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Saturday 29th November Brentford 2-1 Burnley Manchester City 2-0 Leeds United Sunderland 1-1 AFC Bournemouth Everton 1-2 Newcastle United (17:30) Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Fulham (20:00) Sunday 30th November Crystal Palace 1-3 Manchester United (12:00) Aston Villa 4-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers (14:05) Nottingham Forest 0-2 Brighton & Hove Albion (14:05) West Ham United 2-2 Liverpool (14:05) Chelsea 2-2 Arsenal (16:30)

This week's musings on chart world can be found from the Blogs page or the Forums Index page.

Taylor Swift gets a sixth week at number one with The Fate Of Ophelia. Swift has now spent a total of sixteen weeks at the top of the singles chart. Combined with her 36 weeks atop the albums chart, she has now accumulated a combined total of 52 weeks (one year) at number one in the two main UK charts. Only ten artists have spent more weeks at number one. Of those ten, only two - The Beatles and Elvis Presley - have spent at least a year at the top of each chart. When Ed Sheeran spends another week at number one in the albums chart, he will become the third act to top both charts for a year. Thanks to Colin (a Buzzjack and Haven member) for that information. Raye’s Where Is My Husband is still at number two. Her best hope of getting to number one may now come in the New Year when all the Christmas songs drop out. Two Olivia Dean songs each climb one place. So Easy (To Fall In Love) is at number three and Man I Need is at four. She is also at number five alongside Sam Fender with Rein Me In. As she is credited second on Rein Me In, it doesn’t count towards her limit of three songs. As a result, Let Alone The One You Love is allowed to enter at number 21. Korean band Stray Kids get their third top forty hit with Do It at number 35. Neither of their two previous top forty hits has advanced further than number 30. This unlikely to outdo that any time this year, if ever. The background to Haven’s I Run was chronicled here a few weeks ago. It looked set to be a high new entry, but was excluded from the final chart. The issues which caused it to be disqualified have now been resolved and, with an additional credit for Kaitlin Aragon, it is at number 37. Time for another film spot. This week we have three new entries from the soundtrack to the latest Wicked film, all of them with Cynthia Erivo as the lead artist. For Good, which includes Ariana Grande, is at number fourteen, three places ahead of No Good Deed on which Erivo is the sole credited artist. She is joined on As Long As You’re Mine by Jonathan Bailey, not previously known for his singing talents. Tate McRae has two new entries to join Tit For tat which falls to number nineteen. Nobody’s Girl is at number sixteen and Anything But Love is at 25. It may still be November, but we already have the second “festive update” of the year. Wham’s Last Christmas is at number nine while Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas is You is at number thirteen. Then, of course, there is a batch of re-entries. Once again, they show the influence of American-curated streaming playlists on what many people listen to. Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath The Tree is at number 24, one place behind Brenda Lee's Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree which entered the top forty last week. Ariana Grande is at number 28 with her version of Santa Tell Me. Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms is at number34. Some British and Irish Christmas songs have also made it. The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl are at number 33 with the ever-brilliant Fairytaler Of New York. Shakin’ Stevens rather less good merry Christmas Everyone is at number 40. Oh, and Michale Buble’s Christmasis at number 24 in the albums chart. Rock band Aerosmith made their UK chart debut in 1986 when their Walk This Way, a collaboration with Run DMC made the top ten. They entered the albums chart for the first time the following year. They have had fourteen top forty albums, but none of them have gone all the way to the top. Yungblud wasn’t even born until 1997 when he was given the name Dominic Harrison. He made his chart debut in 2019 when The Underrated Youth reached the top ten in the albums chart. He had his first top forty single the following year with Obey, a collaboration with Bring Me The Horizon. The next three albums all topped the chart, including Idols earlier this year. That history makes a collaboration between Aerosmith and Yungblud seem a relatively logical development. It has happened and the result, One More Time, is at number one. In interviews he has given to promote his latest album, Olly Murs has lamented that his background as a former talent show contestant means that he hasn’t been taken seriously by the music industry. There may be some element of truth in that, but singers such as Harry Styles have thrived following their talent show career. Perhaps Murs has found it more difficult to get out of that shadow because his television success came after several years trying to make a breakthrough. Knees Up is Murs’ eighth album and it enters at number five. Two Greatest Hits sets enter the top ten. Madness made their chart debut in 1979 and had a string of hits in the 1980s. They have released a number of compilations, two of which topped the chart. Their only studio album to reach number one was Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C’est La Vie just two years ago. The latest compilation, Hit Parade, is at number eight. James were formed in Manchester in 1982 but didn’t achieve any significant chart success until 1990. They went on to become one of the most successful bands of the 1990s. They too have released a number of compilations with the most recent (apart from a collection of their earlier recordings) being Fresh As A Daisy in 2007. The new release, Nothing But Love - The Definitive Best Of is at number six. Two more of the biggest bands of the 1990s were The Stone Roses, another Manchester band, and Primal Scream. Much of the Stone Roses’ success was down to the distinctive bass lines played by Gary Mounfield, known as Mani, who died last week. He joined Primal Scream after The Stone Roses split up. The Stone Roses’ debut album was not an instant success. It didn’t enter the chart at all until two months after its release in June 1994 and that was at a rather unimpressive number 82. It reached the top forty for a single week three years after its release but didn’t reach the top ten until its twentieth anniversary. Nevertheless, it is widely regarded as one of the best debut albums of all-time. Unsurprisingly, it is back in the chart at number 25 this week. The Stone Roses only released two studio albums, but there have been six compilations. One of those, The Very Best of The Stone Roses is at number 37. In 1995, ITV showed Anthology, a documentary series about The Beatles. It featured interviews with all three surviving band members (John Lennon had been assassinated fifteen years earlier) who acknowledged that the series should perhaps have been made earlier. However, they had spent far too long suing each other. Three albums were released to accompany the series and they each reached the top five. Now, the series is being reshown on a streaming service with an additional episode and an additional album. Anthology 4 is at number nine with The Anthology Collection (all four albums) twenty places lower.The albums include recordings of Lennon and McCartney’s first band The Quarrymen, remastered recordings, BBC sessions and a whole lot more. British DJ and producer Sub Focus gets his first top ten album with Contact at number ten.

