Countdown Every UK Number 1 single by Scottish acts

[James from London]

Mac and Katie Kissoon produced their cover version first.

The Kissoons? I had no idea!

Sorry, this isn't very Scottish, but in other "Kissoons? I had no idea!" news, I'm currently listening to She Wants You!, a compilation of '60s and '70s Brit-Girl songs on the Pye Label, and among the tracks is is 'Thank Goodness for the Rain' by Peanut. Turns out Peanut is really Katie Kissoon. And Mac's real name is Gerry.

And here is Peanut Katie is doing backing vocals:

 

[Barbara Fan]

I feel I must apologise on behalf of the people of Scotland for producing so many dire number 1s!!


Lena Martell, Annika, Billy Conelly, Jim Diamond et al

From another web site, including a few good bands who NEVER had a no 1!

Top Scottish Bands of All Time​

1. The Average White Band
2. Bay City Rollers
3. Belle and Sebastian
4. Biffy Clyro
5. Big Country
6. Deacon Blue
7. Del Amitri
8. The Incredible String Band
9. Marmalade
10. Mogwai _ who???
11. Nazareth
12. Primal Scream
13. The Proclaimers
14. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
15. Simple Minds
16. The Skids
17. Texas
18. Travis
19. The Waterboys
20. Wet Wet Wet

​

 

[Willie Oleson]

Plus the orientalist arrangements don’t really mesh with the galumphing rhythm

Actually, I miss the gong sound in the 12" version

 

[Mel O'Drama]

"I Should Have Known Better" was a UK number one single for one week in December 1984 for Jim Diamond.

For whatever reason, I always associate this song with Katherine Wentworth. I got properly hooked on Dallas with the shooting of Bobby, and I'd spent the summer of 1984 obsessed with it and watching the daytime repeats of Season Six that led up to it.

This song seemed to be getting endless radio play as the repeats ended and the buzz for Season Seven (my first "new" episodes as a confirmed Dallas fan) built to a frenzy.

My schoolboy head put the two together and related it to Bobby's regret over (arguably) leading Katherine on. And I've never been able to shake it.

 

[Ome]

1985

I Know Him So Well - Elaine Paige And Barbara Dickson

"I Know Him So Well" is a duet from the concept album and subsequent musical Chess by Tim Rice, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. It was originally sung by Elaine Paige (as Florence) and Barbara Dickson (as Svetlana). In this duet, two women – Svetlana, the Russian chess champion's estranged wife, and Florence, his mistress – express their bittersweet feelings for him and at seeing their relationships fall apart.



The chorus of the song is based on the chorus of "I Am An A", a song performed live during Andersson and Ulvaeus' group ABBA's 1977 tour. Although "I Am An A" was never released officially, it circulated on various bootlegs and is readily available on YouTube.

Other versions

Cissy Houston and Whitney Houston version - This single peaked at number 46 in Germany and in the Netherlands, it peaked at number 14.

Steps – The single peaked at number 5 in the UK.

Geraldine McQueen and Susan Boyle – The single peaked at number 11 in the UK.

Melanie C – The Single peaked at number 153







1985

If I Was - Midge Ure

"If I Was" is a 1985 song by Midge Ure. It was co-written by Ure and Danny Mitchell (of Ultravox's tour opening band Messengers) and released as the first single from Ure's first solo album The Gift. It reached #1 on the UK singles chart for one week in September 1985.



In the sleeve notes for the 2001 compilation If I Was: The Very Best of Midge Ure & Ultravox Ure wrote:

"This song is pure Danny Mitchell. I found a demo of it on a cassette Danny had sent me for his band The Messengers. I grabbed it with both hands, messed around with it, sprinkled it with fairy dust and the rest is history."

Ure played all instruments on the song except bass guitar, which was played by Mark King of Level 42.

The instrumental "Piano" was released on the B-side of the 7" and 12" singles. The 12" single featured a second track: a cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World", an earlier version of which was originally released on the film soundtrack of Party Party (1983). Both songs were added as bonus tracks to the CD reissue of The Gift in 1996.

 

[James from London]

I Know Him So Well - Elaine Paige And Barbara Dickson

'It’s ponderous, a good few beats too slow. It’s ugly – from the moment that hideous guitar tone scrapes past on the opening verse you know you’re in for a tough ride production-wise. It’s plummy – Paige and Dickson are troupers and their reading of the song is braced with certitude and has little room for vulnerability. And while Tim Rice certainly could throw the kind of emotional daggers Benny and Bjorn once did, he’s not bothering here: this is a pro forma weepie at best, its coding of wife as security, mistress as fantasy summing up its basic laziness.

