26 March 1989: I Bring Up the Topic, You Push It Away

1. Madonna: Like a Prayer
2. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
3. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
4. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
5. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Keep on Movin'
6. Guns 'N Roses: Paradise City
7. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
8. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
9. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
10. Kon Kan: I Beg Your Pardon
11. Fuzzbox: International Rescue
12. Sam Brown: Stop!
13. The Bangles: Eternal Flame
14. Bobby Brown: Don't Be Cruel
15. Coldcut featuring Lisa Stansfield: People Hold On
16. Pat & Mick: I Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet
17. Alyson Williams: Sleep Talk
18. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
19. Chanelle: One Man
20. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
21. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
22. The Cult: Fire Woman
23. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
24. New Order: Round and Round
25. Roachford: Family Man
26. The The: The Beat(en) Generation
27. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
28. Holly Johnson: Americanos
29. Kym Mazell: Got to Get You Back
30. Paul Simpson featuring Adeva: Musical Freedom (Moving on Up)
31. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
32. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
33. Transvision Vamp: Baby I Don't Care
34. Brother Beyond: Can You Keep a Secret [remix]
35. T'Pau: Only the Lonely
36. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
37. Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie: The Rattler
38. Roy Orbison: She's a Mystery to Me
39. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
40. Yello: Of Course I'm Lying

~~~~~

"Yo Paul!" Dad baritoned. He must have known that I hated him using "yo" to get me out of bed. I never used "yo" and it never failed to irk me whenever he used it - which was damn-near every morning until I started university by which time he must have figured I was old enough to get myself up. But it was effective. As always, his "Yo Paul!" knocked me out of my slumber.

"Happy Easter," he said using his regular speaking voice. He handed me a biggish chocolate egg inside a brown ceramic mug. A Smarties mug. My very own cup for consuming coffee and tea (though to this day I've heeded my mum's advice not to bother with the latter: black tea, she claimed, never turns out well in dark mugs) and I still have it. It was my preferred conduit for hot beverages during my awkward junior high years, those up and down days in high school, my drunken, desperate university period and those bouts of un(der)employment between flights of fancy to Asia that was my twenties. It's been with me on three continents and in about a dozen different houses and flats that I've lived in. And I hold it in particular esteem ever since a barfly I used to drink with offered to buy it off me for a pretty hefty price. (It's a pity, then, that the companion Wispa mug my sister got didn't enjoy a similarly full life: just a few months after we returned to Calgary, I jammed it in the dishwasher and it came out clean and chipped; Julie did hang on to it for a number of years after but it was never the same, just trotted out for the odd pity coffee)

"Oh, by the way," Dad said just as he was about to head downstairs, "Oxford won the boat race."

Our second week of the Easter holidays was a unique time for us: it was block of days off yet we spent every night at our tiny place in Laindon. With Dave visiting it was decided - not by me, mind you, but given how weary I'd grown of our endless weekend/holiday overnight trips (with some big ones still to come) I wasn't about to complain. It was nice to be able to take some day trips - and we did plenty of them over the last week of March. Easter Sunday was spent up in Essex's famed Constable Country, while the day after we took in Southend, as if we were out to show Dave that our adopted county was equal doses pristine and tacky. A lengthy, tightly-packed car ride to Stratford followed. Shakespeare's house was nice and the town in general quite lovely but it was let down somewhat by our first disappointing pub lunch - even though I wasn't expecting much from The Slug & Lettuce, which doesn't exactly evoke fine dining.

Back in Laindon, Dave was my roommate. I'd spend a couple weeks on a cot in my parents' room during Cookie and Meghan's visit in February but now it was Julie's turn. Dave continued to be easy going almost to a fault. As my mum later wrote to Grandma Betty: "Dave said that Paul never wanted to go to sleep, just wanted to talk all night". Following a trip to the beautiful village of Finchingfield we took a detour that took us close to two hours out of our way; while Mum, Julie and me complained and Dad berated his rotten luck in being unable to find a turn off, Dave took it all with good humour.

A busy week but just as Dave's visit was wrapping up, we found ourselves with a free Saturday. I emerged for breakfast and Dad and his brother were plotting a football match for the three of us. Wisely opting out of taking in the Tottenham-West Ham clash at White Heart Lane, they chose to take the longer trek to the decidedly safer environs of Plough Lane for Wimbledon-Nottingham Forest. 

