Suedehead2

I won't be holding my breath. Stand by for UEFA using it for the next Euros, including a miserable Thursday night in Glasgow with rain and temperatures of 15 degrees.

Even after Cameron the Tories continued to blame Labour. They were still doing so when they were finally turfed out.

Good to hear lots of boos at the totally unnecessary drinks breaks. Also good that the UK broadcasters are commenting on it.

21 June: Curacao 1-4 Ecuador (01:00)- BBC 21 June: Japan 3-1 Tunisia (05:00)- BBC 21 June: Spain 3-0 Saudi Arabia (17:00)- BBC 21 June: Belgium 2-1 Iran (20:00)- ITV 21 June: Cape Verde 0-3 Uruguay (23:00)- BBC 22 June: Egypt 1-1 New Zealand (02:00)- ITV 22 June: Argentina 2-0 Austria (18:00)- BBC 22 June: France 4-0 Iraq (22:00)- BBC 23 June: Senegal 2-2 Norway (01:00)- ITV 23 June: Algeria 2-1 Jordan (04:00)- ITV 23 June: Portugal 3-1 Uzbekistan (18:00)- ITV 23 June: England 3-1 Ghana (21:00)- BBC 24 June: Croatia 4-1 Panama (00:00)- BBC 24 June: Colombia 1-0 DR Congo (03:00)- ITV

Or it could be just a lot of people betting on if happening, possibly in the hope that they get a hefty points deduction. Fingers crossed.

Looking at some of Labour's critics, you could believe that they inherited the strongest economy any country has ever known. The truth is that they inherited an almighty mess. That's why the Tories were hammered. Unfortunately, memories of 1992, when they were honest about how bad things were, meant that Labour were too scared to be honest about the challenges they would face.

That'll be why the Lib Dems keep winning local byelections. The Lib Dem effort in Makerfield pretty much stopped after the nomination papers were submitted. The sane applies to the Tories.

What A Carve Up was the first Jonathan Coe novel I read. It's a great satire on Thatcherism.

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

After entering the chart at number one last week, Taylor Swift holds off a strong challenge from three Olivia Rodrigo songs to remain at number one with I Knew It I Knew You. She remains the only artist to have two chart-topping singles in 2026. In the midweek updates, Olivia Rodrigo led the way with Stupid Song, although she insists on using all lower-case letters. However, a late rally by Taylor Swift means it enters at number two. There have been many other “song songs” in the charts over the years. They include the instrumental Heartsong by Gordon Giltrap as well as This Is Not A Love Song (Public Image Ltd) and This Is Not A Song (The Frank And Walters). As someone who spends part of my working life teaching children about when to use capital letters, I find the recent trend of artists styling their song titles entirely in lower case infuriating. On the other hand, it does give me the opportunity to say that Olivia Rodrigo’s stupid song is at number two. Time for a slight diversion. Back in the days of the printing press, compositors had to select each letter individually from a rack and set it up for printing. Capital letters were on a higher shelf than small letters, hence the term “upper case”. They were, literally, chosen from the upper case of letters. The lower case letters were more common, so were easier to reach. Who said these commentaries were not educational? Anyway, back to Olivia Rodrigo. She is also at number three with The Cure while her previous number one,Drop Dead, rebounds eight places to number five. The Olivia Rodrigo dominated top three means that Olivia Dean, alongside Sam Fender, falls to number four with Rein Me In. It brings an end to a sixteen-week run in the top two. It has been in the top ten since last November, apart from two weeks over Christmas, and this week it completes a full year in the top forty, having been one of the few non-Christmas songs to survive the annual onslaught of festive tunes (and other noises). K-Pop act Le Sserafin make their top forty debut at number 22 with Iconic By Mistake. They are joined by fellow K-Popsters Illit and Katseye. The latter act have had three previous top forty entries, two of them this year. Regular readers will know that I am not much of a fan of K-Pop, but this offering is truly dreadful. For the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, FIFA chose Colombian singer Shakira to record the official anthem Waka Waka (This Time For Africa). Little did we know that this would appear perfectly logical compared with many subsequent decisions by world football’s governing body. This year, Shakira is back, aided by Burna Boy, with a contribution to the official album for the 2026 World Cup in North America. Wales didn’t qualify for the tournament, but that hasn’t stopped them recording a song called Dai Dai. It is a new entry at number 28, giving Shakira a first hit as lead artist since 2014. It’s not quite as good as Waka Waka, but at least it brings something fresh to the chart. Waka Waka returns to the chart at number 37, its first top forty appearance since its original run in 2010. While Shakira’s World Cup[ anthem is only in the top forty for a second time, another football anthem has been appearing regularly for thirty years, in which time the years of hurt (for the England men’s team) have doubled to 60. That song is, of course, Three Lions by Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and The Lightning Seeds. This week it enters the top forty for a tenth year at number 35. The reason for Olivia Rodrigo’s dominance of the top places in the singles chart is, unsurprisingly, the release of a new album. Equally predictably, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love goes straight to the top of the chart by a wide margin with total “sales” of over 100,000. All three of her studio albums have topped the chart, but this third set has first week “sales” almost as high as the two previous albums combined. The Essential Michael Jackson remains at number two. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number four. With his record-breaking run of Wembley dates under way, Harry Styles climbs back up to number three with Party All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. His previous two albums are also in the top forty. His two best number ones are in the singles chart. Aperture is a re-entry at number 25 while Sign Of The Times climbs to number 29. Yorkshire indie band Embrace are at number five with their ninth studio album, Avalanche. It maintains their run of reaching the top ten with every album. Earlier this year, Drake inflicted three albums on us. That put him one ahead of Bruce Springsteen and Guns ‘n’ Rose who had each released two albums on the same day. All three of those were established acts, but last week Canadian duo Angine de Poitrine released two albums with the uninspiring titles Vol I and Vol II. More accurately, they were both released physically for the first time having originally been released in 2024 and in April this year. Neither of them charted on their initial release but this week Vol I is at number 23 and Vol II is four places higher. Jonathan Coe is one of my favourite novelists with The Rotters Club probably being the work I enjoyed the most. It includes a wonderfully pretentious review of a Yes album, written by one of the characters for his school magazine. The fact that the novel is based in the 1970s, when booth Coe and I were in our teens, shows just how long Yes have been together. They released their first album in 1969. They are at number 42 with their 24th studio album Aurora, narrowly missing out on a 22nd top forty album. Sonny Fodera gets his first top forty album with Can We Do It All Again at number twenty.

