Suedehead2

His Orangeness has continued with his quest to hit a ne low every week or so by posting an AI-generated video mocking the man killed by a tiger in Yorkshire a few days ago.

Watch out for Sam and Olivia to record Reindeer Me In.

Saturday 10th October Arsenal 2-0 Leeds United (12:30) Aston Villa 2-1 Brentford Chelsea 2-2 AFC Bournemouth Ipswich Town 2-1 Fulham Sunderland 1-3 Brighton & Hove Albion Manchester United 2-0 Tottenham Hotspur (17:30) Sunday 11th October Crystal Palace 0-1 Nottingham Forest (14:00) Hull City 1-2 Everton (14:00) Liverpool 2-1 Manchester City (16:30) Monday 12th October Coventry City 2-2 Newcastle United (20:00)

This week's ramblings can be found from the Blogs section or the Forums Index page.

After Taylor Swift finished well clear of all rivals (including herself) last week, normal service is resumed this week with another tight race for number one. In Wednesday's update Swift’s Patient Zero held a lead over Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation of just 600 chart sales. Patient Zero topped last week’s chart, ending Great Expectation’s three-week run at the top. Taylor Swift was the eventual winner so Patient Zero gets a second week at number one. Great Expectation remains at number two. Jamie Miller’s Babydoll climbs three places to number three. Ashe climbs six places to number four with Stop The Wedding. Ella Langley remains at number five with Choosin’ Texas. The other two Swift songs in last week’s chart have fallen sharply. Babylon has crashed 24 places to number 28. Cleveland, last week’s number three; is no longer one of the three most popular Swift songs of the week so it drops out of the chart altogether. It is replaced by The Fate Of Ophelia which returns at number seventeen. Noah Kahan has a new entry at number sixteen with Draw You Out. It joins Willing And Able (number twenty) and Orbiter (23) in the top forty. After three singles peaking between numbers 41 and 50 at the start of the 2020s, rapper Morrisson makes his top forty debut in the anchor position with Cos Of You. Last week, a new edition of Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl saw three of the new tracks riding high in the chart while the album itself returned to number one. There was a time when the same would have happened with a new edition of a Drake album. Thankfully, his popularity has waned so the new edition of Habibti has made less of an impact. Three of the four new Drake songs have entered the top forty but they are some way from the top of the chart. Two months after parts of Europe witnessed a total solar eclipse, Solar Eclipse enters at number 22. It features Don Toliver who is one of many credited co-writers. Others include Ella Langley and Shawn Carter (rather better known as Jay-Z). I would prefer to listen to Klaus Nomi’s Total Eclipse. Toliver also features on Cold Shoulder which enters at number 36. Quebec, which has no featured artist, is at number 27 The album itself returns to the chart at number twenty. Drake has now had 104 top forty hits in the UK. The race at the top of the albums chart was between a new edition of an album from 1965 and a new album by an indie band with both bands coming from north--west England. The more famous of the two acts involved were The Beatles Rubber Soul was their sixth studio album, released in December 1965 just four months after they released Help! It was only the second Beatles album, after A Hard Day’s Night, whose songs were all composed by members of the band. Those songs included Nowhere Man, Norwegian Wood and In My Life. Despite being released so late in the year it was the third best-selling album of 1965, sandwiched between Beatles For Sale and Help! The best-seller of the year was the Sound Of Music soundtrack. The nw edition of Rubber Soul, somewhat late for its sixtieth anniversary, includes various demos, early versions of the album’s songs, backing tracks and remixes. The whole thing runs to a hefty 68 songs and 2 ¾ hours of music. The rivals for the top spot were Blossoms who hail from Stockport, roughly 40 miles from Liverpool. Four of their first five albums topped the chart so they had an impressive record to defend. They were just behind The Beatles on Wednesday but had the advantage that their members were all available to do some promotional work. Unfortunately I haven’t got round to listening to Songs From The Wedding Cake but I assume it matches the high standards of its predecessors. In the end, Blossoms’ ability to promote their album gave them the edge and Songs From The Wedding Cake becomes their sixth album. The day after John Lennon should have celebrated his 86th birthday (8 October), The Beatles are at number two. Olivia Rodrigo is at number three with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. The Essential Michael Jackson is at four. Taylor Swift’s The Art Of A Showgirl falls to number eight after its bonus week at the top. Johnny Marr gets his sixth top ten album with The Age Of Everything at number five. In the week the The Fate Of Ophelis has returned to the singles chart, it includes a song called Ophelia. She is getting a lot of attention these days. London band Fat Dog are at number thirteen with Cancel Me (I’m Tired).

