(More: Yugoslavia, World Party, why Paul Weller is like Margaret Thatcher, Flowered Up, Wilson Phillips, and Tainted Love. With songs by OMD and Crystal Waters.)

Down a place to 4 came Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, with Sailing on the seven seas. Cor, remember when they had hits? From the sublime to the earwig: the highest new entry, straight in at number 3, is Crystal Waters's Gypsy woman (la da dee), so named for people who only knew the track from its very large hook. Those who remembered the song from its stabbing keyboard section were less lucky. All of which leaves no change at 2 for the KLF's Last train to trancentral, and a third week leading the way for Cher's Shoop shoop song.

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Mr. GB ponders if Labour could be heading for a wipeout along the lines of the Conservatives in 1993. What, you don't recall the great Conservative wipeout of 1993? After nine years in power, and under a new leader, the party hoped for a respectable defeat. But the party ran a shockingly poor election campaign, described by some as directionless, allowing the nationalists to form the opposition.

This is a party with a past and a present but above all this is a party and a country with a future, said the new leader when she assumed office just four months earlier. What, still confused? This is Canadian politics, in an era where people called Avril had to change their name to Kim in order to be taken seriously, only to find that they would have been taken more seriously if they'd campaigned on a policy of low-cut jeans, pink hair streaks, and bangles for all. And if you're reading, Mr. Eager Young Space Cadet...

(More: Reviewing the decline, fall, and collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in the 1993 election, and wondering what lessons we might learn for the UK.)

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Goth Morris Dancing is discussed in Fame or Famine referencing the Indytab. The point, in part, is that no-one actually recalls what Morris dancing is all about, so why not claim it for the men in black, or the feminists, or the pagans.

The Radio Academy awards were dished out. Apparently, the least worst breakfast show in the UK is made by Cliff Moyles on Radio 1; we dread to think how bad the other nominees were. Best music show overall is Dermot O'Leary on Radio 2, which we can certainly believe, but there are many more entertaining programmes than Russell Brand's unlistenable Saturday night nonsense on Radio 2.

A good night for the World Service, taking the News Programme and News Journalist awards for Owen Bennett-Jones's masterful handling of the Bhutto assassination. That World Have Your Say is better than anything LBC or Talk Radio can churn out damns them. Saturday Live won the Speech Programme gong, it's grown on us over the two years; Simon Mayo won Speech Broadcaster, as he should every year; and Mary Kalemkerian won Programmer for her work on BBC7. We could tinker with her schedule (fewer Goons and more Then Show, but that's all.)

Comedy went to Down the Line, which we don't get, and we're not going to comment on many of the special awards, because we don't hear them. Digital Station went to Planet Rock, which must be a big slap in the chops to GWR in general and Fru Hazlitt in particular, seeing as how she wants to close the station. National station goes to Radio 4, as much on a Buggins' Turn as its actual quality. The Gold award went to Brian Matthew, who has been presenting Sounds of the Sixties since it was contemporary. The rising star, apparently, is utterly rubbish George Lamb, the single best advertisment for Ken Bruce. Let us hope that this is the equivalent of the BPI Best Newcomer award, the kiss of death for Busted, Blue, A1, Macy Gray, Kula Shaker, Robert Miles, Lisa Loeb, Tasmin Archer, McHammer, Tracy Chapman...

The annual list of the most objectionable books was published. Good to see some of the trash being singled out for the obnoxious nonsense that it is.

Planet pop, and Germany has a new number one. Hurrah! Unfortunately, in to replace Mad Nod is Mark Medlock, the disturbingly popular winner of DSDS a couple of years ago, and now singing about Summer love in a voice that suggests autumn dumping. Mad's hit the top in Ireland, but the shock is that the Ting Tings are straight in, from nowhere, at number 2.

A re-release of Rhythm is a dancer, new releases from Pendulum and David Jordan, and a Mad Nod album track all clog up the bottom end of the chart. Chanelle Hayes is best known as a cheap and rubbish imitation of The Frayer, and also for winning Celebrity Big Brother a few years ago when she wasn't famous. She's had a series all over MTV (or was it VH-1? Who cares!) recently, and said that she would give up this pop star lark if I want it failed to make the top 40. It's new at number 63. Byee!