Like most North Americans, my knowledge of Wimbledon began and ended with tennis. I was still too young and naive to know that all stadiums and arenas are specifically designed to be in the dodgiest, most unpleasant parts of any given town and had imagined that the world's most famous tennis tournament (even though I've always been more of a Roland Garros man myself) would be situated in a gorgeous, upscale, leafy part of London. Turns out I was right about the leafiness but little else. Plough Lane was just another rundown dump of a stadium set in another rundown dump of an area. We paid our two quid apiece - an advantage of the days when teams played in shithole venues was that it at least it was cheap - peed on the wall of the men's room (since that was all there was) and had a sausage on a bun before claiming our spot in the terrace.

Dad and I had spent our first live football experience envying the mob in the standing terrace and this was our chance. We got there early and chose the very back. The terrace began to fill up and it was bumping by the time of the kick off. An Ipswich, a Norwich and a Spurs supporter thus became temporary Dons fans. I knew nothing of Vinnie Jones - nor, indeed, Wimbledon's Crazy Gang - but we immediately took to him. He was a bad ass on the pitch, fearless, tough and in control. He fully lived up to his hard man reputation, he was a football Dennis Rodman but not the headcase, a Brian Bosworth who wasn't in awe of the Bo Jacksons (as the iconic photo of him grabbing Gazza's lunch box aptly demonstrates), a Jim Peplinski who people had heard of. If he wasn't the best player that day then no one dared tell him otherwise. Years later whenever I would see him in Snatch or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or X-Men: The Last Stand, I would remark that I once saw him play soccer, much to the utter disinterest of whoever I happened to be with.

Vinnie's performance was a highlight of the day but it was being in the terrace that really stands out. I remember wondering how we could enjoy the action at such a poor vantage point but it hardly mattered. Our adopted team played an inspired game and the fans went nuts. Early on I felt silly rooting for a squad I knew nothing about but as the goals came it got easier and easier. The atmosphere was boisterous but not intimidating. The loyal Dons supporters were a well-behaved lot and made the whole thing seem like one big party. The game ended and we took the train back to Laindon, contented by our nice Saturday afternoon taking in the football.

Wimbledon's opponent was Notts Forest, who'd been on a roll since New Year's and were still in the race for the League. To lose, then, to the middling Dons must have been a blow for Brian Clough's side. (It's no wonder, then, that our mates in the standing terrace were so jubilant that their team prevailed) Nottingham continued to do well after the loss to Wimbledon, vaulting over the once first place Norwich City into third. Three days after trouncing Southampton at home they headed up to Sheffield for a crucial FA Cup semi final with Liverpool. A good thing we had our standing terrace experience when we did.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: This Time I Know It's for Real
older Paul's retro pick: Keep on Movin'

19 March 1989: Why Do People Choose to Live Their Lives This Way?

1. Madonna: Like a Prayer
2. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
3. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
4. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
5. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Keep on Movin'
6. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
7. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
8. Guns 'N Roses: Paradise City
9. Sam Brown: Stop!
10. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
11. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
12. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
13. Fuzzbox: International Rescue
14. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
15. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
16. Chanelle: One Man
17. Kon Kan: I Beg Your Pardon
18. Alyson Williams: Sleep Talk
19. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
20. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
21. New Order: Round and Round
22. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
23. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
24. Coldcut featuring Lisa Stansfield: People Hold On
25. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
26. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
27. Bobby Brown: Don't Be Cruel
28. Deacon Blue: Wages Day
29. Roachford: Family Man
30. The Four Tops: Indestructible
31. Elvis Costello: Veronica
32. Kim Wilde: Love in the Natural Way
33. The Bangles: Eternal Flame
34. Pat & Mick: I Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet
35. Kym Mazell: Got to Get You Back
36. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
37. T'Pau: Only the Lonely
38. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
39. Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie: The Rattler
40. Paul Simpson featuring Adeva: Musical Freedom (Moving on Up)