Best Alison Moyet - That Ole Devil Called Love Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World The Damned - Grimly Fiendish Dream Academy - Life In A Northern Town Worst USA For Africa - We Are The World Jermaine Jackson - Do What You Do Sheila E - The Belle Of St Mark

Best The Art Of Noise - Close (To The Edit) Kirsty MacColl - A New England David Bowie And The Pat Metheny Group - This Is Not America Don Henley - The Boys Of Summer The Smiths - How Soon Is Now?

This weeks meanderings in the world of chart can be found from the Blogs page and the Forums Index page.

Last Friday (25 September) Taylor Swift released a deluxe edition of her album The Life Of A Showgirl, including four new tracks. Inevitably, fans have rushed to download and stream those tracks meaning that three of them (the maximum number of songs by one artist allowed in the chart) enter the top forty. This means that the top five has a far fresher look than it has had for many weeks. The most popular of the new tracks, by a very long way, is Patient Zero. By Wednesday’s update it had accumulated more chart sales than the number one single has “sold” for some time. Inevitably, then it has become Taylor Swift’s eighth UK number one single. Behind it is Cleveland at number three, yet another current single to have a US state or city in its title. The trio of new entries is completed by another place name, Babylon which may, or may not, be named after a villager in New York. That song is at number four. Previous hits with Babylon in the title include songs by Boney M, The Ruts and David Gray. Sadly, the brilliant Dancing In Babylon by MGMT and Christine & The Queens failed to chart. Sienna Spiro blocks Taylor Swift from a top three clean sweep. Her Great Expectation is at number two after three weeks at the summit. Ella Langley’s Chasin’ Texas is at number five. Madonna has released a new version of her Danceteria single with a new contribution from Charli XCX. The song originally reached number 38 in July. Now it is back at number 22. When Taylor Swift's people looked at the list of new releases scheduled for last Friday, they must have thought that the simple act of adding four new songs to The Life Of A Showgirl would guarantee its return to the top with no obvious competition. However, the midweek updates showed Keo, a band who don’t yet have a Wikipedia page or any details on their Spotify page leading the way. A bit more digging reveals that Keo have been selling out gigs in some sizeable venues, signifying a strong and growing following. Those of us of advanced years have lived through many bands described as “The next big thing”. Time will tell whether Keo enjoy a long and successful career or just fizzle out like Northern Uproar. Taylor Swift’s big advantage was that streams of her album would continue to be strong throughout the week whereas Keo were more dependent on actual sales which will have been at their highest at the start of the week. In the end, those streams were enough to propel The Life Of A Showgirl back to the top for a fifth week at number one. Keo, then, have to be content with a number two spot for Put A Smile On For Me.. If it is any consolation to them, it is the biggest selling vinyl album of the week. They also get the biggest sales for a male band with their debut album since Blossoms a decade ago. Nothing But Thieves enter at number three with Stray Dogs to make it five top ten albums from five releases. This, though, marks a slight decline from their previous album which topped the chart in 2023. Soft Cell finished recording their sixth studio album Deanceteria on 20 October 2025. Just two days later singer Marc Almond received the news that Dave Ball, the other half of the duo, had died. Ball had been ill for some time, so it was known that this would almost certainly be their final album and that is reflected in some of the tracks. Others, by contrast, are far more joyous. The album is named after a New York nightclub frequented by Almond and Ball when they lived in the city. Soft Cell formed in Leeds in 1978 and had a huge number one hit with their version of tainted Love in 1981. Further hits followed before the band went into decline, They called it a day after their fourth album limped in at number 116. However, they eventually re-formed (after Marc Almond had a long spell of ill-health following a serious road accident) and had a top ten album in 2022. Their final album enters at number 26. It may well be the first time that we have had new or re-entries with the same title in both charts, but by different artists. Europe, best-known for recording one of the most annoying number one singles of the 1980s, are at number 30 with Come This Madness. Tinashe gets her first top forty album with Popstar at number 35.

I'm delighted that Burnham has stuck to his support for a reform of the electoral system. I hope that the Lib Dems and Greens join his proposed commission. When Farage founded Reform UK his stated aim was electoral reform, but he has been rather quiet on the issue recently. It will be interesting to see whether they join the commission. Clearly, the Tories won't. Ideally, the process will result in a recommendation for a system that Labour, Lib Dems and Greens can all support. If Reform support it as well, it is likely that parties supporting it will receive over 50% of the vote at the next election, making implementation without a referendum easier to justify. I can't see the EU agreeing to allow us to rejoin while we have an electoral system that could see a party with a commitment to leave get a Commons majority with less than one-third of the vote. Therefore, I see electoral reform as a higher priority than Rejoin.

