The new look

Yes, observant readers will have noticed that we've taken down the yuletide decorations, and moved to a new, blue, look. There are even headlines for the articles. Do let me know what you think.

Unsafe airways

For the past three days, passengers on BA223 from Heathrow to Washington DC have been seriously inconvenienced. On Wednesday, the arriving plane was detained for three hours, while agents of the Washington junta re-checked the passengers' documents. Nothing was found. On Thursday and Friday, the flight was entirely cancelled. All passengers have been booked onto other flights to the junta's HQ without anything happening.

Speculation is that the junta's pisspoor "intelligence" services are confusing 223 the flight number with 223 the UN resolution number. General Assembly resolution 223, passed in 1997, condemns Jewish settlements on the West Bank and the Gaza strip as "illegal" and "a major obstacle to peace."

Big sellers of the year

One final note on the biggest selling singles of 2003. I've been tracking the most successful new songs by British acts, as that's the criterion they used for the BPI Most Popular Single last year. Here's the eligible records that made the overall top 100:

1. (5.) Will Young - 'Leave Right Now'
2. (10.) Darkness - 'Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)'
3. (12.) Dido - 'White Flag'
4. (18.) David Sneddon - 'Stop Living The Lie'
5. (22.) Rachel Stevens - 'Sweet Dreams My La Ex'
6. (24.) Ultrabeat - 'Pretty Green Eyes'
7. (26.) Jamelia - 'Superstar'
8. (33.) Darkness - 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love'
9. (34.) Busted - 'Year 3000'
10. (36.) Bo Selecta - 'Proper Crimbo'
11. (37.) Fast Food Rockers - 'Fast Food Song'
12. (39.) Big Brovaz - 'Baby Boy'
13. (40.) Mis-Teeq - 'Scandalous'
14. (43.) Sugababes - 'Hole In The Head'
15. (48.) Busted - 'Crashed The Wedding'
16. (51.) Blue - 'Guilty'
17. (54.) Daniel Bedingfield - 'Never Gonna Leave Your Side'
18. (56.) Girls Aloud - 'No Good Advice'
19. (59.) Busted - 'You Said No'
20. (63.) Simply Red - 'Sunrise'
21. (65.) Sinead Quinn - 'I Can't Break Down'
22. (71.) Lemar - 'Dance (With U)'
23. (72.) Oasis - 'Songbird'
24. (73.) Panjabi MC - 'Mundian To Bach Ke'
25. (75.) Kym Marsh - 'Cry'
26. (76.) Alex Parks - 'Maybe That's What It Takes'
27. (83.) Mark Owen - 'Four Minute Warning'
28. (84.) Blazin' Squad - 'Flip Reverse'
29. (85.) Lisa Maffia - 'All Over'
30. (86.) Busted - 'Sleeping With The Light On'
31. (92.) Girls Aloud - 'Life Got Cold'
32. (93.) Robbie Williams - 'Something Beautiful'
33. (94.) Atomic Kitten - 'If You Come To Me'
34. (95.) Gareth Gates - 'Say It Isn't So'
35. (96.) Emma - 'Maybe'

Blimey, That's Rubbish

Channel 4's list of the 100 Worst Records Of All Time, Ever. Here's some highlights. Or lowlights.