~~~~~

At some point in the eighties pop music began to mean something again. Now, the whole notion of the entire decade being one great big yacht leaden with yuppie hedonists in pastel suit jackets freebasing coke to the sounds of fairlight synthesizers and ultra slick alto sax solos has been largely overstated, it must be said that the Kajagoogoos and Duran Durans did provide an all-too appropriate soundtrack to the age of Reagan and Thatcher. Happily, it wasn't to last. The sea change could well have been the Ethiopian famine and Band Aid and Live Aid which were spawned as a result (and, from there, USA for Africa and Northern Lights). Some acts were galvanized into a campaign of good works with Amnesty International benefit concerts for Nelson Mandela, the Red Wedge movement and saving the rainforest. Others may have recognized the folly of the do-gooders but nevertheless attempted to make their songs have a say about what was going on at the time.

While rock looked to the heartland as a means of salvation and pop dabbled in trying to topple Thatcher (it didn't take but it was worth a try!), hip hop, house and soul took the issues in their own direction. While a number American rappers adopted an aggressive, militant stance, there was a certain positivity behind a number of acts at the time but the results were frequently mixed. The pioneering hip hop trio De La Soul managed to pull off their idealism by dispensing with earnestness in favour charm and playfulness. Others had more vague intentions, which could lead to fumbled attempts at the zeitgeist but not in the case of a landmark hit from March of 1989.

Soul II Soul's Keep on Movin' was a fresh and exciting single as England began to enter a lovely though melancholic spring. Though few knew it at the time, it was to become remarkably influential. Festooned with strings, it seemed like the very first house record not to topple over due to the weight of all its samples; at a time when rock was beginning to get obsessed with getting back to basics, this was sparse, warm and every bit as honest to goodness and downhome as a Tom Petty record. Keeping with the spirit of economy, Caron Wheeler's vocal is restrained and, in places, almost whispered. But what was it about? The title makes it seem like it's just another dance record about dance records but the lyrics brim with world in flux and lives that have to keep up. "Why do people choose to live their lives this way?" Wheeler asks. Is she referring to people who stop movin' or those who keep on? The ambiguity here is attractive. Just as restrained as the music and vocal, the lyrics are about something and feel important but refuse to spell it out for the listener.

(Coldcut's People Hold On attempts a similar tactic but the lyrics' kumbaya, make the world a better place sentiment lets it down a tad. Nevertheless it was similarly astonishing at the though for very different reasons. Lisa Stansfield's elastic voice could shape-shift its way around a lyric and it seemed like she was going to be a star for many years to come (well, she did all right). The music seemed to find a middle ground between synth-pop and house that works well enough but it doesn't impress me as much as I expected. I'd say it hasn't aged well but I had not dissimilar reservations about it at the time too)

It was a nice surprise to discover that we were going to have two weeks off for Easter. The itinerary for the first week was less than welcome since my sister and I were still bitter that we wouldn't be going to Greece and had to make do with Liverpool, Manchester and the Lake District instead. Sensing wisely that the famed/notorious industrial towns were worth a visit but not the sort of places to spend the night in, my parents decided that we'd base ourselves in the charming walled city of Chester. While the Beatles and Liverpool FC and Coronation St. were a part of our visits (this being the closest I'll ever get to traveling like an obsessed Japanese fan), the main attraction of our jaunt up to the Northwest was meeting David and Julie and their daughters Helen and one who shall remain nameless due to my unreliable memory. Mum had joined a tracing your ancestors class in Billericay months earlier and had managed to get in touch with the son of her grandmother's brother in Salford. I tried to dump on it by pointing out that they weren't the ones who were long lost since, you know, they stayed in England and we left but no one listened - and who can blame them?

From there we were off to the Lake District where we were greeted by the novel sight of snow. I never read Beatrix Potter as a boy and was a few years away from discovering how gifted yet horribly dull William Wordsworth could be so I was out of my element when it came to the area's icons. Having spent a few summers camping the the Rocky Mountains, this bit of rugged England seemed like small potatoes but it was picturesque enough to lend its vistas to many a postcard, cross-stitch and TV tray. All right, that's glib but it just wasn't my kind of place. It probably would be now because cafes have taken over from record shops in my esteem of town attractions.