Sandi Thom puts The devil's beat in at 59, Paramore climb 16 to 55 with That's what you get. Gusto have Disco's revenge 2008, Hot Chip One pure thought, and Neil Diamond's Pretty amazing grace all enter in the respectable column (54, 53, 49), while The Cure's big comeback - The only one - only makes 48. Don't cry, Robert, you'll ruin your eyeliner.

For no adequately explored reason, Fall Out Bore and John Mayormaynot move back up 25 to 40 with Beat it, a version of Wierd Al Yankovic's tribute to gluttony, Eat it. We thought it had peaked on entry at 46 a month ago. Lil Wayne rises three to 39 with Lollipop, which is a pile of pants, and should be replaced by Mika's song of the same name. Or just three minutes of silence. Or that birdsong they've got on the bitty wireless. Pleased to see Royworld crack the top end with Dust, a rather haunting tune in at 35. Taio Cruz cracks the top 30 with I can be, up 24 places to 30, but we challenge anyone not to be humming Pure shores after hearing it. Santogold's up 10 to 27 with Les artistes, a real grower. Ashley Simpson's also back up, Out of my head climbs 10 to a new peak at 26. Neyo slips a couple to 24, he's still about a month ahead of release, while Sara Bareilles is up seven to 23.

Gabriela Cilmi's also got a new peak, back up four to 19. Nelly's Party people climb three to 16, and the Pigeon Detectives scoot up 10 to 14 with This is an emergency. Duffy's new one, Warwick avenue, is up four to 13, even though the video is shockingly cheap. Coldplay's new song is static at 8, and William holds at 4. Mad Nod and Justin Numberwang come down from 1 to 3, and Rihanna's Take a bow is new at 2. We turned it off when we figured that it wasn't a cover of Mad Nod's 1994 track.

Though Royworld have the third-highest entry at 35, we've new entries at 2 and 1. Straight in at the top are the Ting Tings, a two-piece from Liverpool, who were tipped for great things in the BBC's annual Spotting the Painfully Obvious poll, alongside Adele and Duffy. Ver Tings's first single, Great DJ, was deliberately disqualified from the chart last February, ensuring that they join the short list of people - beginning with Whigfield and Robson and Jerome - to have debuted at number 1.

It's old fogies week on the albums chart - Neil Diamond's Home Before Dark is the new number 1, beating much-hyped Pendulum's In Silico. Jay Sean comes into the top ten, but so does a ten-years-after-his-death retrospective for Frank Sinatra. The Searchers, Iron Maiden, and Bobby Vee all enter in the top 20, with Josh Groban just missing out. Death Cab For Cutie, Santogold, and Moby make the 30, Dan le Sac and Scroobius Pip and Flight of the Conchords enter at 31 and 32, with Isobel Campbell / Mark Lanegan, and the Charlatans making the top 40. Phew!

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

• More or Less (Open University for Radio 4) A long piece on how good opinion polls can be, comparing the telephone polls of MORI with the interweb polls on Youguv. MORI moaned that Youguv got the right result to the London mayoral election by applying the correct weighting to the results, which strikes us as thoroughly mean. Discussion also of the BNP's ludicrous claim that 400,000 votes were discarded in the election; these were the non-effective non-transferable votes we mentioned at the time. Plus why the WRAP project believes that people should eat bones, and does CCTV actually help to cut crime, and seeing as how it doesn't, why is so much money wasted on the schemes? Showpage
• Banter (Avalon for Radio 4) Victoria Coren takes over, though David Baddiel was on the panel, along with David Mitchell and Rev. Richard Coles of the Communards. Who, apparently, is now a church of England minister, and thinks Mr. Mitchell should join him. Miss Coren allows the panel to flow on their topic, spending ten minutes or so on the subject, then gently winding up and moving on. Dare we say it, the right host for the show? Showpage
• Have I Got News For You (Hat Trick for BBC-2) Quite possibly the best episode in some years, particularly Kirsty Young getting some delightfully rubbish puns through the autocue. The man denied that he had an obsession with lager; he has four ex-wives and a foster child. Frankie Boyle tended towards the worth-his-fee, Charlie Higson was completely forgettable. Showpage
• Feedback (City Broadcasting for Radio 4) Roger Wrong defends his handling of Radio 3 from those who would like it to be wall-to-wall classical music. Isn't he rather arguing against himself here? There's also reaction to a discussion on the production of meat, and why library music is still used for radio drama. Showpage

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A sweatshop inspector writes on how he tries to ensure that factories meet minimum standards. The rule-of-thumb, we reckon, is to ask if the company carries out inspections before signing a contract, and makes the inspections public.