'And yet – none of those issues are really Andersson and Ulvaeus’ fault, and what redeems the record is the one thing they could control: the composition. Like the previous number one, “I Know Him So Well” is an absolute belter to sing along with: at weddings, karaoke, anywhere. There’s one moment – only one, really – of ABBA-level brilliance, the “Didn’t I know how it would go?” climax where the two women’s accounts join up. Paige and Dickson almost ruin it with fruity finishing-school “o” sounds but if you’re singing along in the disco or the booth you’ll find the song sweeping you into the intended confusion and release. 5/10'

ELAINE PAIGE AND BARBARA DICKSON – "I Know Him So Well"

[From September 2009] Beware of what you wish for: Benny and Bjorn had spent much of ABBA’s imperial phase wanting to write a musical. They even put together a little taster, with their “Girl With The Golden Hair” trilogy at the back end of ABBA: The Alb[…]

freakytrigger.co.uk

If I Was - Midge Ure

'Musically this is almost as pure an example of the 1985 sound as you’ll find. Box-fresh synthesisers gliding and soaring above Midge like antiseptic seagulls. No snare left ungated. And the guitar sound! ...

As for Midge Ure himself, the combination of the lyrics, the strained delivery, and the sense of abjection in the face of love makes him seem like Phil Collins after too long in the self-help section. “Carrying the weight of popular demand” – no no, I assure you Midge, the weight is all ours. Few acts of charity in the wake of Band Aid were more generous than the record-buying public taking this to Number One. 2/10'

MIDGE URE – “If I Was” | FreakyTrigger

freakytrigger.co.uk

 

[Ome]

“I Know Him So Well” is an absolute belter to sing along with:

I never truly appreciated the greatness of this back in the day.

 

[Ome]

1988

With A Little Help From My Friends/She's Leaving Home - Wet Wet Wet/Billy Bragg With Cara Tivey

With A Little Help From My Friends

"With a Little Help from My Friends" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

In 1988, Wet Wet Wet scored their first Number 1 hit with a cover version of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends", recorded for the charity ChildLine. Another Beatles song, "She's Leaving Home", was equally-billed on the flip side, performed by Billy Bragg.

"With a Little Help from My Friends" was ranked number 311 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Billy Bragg isn’t Scottish and doesn’t belong here, but I always preferred this to the Wet’s cover on the flip side.







1989

Belfast Child - Simple Minds

"Belfast Child" is a song by Simple Minds, first released as the lead track on the Ballad of the Streets EP on 6 February 1989. The EP also included "Mandela Day" (originally its B-side). The record reached number one on the UK Singles Chart as well as in Ireland and the Netherlands, and it became a top-ten hit in Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and West Germany.

The song uses the music from the Irish folk song "She Moved Through the Fair", but has completely different words.



Jim Kerr recalled in 1000 UK Number 1 Hits why he used the melody, "I first heard the melody (of She Moved Through The Fair) a few days after the Enniskillen bombing (when a bomb planted by the IRA exploded during a Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, killing 12 people and injuring at least 63), and like everybody when you see the images I was sick. In the second part of the song, I'm trying to relate to people in Northern Ireland who lost loved ones. I'm trying to talk about the madness, the sadness and the emptiness. I'm not saying I have any pearls of wisdom, but I have a few questions to ask"

 

[James from London]

With A Little Help From My Friends/She's Leaving Home - Wet Wet Wet/Billy Bragg With Cara Tivey

'As I hinted last time “Little Help” showed up, it’s probably the most inappropriately covered Beatles song. It’s such a strong sentiment and such a rousing tune people can’t seem to resist it, but it only really works for me when Ringo takes his best sturdy shot at it on Sgt.Pepper’s. Everyone else sounds too confident, Marti Pellow certainly included. Pellow starts humble enough here but for the second half of the song he begins to showboat, borrowing phrasing from the Joe Cocker version (“ooh I get BAH widalittle help from MAH FRENDZ”), then ‘cutting loose’ to put some of that studied throatiness into the tune on the “love at first sight" bit, the 80s soul man’s vocal version of designer stubble. Though that’s also the only bit this perpetual smoothie sounds sincere on, since it strongly implies ditching those gooseberry “friends” forthwith in favour of Hot Pellow Action. Who needs them anyway? A little help can’t beat a whole lot of lovin’!