Back in Laindon as the first week of the Easter break began to draw to a close, we began to get ready for the arrival of my uncle Dave. On Good Friday my parents drove to Gatwick to meet him. He was probably every bit as exhausted as we were back in August but he didn't show it. He downed a cup of coffee, made it clear he didn't care about having a nap and seemed enthusiastic about going for a ride to some of the more welcoming spots in Essex. I didn't make a mental note of it then but it's something I think about from time to time when travel gets to be a bit much. Dave is happy to roll with it while on vacation and so should I. (I can't say I've been entirely successful in trying to emulate my uncle's laid back approach but I've tried)

Saturday was the famed boat race between Oxford and Cambridge and we were there by the side of The Thames with a supply of turkey sandwiches and cans of Coke to witness a crew in light blue defeat a crew in slightly lighter blue (or was it the slightly lighter blue side that won?). For whatever reason, we were rooting for Cambridge and, thus, quite pleased by the result.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: This Time I Know It's for Read
older Paul's retro pick: Keep on Movin'

12 March 1989: Over and Over and Over and Over, the Radio's on but I Don't Hear a Song

1. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
2. Madonna: Like a Prayer
3. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
4. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
5. Sam Brown: Stop!
6. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
7. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
8. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
9. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
10. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
11. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
12. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
13. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
14. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
15. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Keep On Movin'
16. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
17. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
18. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
19. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
20. Deacon Blue: Wages Day
21. Guns N' Roses: Paradise City
22. New Order: Round and Round
23. Fuzzbox: International Rescue
24. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
25. Chanelle: One Man
26. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
27. WASP: Mean Man
28. Alyson Williams: Sleep Talk
29. The Wonder Stuff: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?
30. Vixen: Cryin'
31. Elvis Costello: Veronica
32. Kon Kan: I Beg Your Pardon
33. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
34. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
35. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
36. Kim Wilde: Love in the Natural Way
37. New Model Army: Vagabonds
38. The Four Tops: Indestructible
39. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
40. Holly Johnson: Love Train

~~~~~

An Aussie soap heartthrob, a girl group and their comedic doppelgängers, a faded disco-era legend and a pair of hopeless sisters: the Stock Aitken Waterman stable in all its glory. The songwriting/production trio had racked up an awful lot of hits over the previous half decade but by 1989 represented their commercial apogee. It also just so happened to be when the wheels were beginning to unhinge off their enterprise.

I've written previously that I admired Jason Donovan at the time and, judging by some footage on youtube, it's not exactly difficult to see why. He looked great, seemed like a friendly and genuine chap and the ladies simply worshiped him. Crucially, though few discussed this element at the time, he didn't encourage young males to resent his popularity with the fair sex the way we would with the likes of Bros and New Kids on the Block. Smug teen idols of yesterday and today all give off vibes that only they can score the choice womenfolk; Jason, by contrast, made guys feel like they too could get the girl. All he lacked was decent singing and good material but, lacking in those ingredients though it was, Too Many Broken Hearts was still insanely catchy. The thrill of its first week on the top spot, however, had worn off by week two and it was beginning to look like a lame duck number one. We all knew that Madonna would not be denied.

Red Nose Day had come gone and Bananarama's rendition of The Beatles' Help! was the Comic Relief single. They do a passable job of it but, in truth, that's largely down to the efforts of Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Kathy Burke as wannabe Bananas Lananeeneenoonoo. Their comedic interjections ("round, round, round" "daaaa-aaa-aownnn" - I've never been able to hear the original without adding ) and sassy yet apathetic attitude in the video make it memorable. Minus the French & Saunders touches, however, it comes across as Karen, Sarah and the other one just going through the motions, which is something they'd grown accustomed to as the eighties began drawing to a close. While it wasn't obvious at the time, Bananarama were pretty much done as far as their significance was concerned while their comedic cohorts would only become more successful into the nineties. Bananarama would be aspiring to be more like Lananeeneenoonoo before long.

Donna Summer's This Time I Know It's for Real is yet another SAW number that had climbed its way into the Top 5. It would soon be a big favourite of mine as I began to tire of Too Many Broken Hearts but it's slighter than I remember it being back in the day. It was great that a legend of the disco age could have a renaissance but those old enough to remember her early work must have known that this just couldn't compare to Hot Stuff and I Feel Love. 

