Suedehead2

That was my first thought, but the forecast is for temperatures in the mid-20s.

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

Rein Me In’s fourth run at the top (itself a record for a single chart run) continues for a second week, bringing its total run up to fifteen weeks. It matches Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around as the longest run at number one by a British act. Not so long ago, number one songs by British acts had become a rarity, apart from Wham’s annual spell and a Beatles song. Olivia Rodrigo is still at number two with her Stupid Song. Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean is at number three. Harry Styles’ American Girls continues to rise back up the chart, climbing four places this week to number four.Ariana Grande is back up to number five with Hate That I Made You Love Me. Four of this week’s top five have been to number one, albeit over four decades ago in one case (no that isn’t when Rein Me In first topped the chart even if it feels like it to some). Gracie Abrams gets her second hit single of the year with Look At My Life at number 39. The song sounds like one Taylor Swift threw away. Sombr gets his third hit of 2026 in the form of My Body Isn’t Ready at number 27. French DJ Florent Hugel gets his first top forty hit at the age of 38 with Movin’ To The Sun at number 31. It has to be said that 93 million miles is a very long way to move. The removal costs would be immense. Hugel, as he is known, is joined by Imael Agent, another chart debutant, and by Ultra Nate who had two top ten singles in the 1990s. Anita Ward's Ring My Bell was one of the most annoying number ones of the 1970s thanks to the incessant use of a syndrum. Thankfully that has been removed from Aitch’s RMB (Ring My Bell). It still isn’t great, but it is a good deal better than Ward’s version. It is a new entry at number 40. Maybe one day Muse will record an album of quiet, gentle ballads, even if they do it just for the shock effect. That day hasn’t arrived yet and The Wow! Signal is very much what we have come to expect from the band. Most of the album is written by Matt Bellamy, with or without the rest of the band. However, Hush has a number of co-writers, including Theo Hutchcraft of Hurts. It also features vocals from Ellie Goulding and is one of the album’s stand-out tracks. Muse’s debut album Showbiz, released in 1999, performed modestly in the charts, peaking at number 26. Origin Of Symmetry, released in 2001 did much better, getting to number three. That album included signature songs Plug In Baby and New Born as well as a brilliant version of the soul classic Feeling Good, most associated with Nina Simone. After those first two albums, it has been number ones all the way for their studio albums. That run continues as The Wow! Signal becomes their eighth success number one with a studio album. Olivia Rodrigo slips to number two with You Look Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love after two weeks at the summit. The Essential Michael Jackson is still at number three. Harry Styles stays at number four with Kiss All The Time. Disco Occasionally. Olivia Dean keeps her top five place for a 40th week with The Art Of Loving at number five. All of the top five albums have been to number one. The Pretty Reckless have had mixed fortunes with their albums. Three of them made the top ten although none of them quite made it to the top five. The exception was 2016’s Who You Selling For which got no higher than number 23. Album number five Dear God enters at number six, their third album to peak in that position. Bad Bunny played live shows at the home of almost-relegated Tottenham Hotspur last weekend. As a result, his album Debi Tirar Mas Fotos returns to the chart at number 27. Metallica released their seventh studio album Reload in 1997 when it reached number four. It has now been reissued as a boxed set of 15 CDs and four DVDs. die-hard fans with deep pockets can enjoy live recordings, demos and other bits and bobs. The reissued Reload enters at number 39. Next Friday, I will be on a day-trip to France with a group of Year 7 students, so Popchartfreak will be filling in for me. If I survive the trip, I will return for a week before handing the reins back to Popchartfreak while I go back to France for a holiday. Be nice to him.

Germany v Paraguay has been grim so far. No real sign that Germany have been woken up by falling behind.

Looking forward to this, despite the streaming rules keeping certain albums in the chart for ever.

Portugal 2-1 Croatia

I knew I was doomed as soon as I drew Scotland.

I'm assuming it's scores after 90 minutes... South Africa 1-1 Canada Brazil 4-1 Japan Germany 3-0 Paraguay Netherlands 2-1 Morocco Ivory Coast 0-2 Norway France 3-0 Sweden Mexico 2-0 Ecuador England 2-1 DR Congo Belgium 2-1 Senegal USA 2-2 Bosnia and Herzegovina Spain 3-0 Austria Portugal 3-1 Ghana Switzerland 2-0 Algeria Australia 1-2 Egypt Argentina 4-1 Cape Verde Colombia 3-1 Ghana

Why do commentators keep referring to how much time is left without accounting for the advert break in the middle of the half?