1. The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) - The Cheeky Girls. A friend suggested this duo would be the UK entry for Eurovision 03. They couldn't have done any worse...
2. The Millennium Prayer - Cliff Richard. Cliff pretends to be the famous Mr Christ.
3. Agadoo - Black Lace
4. Candle In The Wind 1997 - Elton John. Not just because it eclipsed the perfectly adequate A-side.
5. Fast Food Song - The Fast Food Rockers
6. Mr Blobby - Mr Blobby. Oh, just listen to the first twenty seconds and say this isn't a classic slice of pop.
7. Because We Want To - Billie. Smash Hits is entirely to blame. Entirely.
8. Barbie Girl - Aqua. Another anthem for kiddyfiddlers, eclipsing a band with decent talent.
9. Achy Breaky Heart - Billy Ray Cyrus
10. Jenny From The Block - Jennifer Lopez. Ludicrous pomposity from someone who can't sing, can't act, and looks like a complete minger.
11. Orville's Song - Keith Harris and Orville. "Orville" is almost correct.
12. Look At Me - Geri Halliwell. Actually, this wasn't so bad. "It's Raining Men," that was uncalled for.
13. Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini - Bombalurina feat. Timmy Mallett. Reasons to dislike Andrew Lloud-Webby, number one.
14. (Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams. Number one for ten thousand million years.
15. Sacred Trust - One True Voice. That's just cruel.
16. Against All Odds - Mariah Carey and Westlife. How come this travesty isn't number one. And how come no one planted a large explosive device while they were filming their video? Save us all a lot of pain.
17. Who Let The Dogs Out? - Baha Men. Jonathan King was arrested while promoting this record. He's currently serving seven years. Will he ask for similar crimes against humanity to be taken into account?
18. 5,6,7,8 - Steps. Their worst record.
19. Living Next Door To Alice (Who The F**k Is Alice) - Smokie feat. Roy 'Chubby' Brown. It had to come out of a steaming hot summer.
20. Anyone Can Fall In Love - Anita Dobson. Yes, it's Karaoke Theme Songs!
21. There's No One Quite Like Grandma - St. Winifred's School Choir. Good to see that at least one of the pink-clad choir has turned into a birrova goth.
22. Teletubbies Say 'Eh-Oh' - The Teletubbies. It gave Toyah Wilcox a best-seller.
23. Earth Song - Michael Jackson. Jarvis Cocker had it right.
24. The Lady In Red - Chris de Burgh
25. My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion. It was downhill ever since she won Eurovision.
26. No Way No Way - Vanilla. James Masterson says this was the result of a lost bet.
27. Wannabe - The Spice Girls. Unfair. Very unfair. It didn't feature the singing "talents" of Victoria Posh Spice Beckham Aadams, so has to be amongst their best.
28. For All Time - Catherine Zeta Jones. A minor hit in 1992. She couldn't sing then, and, shockingly, still can't.
29. Mama - Who Da Man? - Richard Blackwood. Speaking of people who can't sing, can't act, and aren't funny...
30. Can I Touch You There? - Michael Bolton
31. The Birdie Song - The Tweets
32. Suspicious Minds - Gareth Gates
33. Diamond Lights - Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle
34. Lucky - Britney Spears. Que? If you want to bash Britney, do it to that "Me Against The Music" trash.
35. Long Haired Lover From Liverpool - Little Jimmy Osmond
36. Believe - Cher. Inspired the Olsen Brothers, so cannot be forgiven.
37. Macarena - Los Del Rio. "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it..."
38. Boys (Summertime Love) - Sabrina. I never saw the video, so never understood the rabid fandom of my (male) classmates.
39. Just Say No - Grange Hill Cast. Another of Nancy Reagan's crimes against humanity.
40. Y Viva Espania - Sylvia
41. Unchained Melody - Robson and Jerome. This needs to be higher. One point seven million copies of this went out in two crackers months. No space, oddly, for the other big act of 1995, the Outhere Brothers.
42. Can We Fix It? - Bob the Builder. Kept Pestiside from the festive #1 in 2000, so thanks.
43. Fog On The Tyne (Revisited) - Gazza and Lindisfarne. This should be much, much, much higher. Paul Gascoigne couldn't sing, shouldn't have sung.
44. Shaddap You Face - Joe Dolce Music Theatre
45. Chick, Chick, Chicken - Natalie Casey
46. Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice. Kept Gazza as a #2 single.
47. Touch Me (I Want Your Body) - Samantha Fox
