of the Labour party. It was played out in many ways: Mrs. Alexander, the leader of Labour in the Scottish Parliament, invited the SNP to bring on an independence referendum. Her counterpart in Westminster, Mr. The Soup Dragon, said that Mrs. Alexander was not calling for an immediate referendum; though this was technically correct, it was misleading, as Mrs. Alexander had been requesting the SNP to bring forward a ballot scheduled for 2010. Sniping continuted from forces loyal to ancien British prime minister Mister Tony Blair; Mr. Prescott claimed that he had intervened in many battles between the two men, Mr. Byers expressed his doubts, and Mrs. Blair said that Mr. The Soup Dragon was consulting his predecessor for advice. Underlying all this is a profound shock at the party's woeful performance in local elections last week, and the realisation that Labour no longer enjoys the support of the country. See also: Alan Watkins on the battle of PMQs.

Sport, and Gloucester won the league in English rugby union. Leinster won the Celtic League.

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It's summer! Winds swung round to the south east on Monday, allowing long sunny spells to develop. At this time of year, and in light breezes, that will lead to increasingly warm days, and probably some thunder showers. The latter we've yet to experience, but the heat certainly grew over the week-end as the winds abated. Next week will see the picture reverse, with increasing easterly winds blowing the worst of the heat away. Pressure will drop for southern parts from about Wednesday, with the possibility of showers growing towards the week-end, so do wrap up.

05 Mo rain to cloud     11/20, 8.0
06 Tu sun                5/22
07 We sun                8/24
08 Th sun                8/23
09 Fr sunny spells      12/21
10 Sa cloudy            10/24
11 Su sun               12/25

Rainfall in May: 15.5mm; monthly average: 64mm

Degree heating days: 804
2006-7: 492/499
2005-6: 684/684
2004-5: 556/556
2003-4: 753/754

Degree cooling days: 19
2007: 5/ 91
2006: 13/360
2005: 1/238
2004: 2/198
2003: 11/328

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