I sat through all that before it got worth watching!

18 June: Czech Republic 2-0 South Africa (17:00 BST)-BBC 18 June: Switzerland 3-1 Bosnia-Herzegovina (20:00)- ITV 18 June: Canada 2-1 Qatar (23:00)- ITV 19 June: Mexico 4-1 South Korea (02:00)- BBC 19 June: USA 2-2 Australia (20:00)- BBC 19 June: Scotland 1-1 Morocco (23:00)- ITV 20 June: Brazil 3-0 Haiti (01:30)- ITV 20 June: Turkey 1-2 Paraguay (04:00)- ITV 20 June: Netherlands 1-0 Sweden (18:00)- BBC 20 June: Germany 3-1 Ivory Coast (21:00)- ITV

If Musk liquidated all his assets and donated everything to the UK Treasury, we could all have a year off from paying taxes. Yes, his paper wealth is roughly the same as the UK's tax income.

15 June: Sweden 2-0 Tunisia (03:00) - ITV 15 June: Ivory Coast 2-1 Ecuador (00:00) - BBC 15 June: Spain 4-0 Cape Verde (17:00) - ITV 15 June: Belgium 3-1 Egypt (20:00) - BBC 15 June: Saudi Arabia 0-2 Uruguay (23:00) - ITV 16 June: Iran 1-2 New Zealand (02:00) - BBC 16 June: France 3-1 Senegal (20:00) - BBC 16 June: Iraq 0-2 Norway (23:00) - BBC 17 June: Argentina 3-0 Algeria (02:00) - ITV 17 June: Austria 2-0 Jordan (05:00) - BBC 17 June: Portugal 4-1 DR Congo (18:00) - BBC 17 June: England 1-0 Croatia (21:00) - ITV

Switzerland should have had this match in the bag ages ago. Now it's 1-1.

Have broadcasters been told not to mention all the empty seats?