And, finally, we come to the nadir of Stock Aitken Waterman, the moment that their empire began to crumble. I'd Rather Jack by Merseyside sister act The Reynolds Girls was conceived as an attack on DJ's and critics spurning their records but the results merely come across as cheap and whiny. The tune nicks some squelching from the once burgeoning, now faltering acid house scene which made it seem almost as dated as Pink Floyd and the Stones who are lampooned in the lyrics. If it didn't manage to alienate those who dug their Dire Straits just as much their Yazz then the naff presentation and amateurish dancing on the part of the Reynolds Girls proved a further turn off. Ironically, a year later SAW were having Kylie remind people to "remember the old days, remember The O'Jays" in the much better single Step Back in Time.

Happily, there was an antidote to the SAW shitshow. Unfortunately, The Wonder Stuff's Who Wants to Be the Disco King? only hit the chart's lower end and wasn't something I was aware of at the time. It wouldn't be until I was an awkward, frequently cheesed off fourteen-year-old that I had the opportunity to get into loudmouth laureate Miles Hunt and his fellow Stourbridge urchins but while Caught in My Shadow and The Size of a Cow were perfect tunes for my angsty teens (I always felt that because I had The Wonder Stuff I had no room in my life for grunge), I might have done well to hear someone rail against all this phony, manufactured pop at a younger age.

Still, I could very well have been fodder for one of Miles Hunt's blisteringly snide attacks for I was off to hob-nob with royalty this week. The 13th being Commonwealth Day, my dad took any excuse possible to get out of work - and get Julie and me out of class - by signing us up to attend a service at Westminster Abbey along with very special guest HM Elizabeth II, ver Queen. The itinerary for the day in London didn't seem especially promising but the chance to get out of an afternoon of making peppermint creams in home economics and composing my own private creed in religious studies really made me see the bright side of dressing up to see a royal. Not that I went all out with dolling myself up for the occasion: I wore my school uniform with my green and black sweater in place of the blazer and, judging by the photo taken either right before or just after the ceremony, it was yet another day in which I'd neglected to drag a comb through my hair.

The service was neither short nor long. We sat in our alloted seats for a little while but not so long that I got fidgety. Suddenly, everyone stood up and a procession began to, uh, proceed past us. In the middle of a group of very important looking people I spotted the Queen. She seemed appropriately regal but had the look of ever-present boredom that doubtless comes with having attended a lifetime's worth of Commonwealth Day ceremonies. Though impressive in its own way, it was still one of those things that really isn't such a big deal at the time and in retrospect. It's something I typically forget to even tell people and, having just typed the the first half of this sentence, I'm not sure why I've bothered telling it to anyone.

The service over, we then ventured over to Covent Garden to visit The Maple Leaf Pub, London's Canadian tavern of choice - though that's probably due to it being the only game in town in that regard. It was the kind of place that can only attract the rabidly homesick so, naturally, we were smitten. I enjoyed my Montreal smoked meat sandwich so much that I vowed then and there to return. In subsequent years I've been to a few equivalent joints - pre-fab Irish pubs in Bangkok, Singapore and even on the tiny Indonesian island of Gili Trawangan, dive sports bars in Jakarta's Blok M and Seoul's Itaewon - and am now resigned to both their functionality and just how depressing they can be. The ham and cheese baguette might be decent, it might be a cool novelty to see a hockey game for the first time in months or years and there's always a good chance you can strike up an agreeable conversation with a fellow expat. But the beer is no better than anywhere else in the area, the prices are astronomical, the atmosphere isn't really all that Canadian or Irish and that expat will soon get on your nerves. Even if that expat you were chatting with was me.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Too Many Broken Hearts

older Paul's retro pick: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?

5 March 1989: I'll Give You Ten Good Reasons to Stay

1. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
2. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
3. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
4. Sam Brown: Stop!
5. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
6. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
7. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
8. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
9. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
10. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
11. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
12. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
13. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
14. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
15. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
16. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
17. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
18. Deacon Blue: Wages Day
19. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
20. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
21. WASP: Mean Man
22. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
23. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
24. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
25. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
26. Holly Johnson: Love Train
27. Vixen: Cryin'
28. The Wonder Stuff: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?
29. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
30. Fuzzbox: International Rescue
31. Yazz: Fine Time
32. New Order: Round and Round
33. Def Leppard: Rocket
34. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
35. Roy Orbison: You Got It
36. Chanelle: One Man
37. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
38. Elvis Costello: Veronica
39. Alyson Williams: Sleep Talk
40. New Model Army: Vagabonds