48. Grandad - Clive Dunn
49. Puppy Love - Donny Osmond
50. Hooray Hooray, It's a Holi-Holiday - Boney M. As covered by the Cheekys.
51. I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston. Far worse than Bryan Adams, and upped the stakes in the Warble Wars with Mariah Cantsing.
52. Dick-A-Dum-Dum (King's Road) - Des O'Connor
53. Girl, You Know It's True - Milli Vanilli. Unfair. The record wasn't so bad, the fakery was.
54. Out Of Your Mind - Truesteppers and Dane Bowers feat. Victoria Beckham. Famously kept at #2 by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, the 83rd most famous Godolphin & Latymers' old girl.
55. Mysterious Girl - Peter Andre. The followup, "Flavour", was even worse. Kept from the top by "Three Lions." Speaking of which...
56. Back Home - England World Cup Squad
57. Every Loser Wins - Nick Berry. Higher! Higher! Perhaps the worst hit from 1986, a star year for shit hits.
58. MmmBop - Hanson. Oh, unfair. The trio are a thoroughly talented band, and if only they'd not tried to be the new Monkees in that video. Now operating outside The Music Conglomerates, so 200 cool points.
59. Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep - Middle of the Road
60. I Wanna Be A Hippy - Technohead. Covered later in the year by the Smurfs as "I Want A Little Puppy." And where are the Smurfs on this list?
61. Don't It Make You Feel Good - Stefan Dennis. Silly question, really.
62. I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) - Meatloaf. Grossly unfair. "That" is defined in the song, even the abbreviated single edit. Go listen to Bat 2.
63. We All Stand Together - Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus
64. Star Trekkin - The Firm. Very useful to sing to oneself while aeroplanes are descending to help equalise the pressure. Just don't get carried away and do the dance.
65. Perfect Moment - Martine McCutcheon. Sappy shite.
66. Doop - Doop
67. We Are The World - USA for Africa. Bears a curious resemblance to Jacko's "Heal The World."
68. Give Me Your Body - The Chippendales
69. I Should Be So Lucky - Kylie Minogue. She could hold down half the list by herself. I'd cite The Na Na Song as her nadir.
70. Cotton Eye Joe - The Rednex. Kept Bozone and Sealion off the top spot.
71. The Floral Dance - Terry Wogan
72. I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper - Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip
73. We Will Rock You - Five feat. Queen. Don't. Just don't.
74. Dirrty - Cristina Aguilera. A complete flop in the US, and for very good reason.
75. Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Middler. Oh, a tad unfair. Bette's version isn't the best, but it's not that bad.
76. No Limits - 2 Unlimited. No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there's no lyrics.
77. I Wanna Sex U Up - Color Me Badd
78. The Laughing Gnome - David Bowie
79. Love Is All Around - Wet Wet Wet. Inspired Jarvis Cocker's first on-air pop protest.
80. So Macho - Sinitta
81. American Pie - Madonna. The nadir of anyone's career. You don't cover this song and get away with it.
82. Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? - Rod Stewart
83. We Built This City - Starship. Unfair. The best time capsule of the mid 80s west coast rock.
84. Let's Get Ready To Rhumble - PJ and Duncan. Very unfair. The lads worked their socks off to promote this, and the rest of their career is directly attributable to this single.
85. Love And Tears - Naomi Campbell. A #40 hit in 1994. The word "Why" springs to mind.
86. Save Your Love - Rene and Renato
87. Saturday Night - Whigfield
88. Hello - Lionel Richie. Oh no.
89. Remember You're A Womble - The Wombles
90. MacArthur Park - Richard Harris
91. I'd Rather Jack - The Reynolds Girls. We thought Stock Aitken and Waterman couldn't get worse than this. Then they brought us Big Fun.
92. Vindaloo - Fat Les. It's a flimmin' joke song.
93. Ebony And Ivory - Paul McCartney with Stevie Wonder. Fab Macca (one of only two men to make two entries here) at his most sycophantic.
94. My Toot Toot - Denise la Salle
95. Ebeneezer Goode - The Shamen
96. Making Your Mind Up - Bucks Fizz
97. Do They Know It's Christmas? - Band Aid II. Second entries for Cliff and Kylie. Does that make Cliff top of this chart?
98. Rabbit - Chas and Dave
99. C'est la Vie - Bewitched
100. Spaceman - Babylon Zoo