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

One of the most successful current film franchises has now reached its fifth instalment with the release of Toy Story 5. Disney have managed to persuade Taylor Swift to contribute to the soundtrack which has led to her bagging a seventh number one single in the form of I Knew It, I Knew You. Thankfully, it is a lot better than most of the Disney songs that have reached the charts in recent years. This week Swift became the youngest woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In remains in second place. Ariana Grande falls to number three after a week at the top with Hate That I Made You Love Me. Olivia Rodrigo’s The Cure is at number four. Michael Jackson completes the top five with Billie Jean at number five. Alex Warren gets his ninth top forty hit with Passenger at number 22. The song has rather more energy than some of his previous hit singles as well as a cheerier title than Fine Place To Die. One of those earlier Alex Warren hits was Bloodline which leads neatly into Bloodstream, Alyssa Grace’s new entry at number 25. It is a debut top forty hit for the Californian teenager. The song is OK, but I prefer the Ed Sheeran song of the same name. American rapper Malcolm McCormick, performing as Mac Miller, died of an accidental drug overdose in September 2018, a few months after his relationship with Ariana Grande ended. His previous biggest hit in the UK was as a featured artist on Grande’s The Way which fell just short of a top forty place in 2016. In the same year he released the album The Divine Feminine. Ten years on, a song from that album, Cinderella is a new entry at number 27. It features Ty Dolla $ign who gets a twelfth top forty hit. There is a clear winner in the race to have this week’s most irritating artist name and song title. A Manchester-based artist who styles himself Silva Bumpa has insisted on calling his debut hit single On 2nite. Ugh. The song isn’t much good either, but it is a new entry at number 32. Niall Horan gets his third successive number one album with his fourth solo release Dinner Party. Impressively, its first week sales are the highest of his solo career. He regains his status of having had as many chart-topping albums as his erstwhile bandmate Harry Styles. The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two. Drake’s Iceman is back up one place at number three. Olivia dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number four. Birmingham band Overpass formed in 2020. They were initially expecting to be a covers band, but 2020 turned out to be a rather bad year for live music. Therefore, they used the time to start composing their own songs. They are at number five this week with their debut album Elsewhere, Always. It is the biggest selling album of the week in independent record shops. Regular readers will not be surprised to know what word the Official Charts Company has used to describe actor and musician Jeff Goldblum. Yes, the word multi-hyphenate has been wheeled out again. He, along with the Mildred Seltzer Orchestra, is at number nine with Night Blooms. It is at number one in the Jazz and Blues albums chart, a chart which I believe hasn’t been mentioned here before. Evansescence get a fifth top ten album with Sanctuary at number ten. It is their first release since The Bitter Truth in 2021. It has been nearly seven years since the last Pink Floyd compilation, so it is apparently time for another one. This one is a bit of a curiosity. For a start, it has only eight tracks, leading to the title 8-Tracks. It features tracks from their 1970s albums (a time when 8-track tapes were available) Meddle (1971) to The Wall (1979). It enters at number seventeen to give the band a 30th top forty album. The strangest choice of tracks on 8-Track is that of Pigs On The Wing, easily the weakest track(s) on their 1977 album Animals. I have always felt that this album is under-appreciated. Its reputation may have been damaged by the fact that the first and last tracks are Pigs On The Wing, Parts I and II. It is by no means a bad song; it’s just that all the other tracks are a lot better. The two parts on the Animals album run to under three minutes combined. For some reason, the track on this collection is over three-and-a-half minutes long. I can’t see it encouraging many people unfamiliar with Animals to make the effort to listen to the whole album. Two months after Earrings gave him a first top forty single Malcolm Todd makes his albums chart debut with Do That Again at number nineteen, the same position held by Earrings in the singles chart this week. Perhaps we should call it a Paul Hardcastler double.. Soul singer Jalen N’Gonda has his first top forty album with his second release Doctrine Of Love at number 29. Barry Manilow has been around for rather longer. He gets a 25th top forty album with What A Time at number 34. Prospa are at number seventeen in the singles chart with Free Your Mind. The album of the same name is a new entry at number 24.

Farage, Lowe, Yaxley-Lennon and co are inciting racial hatred. They are supported by the likes of Elon Musk who thinks apartheid South Africa was a bit left-wing. The right=wing press abandoned any idea of reporting facts many years ago. This is all very frightening.

Battenberg Road seems like your dream address

The USA are not exactly honouring the usual meaning o the word "hosts". They have even refused a visa to one of the referees. They should be thrown out of this tournament and at least one more World Cup. If they refuse to allow the scheduled matches to take place, they should be barred for a very long time.

11 June: Mexico 2-0 South Africa (20:00 BST) - ITV 12 June: South Korea 0-2 Czech Republic (03:00) - ITV 12 June: Canada 1-3 Bosnia-Herzegovina (20:00) - BBC 13 June: USA 1-2 Paraguay (02:00) - BBC 13 June: Qatar 1-3 Switzerland (20:00) - ITV 13 June: Brazil 2-0 Morocco (23:00) - BBC 14 June: Australia 1-4 Turkey (05:00) - ITV 14 June: Scotland 1-1 Haiti (02.00) - BBC 14 June: Germany 6-0 Curacao (18:00) - ITV 14 June: Netherlands 3-1 Japan (21:00) - ITV

And look what good it did me I must have chosen it on a Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

I'm pretty confident that the band A have recorded at least one song with the word "a" in it.

Queen - Killer Queen