~~~~~

The night of March 5, 1989 saw our own little Beatles-Stones, Blur-Oasis chart battle. We had just finished dinner and Bruno Brooks was getting down to the nitty gritty of his weekly Top 40 rundown. Simple Minds were at number six and, thus, we knew there would be a brand new chart topper. Michael Jackson was also falling and Sam Brown was standing pat in fourth place. Radio 1's Bruno Brookes then announced that Bananarama and their comedic doppelgängers Lananeeneenoonoo were up to number three with their cover of Help! It was an appropriate number to get the bronze medal since it was one both sides could agree on: my sister and I liked the 'Narns' distinctive in unison vocals and the amusing touches courtesy of French and Saunders, my mum appreciated a Beatles cover that wasn't utterly wretched.

Help! began to come to a close and we waited. We all knew the next two singles but we didn't know who would hit number one. Mum was convinced it was Michael Ball's Love Changes Everything that had the top spot sown up; Julie and I were equally sure that Jason Donovan's Too Many Broken Hearts was destined for number one. No one placed a bet on the result, no one thought to do so; all that mattered was who would coming in first. Finally, Brookes came back on to resolve our little household impasse: Michael Ball was at number two. My sister and I enjoyed a satisfactory bout of gloating while Mum looked severely annoyed.

This all seems so wonderfully quaint now, doesn't it? A tedious and overly lush Andrew Lloyd Weber tune from the already massive flop musical Aspects of Love competing with a catchy yet moronic piece of fluff by a heartthrob Aussie soap star. Hardly what one would call a murderer's row of classic pop. But I love the fact that my mum cared so much about that week's UK number one and that we were all so invested in it. (For his part, my dad didn't try to ignore all the hullabaloo even if he did fire off a few cynical remarks our way) Does anyone these days care about the charts the way we did on that Sunday night in March? (Fond as I am of that little anecdote it's also a sad reminder of how I now live at a time when hardly anyone cares about music anymore)

Windsor was just another town in a country and in a year filled with towns. The B&B was crap, the weather wasn't especially good and even browsing the records at WH Smiths tiresome. Sunday morning in the drizzle wandering around the park adjacent to the Castle (and, I gather, oh so close to the hallowed halls of Eton; not that I cared at the time seeing as how we were already surrogate Old Harrovians) was nice but I spoiled the mood by trying to look clever in the photos taken by my dad. Okay, the Safari Park was pretty good, I definitely enjoyed that, even though I can't help but look back on it knowing that it was soon to become a Legoland.

This week's entry features a double dose of torpor. At the time I was getting sick of spending damn-near every weekend away and now I look back on places like Windsor with ennui. A rot was beginning to set in during these mid-period months of our year in England. This may have been the time to have dialed back on the weekend day and overnight trips since the novelty had definitely worn off. It's also the point where blogging about such trips gets to be too much. What more can be said?

Well, one thing actually. The trip to Windsor concluded with an impromptu decision of Dad's. Perhaps also feeling the mundanity of all this travel, he got in the car and announced that he fancied cutting through London on the way home rather than taking the mammoth M25. As if justifying it to himself as much as the rest of us, he claimed that it might be our last chance to do so. He was talking as if we had only a few days left in our trip, not several more months. But it triggered something in me: we now had more time behind us than ahead and our return to Canada was on the horizon. Our car edged slowly through the north of London and I began to think about how much I wanted to stay.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Too Many Broken Hearts
older Paul's retro pick: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?