And no mention of the worst crimes against musicality ever, "Mull of Kintyre" and "Imagine."

The Donald Rumsveld Whopper Of The Week

Why not merge two running features - Broadcasting House's "Donald Rumsveld Soundbite Of The Week", and Slate's "Whopper Of The Week" into one.

In Belgian paper Le Soir, Coelin Powell, the illiterate US opposition foreign spokesmoron, says that his country's foreign policy would not be defined by pre-emptive war. His counterpart shadowing the defence department says, yes, as far as he's concerned, his country's foreign policy is defined by pre-emptive war.

History Today

My highlight of every January 1 is the release of Cabinet papers from 31 years ago. This year, 1973 comes out.

It was a completely different world back then. The US was set to invade Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after the Arabian oil boycott. The US's dependence on crude oil was determining the foreign policy of a crooked administration. In these enlightened times, there's no danger of anyone seizing the White House by illegal means, nor of the US invading a far-off foreign country to secure her next fix of petroleum. A report commissioned by PM Ted Heath said: "The United States might consider it could not tolerate a situation in which the US and its allies were at the mercy of a group of unreasonable countries. We believe the American preference would be for a rapid operation conducted by themselves to seize oilfields."

The Conservative party was shamed by ministers seeing prostitutes. Lord Lambton, who resigned from the defence ministry post later held by Alan Clark, threw himself into a "frenzied round of vigorous gardening and debauchery." A round of vigorous gardening?! We have to remember that Charlie Dimmock was still a quarter century away from being famous for her vigorous garden exercises. Lord Jellicoe, who went down in the same scandal, was the minister in charge of settling the Ugandan Asians, and claimed to be working on this tricky situation when he was actually with the other women. From this event, we take the phrase "discussing Ugandan affairs".

There were pre-emptive rows about the failure of Concorde to sell, with the French blaming "British incompetence and defeatism," and the Brits blaming France's inability to get the project out on time. The Bloody Sunday inquiry continued, with criticism of Lord Widgery's acceptance of soldiers' reports at face value. The second inquiry is now into its fifth year with no end in sight.

The Cabinet chipped in £10.53 for a present to Anne Windsor and Mark Phillips; the combined dough went on a Persian rug derided as "crumby" against a crystal bowl from the US. That's what happens when you don't vacuum enough. Anne's father, Philip Battenburg, whined about the "small p" on a 50p piece to mark the UK's entry to the EEC.

Mind Your Language

The annual Superior Words List is out. Seventeen words and phrases encounter the wrath of the self-appointed referees. That list in full...

• Metrosexual. In its original definition, a city-dwelling straight with a keen interest in things queer. I've never actually met one of these mythical creatures.
• X. As in "X-files", "Xtreme", "X-Box." Often used to denote something unknown, usually denotes something trying to be hip and happening, but failing dismally. Popularised by top radio station Xfm.
• Punked. To dupe. This isn't a usage I've come across.
• Place Stamp Here Yes, as seen on envelopes. It should be superfluous, but a) there is reasonable confusion whether the envelope is pre-paid or not, and b) never underestimate the idiocy of the US public. They almost elected George Bush Jr.
• Companion animals. Pets. Why use seven syllables when one will suffice?
• Bling. Flashy jewellry, apparently. Good for one pun, and now that the movie's come out, we can put that away.
• LOL. Laughing out loud. Looked desperately sad in 1996, should have been deprecated by 2000, has no place at all today.
• Embedded Journalist. Someone who is putting forward military propaganda and disguising it as news. It's not journalism.
• Smoking Gun. A cliche back in the 80s.
• Shock and Awe. I'm sorely tempted to call my dead pool the Shock And Awe Lethal Lottery.
• Captured Alive. As opposed to captured dead, which makes no sense whatsoever.
• Shots Rang Out. No, shots were heard, bullets rang out.
• Ripped From the Headlines. Apparently used for telly shows with a passing resemblance to current events.
• Sweat Like a Pig. They don't.
• In Harm's Way. Harm does not have a path, it just manifests. Bad theology.
• Hand-Crafted Latte. Giving the impression of someone fingering the drink before you drink it. Lovely.
• Sanitary Landfill. A dump.

No place for "regime", as used to disparage governments we don't like.