The Lib Dems proposed a mansion tax before Labour stole the idea. I can understand Cooper's stance in her role as a constituency MP, but she is also the party's Treasury spokesperson. She should be supporting it.

Under current rules, anyone can invest £20,000 per year in a cash ISA. That immediately restricts it to people who are pretty well off. After that, the first £1,000 of interest from other investments is tax-free. Assuming an interest rate of 3%, that's another £30,000. That's a total of £50,000 invested per year in a interest-bearing product without paying tax on the interest. That figure will now be £42,000. I'm not going to waste time worrying about people who can invest that sort of money every year. Stocks and shares ISAs are supposed to be a long-term investment. In the long-term, they will deliver better returns than a interest-bearing account. That's why those of us who are 65+ can still enjoy the higher limit.

Dave Stewart And Barbara Gaskin - It's My Party Laurie Anderson - O Superman New Order - Procession Godley & Creme - Under Your Thumb Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Joan Of Arc Worst Sheena Easton - Just Another Broken Heart Shakin' Stevens - It's Raining Tight Fit - Back To The 60s - Part 2*

Saturday 22nd November Burnley 0-2 Chelsea (12:30) AFC Bournemouth 2-1 West Ham United Brighton & Hove Albion 3-1 Brentford Fulham 0-1 Sunderland Liverpool 3-1 Nottingham Forest Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-1 Crystal Palace Newcastle United 2-3 Manchester City (17:30) Sunday 23rd November Leeds United 2-1 Aston Villa (14:00) Arsenal 2-2 Tottenham Hotspur (16:30) Monday 24th November Manchester United 2-1 Everton (20:00)

This week's musings, complete with the first reports of Christmas songs, is available from the Blogs page or the Forums index page.