It’s undoubtedly Wet Wet Wet who pushed this charity single into our consideration, but for some fans it’s redeemed for its smuggling Billy Bragg to number one. Bragg’s side is certainly better: not lovely or subtle or re-listenable as the Beatles’ version, but it’s an intelligent cover by people who’ve thought about the song. 4/10'

WET WET WET – “With A Little Help From My Friends” / BILLY BRAGG ft CARA TIVEY – “She’s Leaving Home” | FreakyTrigger

freakytrigger.co.uk

Belfast Child - Simple Minds

"Noble intentions rarely translate into effective outcomes. There are an awful lot of cynical and rude things one could say about “Belfast Child”. They might involve words like “stupefying”, “leaden”, and “is that the time”. Or indeed, “desperate”, “wannabe” and “Bono”. But that would be too glib, and would also underestimate the extent to which this kind of statement-making seemed at the end of the 80s like something rock music could and must do. Rock was now happening at a scale where its practitioners felt they should use it to raise awareness of certain issues and causes ... this idea of rock as a moral force had become naturalised since Band Aid.

But that very scale was also a trap. Kerr’s “few questions to ask” catches the problem – stadium rock amplifies and simplifies a musician’s feelings, and you need a remarkable level of skill to keep nuance alive in those circumstances ...

Kerr sings “some say Troubles” with clomping emphasis and then turns the next word into a big arena rock growl just like the one he used on “Don’t You Forget About Me”. And now he’s getting to the real meat of the song he can properly let rip, so in come the drums and he’s off, yelling “Come on Billy!” and “War is ragin’! Cross the Emerald Isle!”. When surely the whole point of the record should be that getting quite so excitable about that stuff is a bad thing. But he can’t help it, this is arena rock and this is what arena rock does: the song is structured so that invocation of war is its natural climax. If you wrote a hands-in-the-air trance anthem about Gaza you’d end up with the same problem ...

“Belfast Child” takes the grubby, botched, intractable brutality of the Troubles and makes them sound grand and mythic, which would be embarrassing enough even if it weren’t exactly what the fighters on both sides liked to play it as too. 1/10"

SIMPLE MINDS – “Belfast Child” | FreakyTrigger

freakytrigger.co.uk

 

[Barbara Fan]

I used to like the Paige Dickson song and remembering taping them off TOTP and being impressed with their very "Dallas" blouses!!

I loved Wet, Wet Wet but always thought Sweet little mystery and Tempatation were so much better

And Simple Minds had so many great hits and always thought Belfast Child was one of the weaker ones!

 

[Barbara Fan]

Simple Minds a BF top 4

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

I once saw Jim Kerr in town, walking down the road - you know when you see someone out of context and then the penny drops, - and all i could say was i saw you in concert in 1985 and it was great!! Cringe!

I have also been to a freinds party in my youth and Marti Pellow was there but he was called Mark then and pre Wet wet wet - I really didnt remember him to be honest! Wish I had paid more attention!

Was never sure how Migde Ure made number 1!

 

[Willie Oleson]

I Know Him So Well - Elaine Paige And Barbara Dickson

They performed this in a Dutch afternoon talk show that was shown before HOWARDS' WAY. I have cosy memories of those afternoons. Come to think of it, I was supposed to be in school at that time but my mother understood that I hated gym class because it was mostly football or something else with a ball, and that's why she never objected to me playing hooky (and, consequently, didn't have to tape the talk show and Howards' Way for me. I loved her very much but she could not be trusted handling a video recorder!).

Other versions

There was the 90s dance version by NRG Faze - all British made and released so I can't be faulted here.

If I Was - Midge Ure

Gosh, I haven't heard this song in decades. I didn't even know what to expect when I clicked on it.
The video looks tacky but I like the song!

With A Little Help From My Friends

Wet has a pretty smile.

Belfast Child - Simple Minds

I'm familiar with the video but not with the song??

It's nice to know that Boney M's "Belfast" is more sincere than the Simple Minds hit. At least, I think that's what freakytrigger was trying to say.

 

[Ome]

1992

Goodnight Girl - Wet Wet Wet

"Goodnight Girl" is the third single from Wet Wet Wet's fourth studio album, High on the Happy Side. It was released on 23 December 1991, and was the second of the band's three UK number-one singles (the first being a cover of The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends"), but the only one to be self-penned.