Carrie's War

The BBC's highlight of the night was a lavish reworking of Carrie's War. Nina Bawden's novel is as old as I am, and comparisons are going to be made with the BBC's adaptation from 1974. That ran for 125 minutes, and was repeated until the late 80s; this lasts just 90, and premiered tonight.

The basic plot revolves around Sam Evans' (fire, brimstone, miserly) spat with his widowed sister Dilys Gotobed (rich, warm). The siblings haven't talked for many years, and Sam sees Carrie as a possible go-between to re-establish contact. Sam also can't stand his sister Lou seeing a US soldier, and Carrie keeps the wool over his eyes. Dilys is portrayed as a wild eccentric, with wild streaks in her hair, and a fashion sense like Amber Vallone.

The strength of the book, and the original adaptation, was the way every character was well-rounded, and their interaction was the strength of the book. Here, we don't quite get time to appreciate anyone other than Sam, Dilys, and Lou. Even Carrie herself grows less than her fellow evacuee Tom Sadnwich. The visit of Sam's son Frederick is glossed over in moments before Dilys's death, robbing us of the one chance to see Sam as a relatively soft-hearted person. Nor do we get to see anything of Sam's visceral hatred of anything from the US, beyond his dismissively switching off the wireless when a Glenn Miller tune arrives. Lou's news that she's marrying a GI evokes a reaction consistent with Sam's portrayal as a grouch, but nothing more. Even the final scene undersells Sam's humanity

Equally, the re-working doesn't play up Hepzibah's mild witchcraft and the hints of supernatural activity until a terribly overblown moment when Carrie casts the skull into the well. She was a marvellous shot, getting that skull into a small well from three floors up.

In the final analysis, Carrie's War isn't going to be easy to make into good television. There's not a huge amount in the way of plot, more a series of vignettes without a clear denoument. This working reduces many of the characters to cyphers, and Sam's change of heart comes from almost nowhere. It's clearly been made with at least one eye on the export market, and loses a little of the honesty that made the book so popular.

Look into the sun.
See mist rising from the grass.
Breathe deep. Feel alive.

With my record on predictions well known, here's some inspired by Johnathan Friedland in today's Graun.

The Hutton Report will strongly criticise the BBC, and there will be further reforms and probably some resignations. The MoD will also come in for severe criticism, but Hutton will not pass judgement on the inaccuracy of the UK government's false dossiers. Defence secretary Geoff Hoon will probably go, Blair will carry on, but with a severely weakened position.

The Presidential Election. Lena Volkova will put up a strong fight, and cause an upsurge in young people voting, but will lose a very close race to Vladimir Putin following some on-air fuming by Putin's apparichtiks Richard and Judski.

Iraq. Day-to-day resistance continues, but no US commentator will make the point that President Sadaam can't now be directing these attacks. The US will look for an exit strategy allowing them to bring some troops back in time for disputed elections in early November. Like any elections in the US, Iraq will not use a one person one vote system. The man believed to be President Sadaam will not face any public trial before that election.

Domestics. The right wing press cheer on Michael Howard. Labour takes heavy defeats at local elections in June, all-out elections in many urban areas have the chance to inflict major embarrassment. The party also loses ground in the simultaneous Euro elections, but profits from a split vote on the left between the Greens and the new Anti War Coalition. Pressure intensifies for Blair to resign following these results.

Sport. Alan Partridges' Footballometer shows England leaving the Euro 04 championships at the quarter final stage. The Netherlands beats Italy in the final. Arsenal and Man United both win one trophy. England draws the cricket tour to the West Indies, and has easy wins at home. South Africa wins the ICC trophy.

Entertainment. Robbie Williams and Dido sweep the BPI awards, Pestlife finally splits up, Will Young's star rises still further, and Ani di Franco tours with Alex Parks.
Antan Dec's television career hits its peak with the third UK series of Saturday Night Takeaway, the Geordie has a lukewarm reception in the US. Granada Plus rebrands as ITV Gold to no noticeable effect. Sky News remains inaccurate and loud. Cable companies NTL and Telewest merge.