Hush is one of the stand-out tracks on the Muse album for me. It's co-written by Theo Hutchcraft of Hurts.

I'm sure they'll find a way to mess up

Another step towards Scotland maintaining their proud record of never progressing beyond the group stage of a major tournament.

This week's musings can be found from the Blogs page and the Forums Index page. At least I didn't need to do a hefty rewrite this week, unlike last week.

Phew at that number two. Otherwise, I would have needed an even more radical rewrite than last week's.

For the last few years, it has been assumed that the record for the most weeks at number one would be broken by Wham’s Last Christmas as it has been accumulating more weeks each year. Last Christmas has accumulated twelve weeks at the top, just behind the fifteen weeks of Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around and sixteen weeks for Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. Those two songs picked up all their weeks at the top in one single run. The current record for most weeks at number one has been held since 1953 when Frankie Laine’s I Believe spent a total of eighteen weeks at the summit in three separate runs, albeit in the same chart run. Last Christmas is likely to match that eighteen week figure in 2027 or 2028 unless a massive new Christmas song keeps it off the top for at least one of the next few years. However, by then, I Believe may have lost its record to Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In. Whether Rein Me In breaks the record for the most weeks at number one remains to be seen, but this week it achieves another record by becoming the first song to have four separate spells at number one in the same chart run. It entered the chart last June, so it was already quite old when it finally climbed to the top in February, in its 35th week in the top forty.. Last week it slip[ped to number four in its 52nd week in the top forty. Now, at the start of its second year in the top forty, it climbs back to number one bringing its total run at the summit to fourteen weeks. It is the longest-running number one single since Drake’s One Dance spent fifteen (consecutive) weeks at the top in 2016. Olivia Rodrigo’s Stupid Song remains at number two. She is also at number four with The Cure and at five with Drop Dead. The only song in the top five not to feature someone called Olivia, Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, is at number three. Taylor Swift’s I Knew It, I Knew You falls to number seven after two weeks at number one. The rest of the chart is only slightly more exciting than England’s incredibly boring 0-0 draw with Ghana in the World Cup earlier this week. Ella Langley’s Choosin’ Texas enters the top ten for the first time, at number nine, almost six months into its chart run. Earlier in its run, it spent five consecutive weeks at number 35. It has also spent five non-consecutive weeks at number sixteen. A number one around Christmas still can’t be ruled out! While much of this week’s commentary is devoted to the longevity of Rein Me In at the top of the chart, one other long-running number one also earns a mention. Alex Warren’s Ordinary, which spent thirteen weeks at number one last year, climbs nine places to number 22. He also has a re-entry at number 35 with Fever Dream. Calvin Harris and Clementine Douglas re-entered the top forty at number 27 a few weeks ago with Blessings. It slumped to number 40 before falling further. Now it is back again at number 25. Oasis’s Wonderwall enters the top forty for the sixth time at number 33. Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull are back at number 32 with On The Floor, just a few wells after it last polluted the chart. As well as his record-breaking dates at Wembley Stadium, Harry Styles has also found time for a lower-key appearance at the Festival Hall (a smaller audience, anyway) with an orchestra. Publicity surrounding both events, added to streams by people who attended one or more of them, give another boost to his songs. Sign Of The Times climbs nine places to number twenty. American Girls returns to the top ten, at number eight. Sadly, Aperture, a far better song than the rather bland American Girls, falls a couple places. If anyone is wondering what has happened to the part of the commentary usually devoted to new entries, there aren’t any. Not a single one. Olivia Rodrigo gets a second week at number one with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. It is the fifth album to get a second consecutive week at the top in the first half of 2026. In the whole of last year, there were just two. Myles Smith-Thompson, better known simply as Myles Smith released his first single in 2023. It was a song called Sweater Weather, something which large parts of the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, definitely have not been experiencing this week. He had his first hit in 2024 when Stargazing reached the top ten. Nice To Meet You gave him a second top ten single at the beginning of the following year. Both of the latter songs appear on his debut album My Mess, My Heart, My Life which was released last week. Among the album’s co-writers are Ed Sheeran, Dan Smith (Bastille) and Niall Horan. The album led the way in the mid-week updates, although its lead on Wednesday was a narrow one. Therefore, it is no surprise that it enters at number two. If it is any consolation to him, it is at number one in the Vinyl Albums chart. The Essential Michael Jackson is at number three. Harry Styles is at number four with Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number five. For a band with just two core members, Placebo have a good claim to be truly multi-national. Singer Brian Molko is British / American (having been born in Belgium to an American father with French and Italian heritage) while guitarist Stefan Olsdal is Swedish / Luxembourgish. Molko’s androgynous appearance and high-pitched vocals made the band stand out. They had three top ten singles in the 1990s and continued to have top forty hits until the mid-noughties. Only one of Placebo's top ten singles appear on Re-created, a collection - as its title suggests - of re-recordings of some of their songs. It is a new entry in this week’s chart at number fourteen. After a succession of studio albums and live recordings achieved little or no chart success, duo When Rivers Meet made their breakthrough in 2023 when Aces Are High reached the top ten. They got a second top ten album last year with Addicted To You. Rhythm Rust and Static gives them a third chart hit as a new entry at number twenty.