In the seasons covered by the charges Tottenham missed out on the Champions League by one place three times.

This week's ramblings can be found from the Blogs page or the Forums Index page.

For the third week in a row, there was a tight race at the top of the singles chart this week. However ,one of last week’s contenders has been removed from the battle. Streams of Hugel, Imarl Angel and Ultra Nate’s Movin’ To The Sun have been declining for the last three weeks. This means that it is moved on to the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR) and the value of the song’s streams are halved. Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation held a narrow lead in the midweek updates and duly gets a third week at number one. The last song to have a single run of exactly three weeks at number one was Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In and we know what eventually happened to that. In Wednesday’s update Ella Langley’s Chasin’ Texas was ahead of Stella Lefty’s Boston by a little over 100 chart sales. Langley held off the challenge to spend another week at number two while Lefty takes advantage of Hugel’s banishment to move up to number three. Adela climbs eleven places to number four with Nicole Kidman. Dua Lipa’s Training Season remains at number five. Olivia Rodrigo’s The Cure completes an all female top six at number six. Three of those top six have titles which are also the name of a charting act. Prospa and Cloonee entered the chart with Free Your Mind in April this year, eventually taking the song to number six. Almost six months on, it is still in the chart. Now the acts have collaborated again, albeit with the roles reversed. They have also brought on board singer-songwriter Tristan Henry to create Good Girl. The song, which is somewhat lacking in originality, is at number 29. Hugel and Solto return at number 37 with Jamaican (Bam Bam). two much older songs which have already spent time in the top forty this year are back for another go. Robyn’s Dancing On My Own is at number 35 and Mr Brightside is back. The Killers’ signature song is at number 40. Filippino/British singer Beabadoobee remains best known for her role on Powfu’s Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head) which featured her song Coffee. While Powfu seems to have disappeared without trace, Beadaboobee has had three top ten albums, including a number one with 2024’s This Is How Tomorrow Moves. Her success continues with album number four, Pylon, which also tops the chart. The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two for the twelfth ime this year. Olivia Rodrigo remains at number three with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. Sienna Spiro’s Visitor is at number four, one place ahead of Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving which returns to the top five after a six-week absence. In one of the weird coincidences that show up occasionally, two of the most successful bands of the 1980s - Queen (whose success began in the mid-1970s) and Duran Duran - both had a drummer called Roger Taylor. Even while working with Queen, the older Roger taylor was recording solo material, releasing his first album in 1981. None of his solo albums performed particularly well until his sixth collection, Outsider, reached number three in 2021. Now he has a second top ten solo album with Violence Insane In A Beautiful World (an incredibly clumsy title) at number six. An orchestral Queen’s most famous song Bohemian Rhapsody was played at a BBC Proms concert last year to mark the song’s half-century. Taylor came on stage to bang the gong at the end. Five of Miley Cyrus’s last six albums all reached the top ten. She has dropped her surname for her new album Bass Persuades. It enters at a relatively modest number thirteen. Another mononymous American, Beck, is at number fifteen with Ride Lonesome. There is still no sign of an end to the stock of unreleased David Bowie material.The Shel Talmy Recordings is a collection of songs recorded in 1965 when Bowie was still a teenager and known as Davie Jones. This new collection lands at number seventeen to give Bowie a 72nd top forty album. Two Liverpudlian acts complete the list of new entries. Echo and the Bunnymen were formed in 1977 and had their greatest success in the 1980s with fabulous singles such as The Cutter, Seven Seas and The Killing Moon. They are at number nineteen with their thirteenth studio album (the first for twelve years) Apples For Isaac. Fellow Scousers Cheap Thrills are at number 23 with their debut album Keep Cheap.

Good question.

Exactly. That was the broadcasters' excuse for excluding the Lib Dems from so many panels between 2015 and '24.

The Lib Dems are the largest third party in the Commons for over a century. That ought to mean they get plenty of news coverage. It's not easy to tell whether the abysmal lack of coverage is down to the party or just a dreadfully biased news media.

An increase in the personal allowance would benefit millions of people., That would be the best way of increasing Capital Gains Tax which would affect far fewer people. It is worth remembering that the last government to make CGT rates the same as income tax rates was a Tory government.

I won't be

Blame auto-correct!