Other random predictions. These I made in response to a regular reader's request for thoughts.
Australian Open Women's Champion - Kim Clijsters. I'm assuming that Williams and Williams won't be back to crash the Famous Belgian party, and that Capriati doesn't do anything at her favoured tournament.
Rugby Union Six Nations runner-up - England. It's an even year, so England plays in France. That should give the French home advantage.
Number of seats won by Labour at European Elections - 25. Electors will work out how to vote so that Labour doesn't pick up the last seat in a region, as they did when these seats were last contested in 1999.
Ice Hockey's Stanley Cup Winner - Toronto. The Leafs is unusually strong form this year, but will have to clamber past Philadelphia and/or New Jersey.
FTSE 100 financial index at 30/9/04 - 4700. Moderate growth early in the year, stabilising over the summer. I think September could be the bottom of the market. (Yesterday: 4464)
Bank of England interest rate at 31/12/04 - 4.5% (Today: 3.75%). The weakness of the dollar gives enough room to delay rises for a couple of months along the lines.
Price of a litre of petrol at 31/12/04 - 82.9p (Yesterday: 77.9p)

The government continues its harrassment of anyone they deem not One Of Us, by saying that those not usually resident in the UK must pay for treatment on the NHS. John Hutton, the Duty Health Minister, said "Action was needed to close loopholes allowing foreign businessmen and failed asylum seekers to get healthcare to which they were not entitled." When asked to provide evidence of the scale of the "problem," Mr Hutton was unable to produce any figures whatsoever; research by Het Grauniad suggests the figure is less than one third of one percent of the NHS budget, and probably far less than that figure. Doctors have already decided to shove one finger up to the racist government, and refuse to police patients. This sort of civil disobedience is exactly what we need to shake the government away from its obsession with Daily Hell "readers".

1983: Esther Rantzen campaigns against people causing pointless accidents. 2003: Esther Rantzen advertises ambulance-chasing legal firms, thus promoting pointless accidents. Where's Lynn Folds-Over?

You don't have to be
number one to be liked. All
we ask: do your best.

Bus lanes aren't for you,
cars. They're for less selfish modes
of getting around.

Up at the crack of dawn^* to hit the city centre as early as possible. Even at 1015, there were half a dozen people in line at Marxan. Thankfully, there were half half a dozen people serving us, so the queues were nice and short.

Thence to The Big Book Store, where they claim to have a huge half price book sale. Sadly, the half price books are the same books they've been promoting the arse out of since September, so no discounts on entertaining and good stuff. There are a few trays of Deep Discount books dotted about the store, but nothing there grabbed my thoughts.

Which took me to the Big Music Store, where they claim to have a huge music sale. (Is anyone spotting a pattern here? You should be.) The stuff on deep discount is, as ever, the same rubbish they've been promoting the arse out of all year. Even worse, the "discount" price is still a tenner (EUR 14, USD 17.50) for one CD. If that's a discount, I'm Oyvind Vinstra.

Off to the Fashionable Clothes Store, where their usual sky-high prices have come down to moderate prices. This is good. This is good enough to be acquisitional.

Thence to the Discount Music Store, where chart CDs never cost more than a tenner, and the mid-price range is a fiver. Amongst the selections for a fiver, it's last year's Star Academy winner David Sneddon! January 29: number one selling single. December 29: remaindered already. How fickle is the finger of pop's dumper, or something.

After lunch, drop by the Mass Electrical Store in the Bull Ring. Not impressed with their range of digital cameras - mine doesn't hold that many pictures, but I'm not paying over the odds for a replacement. Did see a combined DAB/AM/FM/CD/Input receiver for under £100, and the first properly portable DAB receiver at the same price. Give 'em till the summer, and I reckon both products (or their similar replacement) will be around £70.

Which takes us downstairs. Not via the escalators, because it takes longer to queue to go downstairs than it actually takes to go down. They've had to install some Security Goons to make sure there isn't too much of a crush. I said three months ago, when I first looked at the centre, that there would be terrible crushes on the escalators, and they needed more of them. How on earth this mess of a development got the go-ahead I don't know.