A string-laden ballad, "Goodnight Girl" spent four weeks at number one in the UK Singles Chart in January 1992. It also gave Wet Wet Wet their third Irish number-one single (after "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "Sweet Surrender") and reached the top 10 in Belgium and the Netherlands. Marti Pellow recorded his own version of the song for inclusion on his 2002 album Marti Pellow Sings the Hits of Wet Wet Wet & Smile. Writer Graeme Clark was inspired to write the song for his then girlfriend, but has never publicly named her.






1992

Ebeneezer Goode - The Shamen

"Ebeneezer Goode" is a song by Scottish electronic music group the Shamen, which, after being heavily remixed by the Beatmasters, became their biggest hit when released as a single in August 1992. The group's original version featured on the vinyl edition of their album Boss Drum.



"Ebeneezer Goode" was one of the most controversial UK number-one hits of the 1990s due to its perceived oblique endorsement of recreational drug use, and it was initially banned by the BBC. It has been claimed that the single was eventually withdrawn after the band were hounded by the British tabloid press, though according to The Shamen themselves, it was deleted while at number one due to its long chart run 'messing up our release schedule'

The song is best known for its chorus, "'Eezer Goode, 'Eezer Goode / He's Ebeneezer Goode", the first part of which is audibly identical to, "Es are good" – 'E' being common slang for the drug ecstasy. However, 'E' is also sung many other times during the song, ostensibly as 'e (i.e. he), such as in "E's sublime, E makes you feel fine". The lyrics allude to the advantages of the drug, though with an admonition against excessive use:



A gentleman of leisure, he's there for your pleasure

But go easy on old 'Eezer, he's a love you could lose

Extraordinary fella, like Mister Punchinella

He's the kind of geezer who must never be abused.



The song also contains references to the common use of cannabis with ecstasy, referencing the rolling of a cannabis joint with the lines "Has anybody got any Veras?" ("Vera Lynns" being rhyming slang for "skins" or rolling papers) and "Got any salmon?" ("salmon and trout" being rhyming slang for "snout" or tobacco).



The "A great philosopher once wrote.." sample at the start of the song is Malcolm McDowell from Lindsay Anderson's 1973 film O Lucky Man!

 

[James from London]

Goodnight Girl - Wet Wet Wet

'... the kind of glossy mulch that gives balladry a bad name. Wet Wet Wet’s notion of soul was always underinspired and overdelivered ...

There’s a jeweller’s craft to soul music – taking a lump of situation and emotion and cutting and setting it perfectly: it’s the most precise kind of pop. That’s what made the late 80s soul revival so obnoxious – instead of starting from situations and feelings bands like Wet Wet Wet started from a style of expression and seemed to assume that using the style dignified whatever you used it on. I can’t find any precision in “Goodnight Girl” at all, no particular situation or emotion I can retrieve from the slosh – it’s all vagueness, and oily vagueness at that. 2/10'

WET WET WET – “Goodnight Girl” | FreakyTrigger

freakytrigger.co.uk

Ebeneezer Goode - The Shamen

'... a rammed pub party vibe: listening to it is like elbowing your way through a raucous crowd, and the bolshy “Eezer Goode! Eezer Goode!” chorus is more Oi than E. Something’s always happening – a twist of synth, a catchphrase, some smeared Happy Mondays-style guitar. The success of “Ebeneezer Goode” is generally pinned on a wish to tweak authority’s nose, but whoever scheduled this bustling, silly record to come out just before Freshers’ Week was a marketing demon.

'... It’s idiotic, yes, but it knows it’s idiotic and it sustains its conceit well and if you accept that you’ll have a good time with Eeezer and with this strutting, invigorating record ... The sticking point might have been in assuming this single had much or anything to do with rave. With its good-time booziness, its music hall callbacks, its exaggerated characters, its student appeal and its cockney vim “Ebeneezer Goode” is really a cousin of and weird precursor to Britpop. 6/10'

THE SHAMEN – "Ebeneezer Goode"

[From September 2011] Has an album ever spawned a weirder set of singles than Boss Drum? You got hands-in-the-air club confectionery (“LSI”), moody tribalism (“Boss Drum”), a twenty-minute spoken word piece by Terence McKenna – honestly, R[…]

freakytrigger.co.uk

 

[Ome]

“Ebeneezer Goode” is really a cousin of and weird precursor to Britpop. 6/10'

This was always low down on my list of Shamen songs, not that I can remember why, I just preferred their other stuff. But, listening to it as I posted this earlier today, I couldn't stop moving to it and now I'm loving it so much more than I ever did.