There was another close battle at the top of the singles chart. In Wednesday's update Taylor Swift’s The Fate Of Ophelia had a lead of under 300 over Golden by HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast. This week they were joined by Raye’s Where Is My Husband. That was a few thousand behind, but the song had a physical release this week. It was unclear how many of those physical sales had been included in the update. By Friday, the top three were in the same order as on Wednesday. Therefore, Taylor Swift’s The Fate Of Ophelia gets a fifth non-consecutive week at number one. If it holds on next week it will equal Anti-Hero as her longest-running chart-topper. Golden spends another week at number two while Raye is still searching for her husband at number three. Olivia Dean still has two songs in the top five, but they have swapped places. So Easy (To Fall In Love) is now at number four with Man I Need one place below. As well as the KPop Demon Hunters, we now have a second set of songs by an animated band, albeit only one of them in the top forty. Hazbin Hotel is an animated comedy musical show aimed at an adult audience, it says here. The first series didn’t provide any top forty entries but this week we have one from the second series. Just like the KPop stuff, these songs come with a long credit, albeit shorter than the upcoming cast list on Wizzard’s perennial hit. The cheerful Love In A Bottle, by Keith David, Lilli Cooper, Kimiko Glenn, Krystina Alabado, Sam Haft & Andrew Underberg is at number 29. In the week that news came that there is to be a film based around Charli XCX’s Brat album, Ms XCX herself has a new entry with Chains Of Love at number 26, comfortably one of her best chart hits. It is the second top forty hit with that title following one by Erasure in 1988. Other charting chains include Diana Ross’s Chain Reaction and Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue) by W.A.S.P. That leads, rather unfortunately, to the title of Lewis Capaldi’s fourteenth top forty hit, The Day That I Die. Sorry. His previous single, Almost, didn’t quite make the top forty. This one is at number 27. I’ve been delaying it for as long as possible, but the time has now come to announce that the same old Christmas songs have started to enter the top forty. Leading the way, as for the last few years are Mariah Carey and Wham. Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You is at number 22. It now has notched up 102 weeks in the top forty, so will reach the two-year mark at the beginning of December. Wham’s Last Christmas, back at number nineteen, has been in the top forty for 90 weeks. That is on target to get to 100 weeks in December next year. There is one more festive song to mention. Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree is at number 38. At 80 (she will be 81 next month), Lee is the oldest person in this week’s chart. Here in Brighton on Wednesday we had a little over 5 seconds of winter when it snowed briefly. That coincided with the first week on sale for Australian band 5 Seconds Of Summer’s sixth studio album Everyone’s A Star! Their first three albums all reached number one but the next two fell just short, both peaking at number two. Their new album gives them a fourth number one. The summer theme continues at number thirteen in the shape of Summer Walker’s Finally Over It. It follows Over It and Still Over It. Maybe the next one will be called Really, Really Over It, Honestly. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number two. Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl falls two places to number three. The enduring popularity of D Block Europe continues to baffle many people. Their new album PTSD 2 is at number four. Readers can make their own jokes about the appropriateness of the title. Time for a second mention of Brighton this week. Celeste spent her childhood in a village on the outskirts of the city and was educated at a school where I used to work. She is at number twelve with Woman Of Faces. When a company launches a new brand with the intention of selling it worldwide, they generally go to great lengths to avoid a name that might cause difficulties in certain countries. Nathan Feuerstein clearly didn’t do his homework before dividing to use his initials as his stage name. He is at number fourteen with Fear. That leads me nicely into the next new entry as the excellent There Goes The Fear, one of the highlights of their live shows, is one of the tracks on a new Doves compilation, So Here We Are: Best Of Doves. I still find it puzzling that Greatest Hits sets are still a thing, but they are so here we are. It is at number seventeen. There are two anniversary editions in this week’s new entries. Songs From The Big Chair was Tears For Fears’ second album, released in February 1985. Several months late, there is now a fortieth anniversary edition. The album, which includes Shout and Everybody Wants To Rule The World, originally reached number two. The reissue is at number twenty. The Rolling Stones reissue is several months early. Black And Blue, the band’s thirteenth studio album, was released in April 1976 but the fiftieth anniversary edition is here already. Like Songs From The Big Chair, this album also peaked at number two. The new edition is at number 40.