Anyway. Downstairs is another Big Book Store, and in this one, I do waft about my purchasing stick. Pick up one pack of video cassettes, as Sunday's edition of WWTBAP 64 will finish the set. Also one CD from my Wish List at less than nine quid, my cutoff for full price CDs. There's a copy of the Buffy annual, reduced to 3 quid. It's completely misnamed, containing just a dozen pages about the titular character, and devoting the remaining 80 pages to an adventure starring Willow, Tara ... and Dawn. It was looking so promising.

And get a copy of The Owl Service, mainly because the write-up about the 1972 television drama in The Hill And Beyond made the book sound interesting, and the drama rings a few bells.

Off to the Smelly Soap Shop, having their semi-annual sale, two bars of soap and one bottle of shampoo and change from a three pound note, thank you v much. The Diary shop yields a diary. Curious, that.

Finally, to Mr Grocerystore, where - much to my surprise and delight - they've started to make the cheese and spinach lasagnes again! I clean out the shop of (er) both the lasagnes they have in stock, and head home.

Waiting for the bus, listening to Peter Snow on Masterteam, and he's asking who wrote The Owl Service. There's always some sort of synchronicity if you look closely enough.

Once the bus comes, it's a slow and painful journey home. Huge traffic queues getting on to the Smallbrook Queensway, caused mainly by people queueing to park their cars at the Bull Ring car park. There's a slight queue from pedestrians crossing the road to get to the Mailbox, glad they can afford to shop there. After fifteen minutes, we're finally past the Queensway, and make tolerable progress down the road. 52 minutes from getting on the bus to getting home, I'd expect to do the journey in not much more than 32 minutes.

No real changes in this week's sales charts. Michael Andrews and Gary Jules' Mad World holds off the strong challenge from Osbourne & Osbourne to take the Festive Number One single. The Darkness can only manage #3, with Leigh Francis and Willy Oung rounding out the top five. Pre-release favourites the Pap Idles are massacred, slipping to #7 with the laughter of the nation ringing in their ears.

No new entries this week, so attention turns to the climbers. Outkast's Hey Ya is back up to #13, UB40's Swing Low hits a new peak at #15, but Gagagagaga slips further.

Will Young retains the #1 selling CD, ahead of the Black Eyed Peas, Busted, Sugababes, and Daniel B'dingdangdong. Good climbs for Blue and Atomic Kitten within the 10, and for Jamie Cullum and Lemar returning to the ten. Alicia Keys and Evanescence also post strong gains. Outkast reaches a new peak at #22, while Coldplay's Rush Of Blood rebounds 35-27.

Good call from Karen Armstrong on how the misuse of religion is causing wars. There is a basic message, and Mr bin Laden and Mr Bush are quite deliberately not hearing it. The rest of the religious people have a duty to root out the causes of these infidels.

Oops. From today's Indie: "The actress Kate Winslet and director Sam Mendes are expecting. Winslet, who said she looked as "large as a London bus" last time she was pregnant, was expecting when the couple married in Anguilla." Ms Winsome gave birth last Thursday.

Now then, an age old conundrum. How to get from Here to There when there are no trains running to There, and relatives are reluctant to give you transport?

In my case, Here is here, and There is Wednesfield, about two miles north-east of Wolverhampton city centre. Usually, I'd take the train from Here to central Birmingham, then head on to Wolverhampton station, and finish on one of the frequent buses. Today, that's not an option, because they're (finally!) building a 4th through platform at Wolverhampton, and have the line completely closed.

Options? 1) Replace the train to Wolverhampton with a tram to Wolverhampton, and finish on the bus as usual, walking the last 300 yards. 2) Get off the tram at Priestfield, walk about a mile up the road and catch the bus there. 3) Train to Walsall, continue on the 529, and walk the last half mile.

It snowed a bit this morning, and it was bloody cold afterwards. With the weather a bit unpredictable, that rules out option 2, as I'd need to navigate by A-Z. In the event, I went out on option 1, familiarity being worth the extra 20 minutes wait. Heading back, I got the relative headed to the M6 to drop me near Walsall town centre, so could take the train back. Excellent.

Predictable gifts.
One can, quite literally,
see them a-coming.

older writing...