Unions are good for production, argues Kathy at Crooked Timber. For one thing, there's a lower turnover of staff, which must be A Good Thing. Unionised firms also tend to have fewer managers and more productive people. Of course, anything that stands in the way of vulture capitalists extracting the last ounce of flesh is going to be soundly criticised in the current climate, but they'll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

A massive earthquake struck Sichuan in China; many thousands were killed, and the Red China government asked for outside assistance. Burma continued to refuse foreign aid, and though foreign governments blustered and blew, they didn't impose their will on the regime.

Voters in Serbia backed pro-Western parties, giving the Democratic Socialist party of President Tadic a narrow majority. The pro-Russian Radical Party refused to go down without a fight, muttering about a coalition without the most popular party. The pro-Russians took 48% of the vote, compared to 42% for the pro-Europeans. (Mark Mardell)

British finance minister Alistair Chancellor announced an emergency mini-budget, the second of the year. By raising the personal allowance for income tax by £600, he will be cutting taxes for all on the basic rate by £120. The mini-budget was forced on Mr. Chancellor by his predecessor's decision to abolish a 10% starter rate, while reducing the basic rate to 20%. Taxpayers on the higher 40% rate will find their allowance reduced to compensate. The move is intended to benefit lower-paid people, but still leaves over a million people - 20% of those affected - worse off, and it increases the government's borrowing by £2.5md.

Domestic attention turned towards a debate on embryo research, which was being hijacked by those superstitious people who do not believe in contraception, and particularly do not believe in abortion. The public face of the raiding party was Nadine Dorries, the Conservative member for Mid-Bedfordshire, who wishes to see the time limit for legal abortion reduced to 20 weeks. She has based her critique on a urban myths, on deliberately misrepresenting research, and launching ad hominem attacks on her opponents. Though she doesn't openly reveal her backers, some digging reveals it's the godbotherers again, and they - not Mrs. Dorries - are the real brains behind this illiberal campaign. More on Nadine Dorries (aka Nadine Bargery) at Ministry of Truth.

Worst headling of the week went to the BBC, for DEMOCRAT: Kennedy rushed to hospital We had fears over the health of Charles Kennedy, but it turned out to be some bloke called Edward from one of the colonies.

The world's best tennis player, Justine Henin, has announced that she will stop playing tennis with immediate effect. Many have suggested that it's a retirement, but we reckon she's just going to defect to Britain. The UEFA Cup was won by Zenit St. Petersburg, beating Rangers 2:0. The FA Cup in England was won by Portsmouth, beating Cardiff 1:0.

We regret to report the death of Tommy Burns, former Celtic player and manager.

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As we suspected, the extreme heat of last week-end was dissipated by winds from the north-east, but a real change didn't come until fronts moved in from the south-west during Thursday. The early part of Friday, in particular was wet. Next week's forecast is broadly similar: mostly dry, but cool, and with rain spreading up from the south-west for the bank holiday week-end. So do wrap up.

12 Mo sun                9/22
13 Tu sun                9/19
14 We sun                8/17
15 Th showers            8/14, 1.5
16 Fr rain to cloud      8/12,11.5
17 Sa showers            9/12, 4.0
18 Su sun to cloud       5/13

Rainfall in May: 32.5mm; monthly average: 64mm

Degree heating days: 805
2006-7: 492½/499
2005-6: 684/684
2004-5: 556/556
2003-4: 753/754

Degree cooling days: 21
2007: 5/ 91
2006: 13/360
2005: 1/238
2004: 6/198
2003: 11/328

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