If you put $1 into an account every second, with no interest, it would take 31,500 years to reach Musk's wealth.

The television series was brilliant, so I hope the film is as good.

Sad to see that the Hard-Fi album probably won't make the top forty. It's their best release since Stars Of CCTV.

Yes, last night's match was boring. I've had several students who might have been expected to be motivated by the excitement of the World Cup admit to falling asleep. However, England are almost certain to go through to the knock-out phase. Victory over Panama will guarantee first place. There is no point in overdoing it in the group matches. Keep something in reserve for the knock-outs.

Welcome to the team Jim!

And in temperatures significantly lower than they are here.

24 June: Canada 1-3 Switzerland- ITV 24 June: Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0 Qatar (0:00)- ITV4 24 June: Scotland 1-4 Brazil (23;00) BBC One 24 June: Morocco 2-0 Haiti (23:00) BBC Two 25 June: Czech Republic 2-2 Mexico (02:00)- BBC One 25 June: South Africa 0-1 South Korea (02:00)- BBC Two 25 June: Ecuador 1-4 Germany (21:00)- BBC One 25 June: Curacao 1-1 Ivory Coast (21:00)- BBC Two 26 June: Tunisia 0-3 Netherlands (00:00)- BBC One 26 June: Japan 0-2 Sweden (00:00)- BBC Two 26 June: Turkey 1-0 USA (03:00)- ITV 26 June: Paraguay 2-1 Australia (03:00)- ITV4 26 June: Norway 1-3 France (20:00)- ITV 26 June: Senegal 1-0 Iraq (20:00)- ITV4 27 June: Uruguay 0-2 Spain (01:00)- ITV 27 June: Cape Verde 1-0 Saudi Arabia (01:00)- ITV4 27 June: New Zealand 0-2 Belgium (04:00)- BBC One 27 June: Egypt 1-1 Iran (04:00)- BBC Two 27 June: Panama 0-4 England (22:00)- ITV 27 June: Croatia 2-0 Ghana (22:00)- ITV4 28 June: Colombia 1-3 Portugal (00:30)- BBC One 28 June: DR Congo 2-1 Uzbekistan (00:30)- BBC Two 28 June: Jordan 0-4 Argentina (03:00)- BBC One 28 June: Algeria 1-3 Austria (03:00)- BBC Two

The closest equivalent goes back to when the Tories did it the other way round, When Harold McMillan resigned as PM, Alec Douglas-Home "emerged" as the new Tory leader. There was no formal leadership election at the time. However, at the time, he was in the House of Lords as the 14th Earl of Home. A Tory MP resigned his seat and Home won the byelection. Harold Wilson, as leader of the opposition, frequently referred to "the 14th Earl; of Home" as a way of highlighting his background. That was a contrast to Wilson's working class upbringing.

Johnny Nash - Hold Me Tight, bought for me by my parents when vinyl was the only option.

Why didn't they have the drinks break while the offside check was being made?