My former Labour MP Lloyd Russell Moyle, who was dumped by Labour HQ after last year's election was called, has joined the Green Party. Former Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle joins Green Party - BBC News

How many more weeks would Last Christmas have had under the old rules?

Time to revive this to predict tomorrow's headlines The Guardian - 23,000 Died From Johnson's Incompetence Daily Mail - 200,000 COVID Deaths Not Boris's Fault Express - Most COVID Deaths Not Johnson's Fault Sun - Most COVID Victims Would Have Died Anyway Telegraph - New Scandal Hits BBC As Programme Starts One Minute Later Than Scheduled

The issue with Taylor Swift is that she can be accused of being inconsistent. Her initial campaign about the ownership of her music could be portrayed about standing up for emerging artists. She was saying that the contracts she signed early in her career were unfair. That's fine. However, her strategy of regular stunts to boost her album sales can be said to deprive other acts of the promotion they would get from a number one album.

Labour MP Clive Lewis has offered to resign his seat so that Andy Burnham can replace him and then challenge Starmer for the leadership. If there was a more certain method of losing a byelection, I can't think of it. That's even assuming Burnham would contest the nomination and that Lewis's constituents would select him as their candidate. Why are so many Labour MPs intent on destroying their own government and potentially handing power to a hard-right nut job?

Roberto Baggio, Dino Zoff, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Sergio Leone, Julius Caesar, Giuseppe Verdi, i vostri ragazzi hanno preso una bella batosta

I assume Darius will get his comeuppance in a big way. He is such a horrible character. His scheming cannot last for much longer.

This week's ramblings are now available from the Blogs page and the Forums Index page. Slightly later than expected due to a glitch in the OCC website.