Friday 18th September Brentford 2-2 Chelsea (20:00) Saturday 19th September Tottenham Hotspur 1-2 Aston Villa (12:30) Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1 Arsenal Everton 2-0 Ipswich Town Newcastle United 1-1 Hull City Nottingham Forest 2-0 Coventry City (17:30) Sunday 20th September AFC Bournemouth 2-2 Liverpool (14:00) Leeds United 2-1 Crystal Palace (14:00) Manchester City 2-0 Sunderland (14:00) Fulham 2-2 Manchester United (16:30)

After an unfortunate absence last week, the chart commentary is back and can be found in the Blogs section and from the Forums Index page.

With no recent release making any impact near the top of the chart or threatening to be the new Rein Me In, there was another close race for number one in the singles chart. In Wednesday’s update the top four were separated by roughly 1,600 chart sales. I could have chosen to prepare a separate commentary for each possible top four. However, there are 24 different combinations, so I didn’t. The leader in Wednesday’s update was Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation which climbed to the top last week and it was still there when the final calculations were made today (Friday). The 20-year-old Londoner had her first top forty hit last year with Die On This Hill. She had one further top forty hit in 2025 and, so far, has had a further four this year. One of the factors determining what fraction of a sale is given to a stream of a song is the type of account held with a stream from a paid-for account having more value than one from a free, advertising-supported account. The numbers two, three and four on Wednesday were so close that their respective positions may well have been determined by what proportion of streams of each song were from a paid-for account. Ella Langley’s one-week number one Choosin’ Texas is at number two.Hugel, Imarl Angel and Ultra Nate remain at number three with Movin’ To The Sun. Stella Lefty’s Boston remains at number four. Dua Lipa’s 2-25 hit Training Season climbs to number five, one place short of its original peak. This week’s top five singles have spent an average of five months in the top 100. Nicole Kidman joins the list of people to have had a hit single and to be the title of a hit single joining the likes of Clint Eastwood. Adela’s song Nicole Kidman is a new entry at number fifteen. TLC’s No Scrubs, a number three hit in 1999, re-enters at number 23. British jazz group Ezra Collective won the Mercury Prize in 2023 but were still deemed eligible for the BBC’s Sound Of 2025 list. Also in 2025 they won Group Of The Year at the Brit Awards. A number one album, however, eluded them with their best performer being a number seven peak with 2024’s Dance. No One’s Watching. That changes this week as their fourth studio album, Here Because Of Hope, sits proudly at the top of the chart. Ezra Collective are the first UK jazz act to have a number one studio album. Most of the rest of the top five are albums that have been around for a while. The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two. Olivia Rodrigo is still at number three with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. Sienna Spiro’s Visitor is at number four. The announcement of new tour dates next year and the release of a documentary about last year’s reunion tour sees their albums getting a boost. The Time Flies compilation returns to the top five at number five while (What’s The Story) Morning Glory is at twelve. Definitely Maybe re-enters the top forty at number seventeen. Don't Look Back In Anger, the name of the documentary film, returns to the singles chart at number 30. The list of break-up albums gets a new member this week with the release of Bloc Party’s Anatomy Of A Brief Romance. Singer and songwriter Kele Okereke has described it as an unusually personal album. Reviews of the album have not been great, but it still manages to enter at number six making it six top ten studio albums in seven releases for the band. Roxanne Emery, recording as RØRY, achieves a new high in the albums chart by entering at number eight with Bloodletting, There is another album by someone who uses a single word pseudonym at number eleven. When he was born in Brighton, the man now known as Bonobo was given the name Simon Green.His first four albums all failed to chart but Distance In Static now makes it four top forty albums in a row. The fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia describes Green Lung as “a stoner / doom metal band”, whatever that is. Their fourth album Necropolitan earns them a UK chart debut at number 25.

Reform are trying to defend the massive donations from two people in two days by comparing the money with the amount Labour has received from millions of members over a period of several years. In the meantime, their leader in Wales (appointed by Farage) has stood down after being arrested. One of his predecessors remains in jail after being convicted of treason.

The Good Friday Agreement specifically allows for a poll if there is consistent support on both sides of the border for a united Ireland. As far as I am aware, that hasn't happened yet.

Overall, it was a decent programme. The BBC's biggest difficulty is that the chart is very slow which means that it may be a show that people listen to every few weeks rather than every week. There is not much the BBC can do about that. I assume they would have to pay more to be able to use positions outside the top forty. Homegrown Albums Chart - a good addition but I would like them to play more tracks from albums that are not by standard R1 artists. Dance Chart - I hope they will rotate specialist charts rather than doing the dance chart every week. Archive Chart - the name they are using is stupid, but the general idea is good. I hope they rotate years, perhaps doing five, ten, fifteen and twenty years ago. The occasional look back even further would be great. The end of the show was rather rushed but that can happen in a live programme. Perhaps they should only play the current number one at the start rather than the top three.