 

[Barbara Fan]

Ebeneezer Goode - The Shamen

thats a shocker that it made it to number 1 - i have almost no recollection of the band or the song!!

And i used to think i was good at who was top of the charts (or the hit parade as my parents used to call it!"!)

 

[Ome]

1993
Young at Heart - The Bluebells

"Young at Heart" is a pop song first recorded in the 1980s by the British female singing trio Bananarama and appeared on their debut album Deep Sea Skiving in 1983. The song was later recorded by Scottish pop group the Bluebells, whose version peaked at the top of the UK Singles Chart after a re-release in 1993.

Bananarama's version of the song is credited to Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey and Keren Woodward of Bananarama, and Robert Hodgens of the Bluebells, Fahey's then-boyfriend.

The song was reworked in 1984 by the Bluebells, a version originally credited to Hodgens and Fahey upon its re-release in 1993. In 2002, the session musician Bobby Valentino, who performed the violin solo on the Bluebells' version of "Young at Heart", won the right to be recognised as co-author of the song after taking legal action.



The Bluebells' version of the song was a UK top-ten chart success on two occasions, first reaching number eight on the UK Singles Chart during its original release in 1984. Almost a decade later, after the Bluebells had disbanded, the song was re-released as a single in 1993 after being featured in a TV advert on British television for the Volkswagen Golf. It became a number-one hit for four weeks, leading to the band reforming temporarily to perform the song on BBC Television's Top of the Pops, on which they commented on the unexpected re-release by parodying various other famous acts of the time such as Shabba Ranks and 2 Unlimited.



1993
Relight My Fire - Take That Ft. Lulu

"Relight My Fire" is a popular disco song which was written and released by Dan Hartman in 1979, when it topped the US dance music charts for six weeks. It was also performed by Costa Anadiotis' band Café Society in 1984 and British boy band Take That (with Lulu in a featured role) in 1993, 5 months before Hartman died.

"Relight My Fire" was covered in 1993 by English boy band Take That and featured guest vocals from Lulu, reprising the Holloway role. The second of the band's twelve number-one hits, it topped the UK Singles Chart for two weeks in October 1993. It was the first UK number-one single for Lulu and at the time broke the record between an act's chart debut and their reaching number one on the UK Singles Chart, happening 29 years 148 days after her debut with "Shout" in 1964.

The band performed Dan Hartman's "Vertigo/Relight My Fire" version as the intro and opening number of their Nobody Else Tour (featuring Juliet Roberts in the female vocal role).

In 1999, Love to Infinity remixed Take That's cover and issued it on a "12" vinyl" pressing "3.0 Hitmixes". In 2005, the track was remixed for their reunion compilation, known as the 'Element Remix'. However, only a 3 track CD single featuring the new remix was issued to DJs while the commercial CD single pressing was withdrawn.

The band appeared on Mooi! Weer de Leeuw in the Netherlands on March 14, 2009 to perform "The Garden". They also ended up performing "Back For Good" and "Relight My Fire" due to popular demand from the host and audience the next day.

 

[James from London]

Young at Heart - The Bluebells

'As a Bananarama album track, “Young At Heart” is fizzy but unusually thoughtful, a vignette of a kid growing to understand her parents’ choices and compromises. Even at three minutes it runs out of ideas, but it’s a lovely, wise little song and – like all early Bananarama material – it brims with can-do enthusiasm.

'Bobby Bluebell co-wrote that song and then worked it up into a hit, making two major changes ...The bit that’s not his is the violin hook, contributed by Bobby Valentino. It’s immediately recognisable and has the unfortunate effect of pitching the redone “Young At Heart” into an unwinnable comparison with “Come On Eileen” – another fiddle-driven song about coming to terms with your parents’ lives. Even so, Valentino’s wandering violin lines are the best thing about the reworked version – switching from punchy to wistful, corny but at least not leaden.

'Which is more than you can say for The Bluebells’ other addition – that lumbering chorus. “YUNG! At heart! You’re so – YU-UNG AT HEART!”. Ken McLuskey is a non-singer in the grand indiepop tradition, but ... doesn’t have the clarity, wit, or phrasing to make up for it – he smears his way through the verses, obscuring them in favour of that bellowed refrain.