There was a close battle for the number one single this week between the two songs that have topped the chart for thirteen of the last fifteen weeks - Taylor Swift’s The Fate Of Ophelia and Golden by HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast. In Monday’s update Swift was ahead by just over 100 copies. By Wednesday she had extended her lead to around 1,000 chart sales. By the end of the week Taylor Swift was still in front, so The Fate Of Ophelia returns to the top after two weeks behind Golden. That song slips back to number two. Haven is an example of how acts can become successful while there is still very little known about him. The British producer, born Harrison Walker, has nearly four million listeners on Spotify, but the site has no biographical information for him. However, his single I Run has become popular enough for it to have been riding high in the chart in Wednesday's update. However, it is nowhere to be seen in the final top 100 chart published on Friday. It has to be assumed that it has been disqualified for some reason. Spanish singer Rosalia has a strong following in her home country, but has yet to have a major hit in the UK. That may be about to change with the arrival of the rather wonderful Berghain in the top forty at number 36. It features the very distinctive vocals of Bjorl, who makes her first top forty appearance for twenty years, as well as a brief vocal contribution from Yves Tumor who makes his UK chart debut. The string section hasn’t been granted a credit. Fred Again gets his second top forty hit of the year with Talk Of The Town at number 22. While it is not as good as the Pretenders song of the same name, it is still decent enough. It features Sammy Virji who had a chart hit earlier this year with Cops And Robbers. Sonny Fodera had one top forty hit in 2023 and then two in 2024. Unless he has a surprise Christmas song ready for release, he is unlikely to make it three in 2025. At least the arrival of Think About Us at number 33 means he hasn’t slipped back to one top forty hit in a calendar year. The song features D.O.D and the splendidly-named Poppy Baskcomb. The quality of this week’s new entries is relatively high, but there is an exception. Digga D’s DPMO, a new entry at number 31 is that exception. When Goo Goo Dolls released Iris as a single in 1998 it was only a minor hit, missing the top forty. A year later, it did reach the top forty, but only for one week. It returned to the lower reaches of the chart several times, but only became a major hit in 2011 when it was featured on a talent show and it went to number three. It continues to notch up further weeks in the top 100 and has now become one of those songs which is almost always in the chart until the Christmas songs arrive. This week it returns to the top forty at number 39. There are three other re-entries. Panic not, there aren’t any Christmas songs among them. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club is at number 35. Sabrina Carpenter=s Manchild is back at number 38 and Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not returns at number 40. On 31 October 1975 Queen released Bohemian Rhapsody as a single. The general consensus was that they were mad. It was too long and, with its frequent changes of style, confusing. One prominent radio DJ believed in it. Kenny Everett, who had more say on what was played on his Capital Radio weekend show than weekday daytime DJs, loved it and played it, in full, regularly. Most people at the time would have thought that Bohemian Rhapsody would do well to spend one week at number nine. In fact, it spent nine weeks at number one and sold a million copies. After Freddie Mercury died in 1991, a reissue spent another five weeks at the top of the chart, again selling a million copies. It is the only single to sell one million copies with two separate releases. In the half-a-century since it was released Bohemian Rhapsody has continued to sound unlike almost anything else. To mark its 50th anniversary, a new physical edition of the song has been released - yes, singles can get anniversary editions as well. It was number one last week in the singles sales chart, the physical singles chart and the vinyl singles chart. As well as returning to the top of the singles chart, Taylor Swift does the same in the albums chart with Life Of A Showgirl. It may be the first time that an artist has had two separate runs with a chart double with the same pairing of song and album. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving climbs back up to number two. Lily Allen’s West End Girl falls one place to number three while Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend is at number five. As well as getting her second top forty single, Rosalia also has a big hit album on her hands. Lux is a new entry at number five which means that all of the top five albums are by female solo artists. Lux is the highest-charting album by a female Spanish singer. To accompany a book about Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band Wings, the man himself has overseen the compilation of a new Best Of album, simply titled Wings. Inevitably it includes Mull Of Kintyre, but it also includes far better songs such as Band On The Run, Bond theme Live And Let Die and Jet. It enters at number twelve. Last weekend I was thinking about what to say about the new White Lies album. I was preparing for a disappointing chart position which I thought I might need to attribute to it sounding “just like any other White Lies album”. Then I listened to it, and was relieved to hear that it had far more variety than I was expecting. Unfortunately, the other part of my prediction was all too accurate. In Monday’s update Night Light was just outside the top ten. That made it certain that it would be the band’s lowest charting album by the time Friday’s chart was published. Thankfully, it did at least hold on to a top forty place and it ends the week at number 29. Paramore singer Hayley Williams is at number ten with her third solo album Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party. I have in the past been critical of artists who have released a deluxe version of an album shortly after the original release. For consistency, I can’t exclude acts I like, so Jaker Bugg needs to spend some time on the naughty step. The new edition of his 2024 album A Modern Day Distraction is at number 37.

The government has announced that they will be abolishing Police and Crime Commissioners when their term expires in 2028. Good. They were introduced under the Coalition government with the Lib Dems agreeing to support them despite thinking they were a stupid idea. Good riddance to them.

Thanks for the suggestion. The single dropped for one week, but the album stayed at number one.

Yes, in the same week.

Does anyone know whether an act has dropped form the top of both charts and then climbed back to the top with the same single and album before? I suspect not, but I don't want to say that it is unprecedented and then be proved wrong.

Agreed, but they often take their cue from the likes of the Daily Mail. The BBC is one of the most trusted and recognised brands in the world. That would normally be something Tories wanted to celebrate. Sadly, that's not the case.

Here is a blatant example or anti-Labour bias. This report about the number of prisoners released incorrectly in the last six months doesn't say that this means that the numbers are going down. The graph, if you don't look closely enough, suggests that the numbers for 2025 are far worse than previous years. In fact, they are for the year ending in March. The figures for the year ending March 2026 should be significantly lower. In other words, things were worsening under the Tories; that trend has now gone into reverse. More than 90 prisoners freed by mistake since April - BBC News

The BBC's capitulation to his orangeness has been pathetic. Trump called on his supporters to fight, and the BBC reported it. What's wrong with that? We now have a leader of a foreign country effectively trying to close down a British broadcaster. How is that OK?