'Together, the fiddle and the chorus were hooky enough to catch Volkswagen’s attention and dredge the song up from 80s limbo to irritate a whole new audience. 3/10'

THE BLUEBELLS – "Young At Heart"

[From February 2012] Another song where hearing the original changes your perspective on it: as a Bananarama album track, “Young At Heart” is fizzy but unusually thoughtful, a vignette of a kid growing to understand her parents’ choices and compromises.[…]

freakytrigger.co.uk

Relight My Fire - Take That Ft. Lulu

'Britain never tried to stuff the disco genie back into the bottle in the way America had – no heaps of burning disco records in, say, Cardiff Arms Park – and the music was uncool mostly in the way that everything 70s was. Until, all of a sudden, it wasn’t: Take That were far from the last pop act to put down roots with a disco cover – it was as accepted a move for 90s boy and girl groups as R&B covers had been for the Beatles’ generation ...

'the original Dan Hartman “Relight”, with its magnificent cosmic-dancefloor intro “Vertigo” ... is a great deal better. Take That’s record is fine, though, very enjoyable – but though Lulu does her best, all the enjoyment is from the song, not the performance. Most disco cover versions by pop bands lack vocal chops, but more, they lack urgency – any sense that something is at stake, that these three, four or nine minutes are the singer’s only chance to get a feeling over, rather than one of many opportunities to put on some glitter and a wig. “Relight My Fire” was a great record – this has no ambition beyond being quite a good one. 5/10'

TAKE THAT ft LULU – “Relight My Fire” | FreakyTrigger

freakytrigger.co.uk

 

[Barbara Fan]

Young at Heart - The Bluebells

Never a fan of this song, Terry Wogan played it ad nauseum and called it the TOGS anthem

Always liked Relight my Fire - Lulu can still belt out a tune

BBC - Radio 2 - Shows - Wake Up To Wogan - What Is A Tog?

.

www.bbc.co.uk

TOGs, also known as Terry's Old Geezers or Gals, listen and attempt tirelessly to feature on Wake Up To Wogan.

Togginess is a state of mind recognised by many, as that feeling of being old before your time. In this light, TOGs are famous for their fierce resentment of anybody younger than themselves reflected in exclamations such as 'They don't know they're born!' and 'Clear off, you young limb!'

Another tell-tale sign of a TOG is a flat cap and an inexplicable penchant for driving their Volvos in the centre lane of the motorway at 60mph. TOGs may also be recognised by their use of such arcane phrases as 'Is it me?', the self-pitying, 'I never saw a bar of chocolate until I was fourteen', the perplexed, 'Why did I come upstairs again?'

There is talk of a secret sign, known only to those who see it flashed, rather like some Bat-Signal, on the radio every morning. There is an even more secret Grand Master, or TOGmeister, sign always exchanged under cover of darkness, or the snug of a seedy eaterie near Broadcasting House, which is known only to Wogan himself, and the Duke of Kent.

Many covet the TOGs car stickers but then, once they receive them, get cold feet and hide them in the back of an upstairs drawer. Those brave enough to flaunt the sticker in their car windows pay a terrible price, not only in loss of face among nearest, dearest and the rest of the population, but in the trade-in value for the vehicle: the thing is impossible to remove.

The TOGs sweatshirt, which, like the car-sticker, is rarer than hen's teeth, bears the legend: 'Do I come here often?' - a tried and trusted TOG chat-up line. There was a strong ground-swell of opinion to have 'I stop for no particular reason' on the back, but it soon petered out.

Currently a movement is gathering strength to have the logos changed to 'It's never your fault' on the front and 'Mustn't grumble', on the back. It will come to nothing. They'll forget about it if you don't pay any attention. This condition is known to TOGs as a 'senior moment', a euphemism, to indicate a temporary loss of all marbles to anyone over 50…

TOGs feel a deep-seated need to form themselves into groups,clusters or tribes. Watch out for a gathering near you.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

first recorded in the 1980s by the British female singing trio Bananarama

The song was reworked in 1984 by the Bluebells

I had no idea about either of these facts. The Golf advert and accompanying release was my first awareness of it, and I'd just assumed it was a new song and a Bluebells original.

Robert Hodgens of the Bluebells, Fahey's then-boyfriend.

In 2002, the session musician Bobby Valentino, who performed the violin solo on the Bluebells' version of "Young at Heart", won the right to be recognised as co-author of the song after taking legal action.

Ooh. Pop incest and lawsuits. I love a song with a backdrop of real-life drama.