TOTP 8/12/77 (tx 20/12/12): Christmas double issue

Tony Blackburn in his casual golfing top welcomes us, Donna Summer's Love's Unkind takes us down the countdown, and we all get to admire the inch-perfect skill of the designer.



Generation X – Wild Youth
A close-up of a guitar? With Tony around are we in A Bit Of That Sort Of Rock mode? We're certainly in the bleach'n'sneer department for Gen X's second appearance but the first we've seen on telly, though Billy, gloves to match his leather jacket, really has to try and gain the gaps where he can do that lip snarl thing. The guitarist meanwhile has the drooping blonde fringe that the Police would sport for a bit and Birdland would later take up. (Hands up who thought Birdland would get a relevant reference on here?) Tony James on bass manages to break his strap and has to perform some running repairs in the break. By the end Billy's just shouting and James has abandoned the instrument almost completely, lifting it high on the punch-along beat.

Hot Chocolate – Put Your Love In Me
"Here's a group that never made a bad record" Tony avers. It's another triumph of the directorial art, using both fish-eye lens and fading shots of the band members in turn up over a long shot of the stage before Errol gets to do his straight-faced, big-collared thing in closeup. Then on the way towards the end the effects budget gets blown for another week as everything briefly goes into flickering psychedelic colours, violins cascade, Errol hits a falsetto note or two and then things just continue as if nothing untoward had happened.

Chic – Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah)
Or as Tony calls them, Chick. No Francophile he. Nile Rodgers tells a story of coming to TOTP in 1975, we think with Labelle, and having only known genre divided radio up til then was surprised to find following them on stage at the recording of what he'd been told was this big modern pop show was Mike Reid's telling of The Ugly Duckling. He's not here, it's Legs & Co in their showgirl outfits, shiny boob tubes/small tops and pants each with a trailing set of feather boas like psychedelic Pepe le Pews and a matching armband. Dancing under a set of geometric shapes hung from the ceiling that wobble occasionally just as the girls move under them there's very much a flapper dancing vibe going on, though you can't really get away with much else dressed like that.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band – California
"I was in California a little bit earlier on this year, and to sing all about that here's Manfred Mann's Earth Band". Either the song actually is about Tony's holiday, which seems unlikely if not overdoing it, or it's not the greatest holiday destination tip I've ever heard. The guitarist, looking like a lost member of 10cc, opens by strumming his guitar unconvincingly before his singing colleague, who with beard and woolly hat seems to be a prototype for Badly Drawn Boy, except in a barely forgiveable rainbow jumper that even a Playaway host would pass by, exudes. It sounds like American country rock, as so many tried to back then. It turns out, though, that it's the drummer we should have been watching, as not only is he wearing a massive headband despite being bald but he bursts out laughing at the guitar solo, surely something he'd be used to by now.

Bonnie Tyler – It’s A Heartache
The show seems to have been edited by pinning the 3.5" videotape to a wall and firing a staple gun at it. Bonnie's back, a vision in a country singer white suit. No room for band theatrics this week with a tiny stage, but she sounds like she's getting used to her new voice. Tony makes sure to credit her as being from "beautiful Wales".

The Bee Gees – How Deep Is Your Love
"Number five in our sensational chart", they're under the lights again. This time with audio wobbles!

Graham Parker & The Rumour – New York Shuffle
The smallest man in pub rock returns! Still in shades, as expected, the Rumour run through some rhythm and blues (as opposed to rhythm and rock) enlivened when Parker joins in the guitar solo by mouthing it right at camera with a circular mouth as if he were a particularly rock-conversant goldfish, all while pumping his right arm to indicate some form of excitement. We lose Bing Crosby's White Christmas here presumably for film rights reasons, though it used to be a staple of TOTP2's festive show. Still, we jump straight on to a song that's just as legendary...

The Banned – Little Girl
Yeeeees. In all senses of the drawn-out sucking of air through teeth. The Banned were members of prog rockers Gryphon chancing it for the quick buck - their past members list on Wiki includes such delights as Rick Mansworth, Ben Dover, Tommy Steal and naturally John Thomas - though with their clipped, reedy riffs, Mockney singing drummer, skinny ties and cheap shades they actually seem to have accidentally invented new wave. Halfway through drummer Paul Sordid - that doesn't even work! - in his cream scarf runs to the proper mike and with the beat merrily carrying on regardless he goes through the motions of pointing and glaring through the shades. The audience look appropriately bemused. "I love that one" Tony lies.

Wings – Mull Of Kintyre
Tony slings his arm around a woman who seems less than enthused about the prospect and introduces a clip we're just going to have to get used to. The gift that keeps on giving, Belfast sees us out.

TOTP 24/11/77 (tx 13/12/12): all the fun of the pharoah

If I knew earlier that a TOTP that wasn't shown would be so much more immediately popular than discussing so many that were, this blog might have taken a different course. Regardless, onwards.

Kid, wearing the sort of mid-length jacket-cum-robe that goes best with a long cigarette holder, a chaise longue and a louche disposition, welcomes us to "the hit music scene". Belfast under the charts, which at 29 includes The Tubes (White Punks On Dope - no, curiously TOTP didn't go near it) with a photo featuring loads and loads of people, surely including people who weren't in The Tubes - on the Old Grey Whistle Test set! Caring and sharing, that's the BBC. Meanwhile Wings are lumbered with the single sleeve, which with the fading of the distinction between photo and photo-in-photo looks on screen like the worst Photoshop you've ever seen.

The Carvells – The LA Run
I don't know what image comes to mind when you try to imagine a song from the mid to late 70s called The LA Run, but I doubt it's this. It may well start with a close-up of a bass, metronomic drumming and some Moog squirting, but before long it's headlong into the world of early Beach Boys pastiche we go, leading-on bass vocalist and everything. Except... about skateboarding. In fact the Carvells, nom de rock for prolific backing singer Alan Carvell, have a board and helmet on the amp and keyboard, called 'their' subsequent album Skateboard Rampage and this is one of only two tracks on that album without the word 'skateboard' in the title. Fad cash-in much? Almost all clad in white trousers they're apparently a three guitar band without sounding anything like one, but they won't let us see the guitar solo as we cut to some stock footage of skateboarders doing their underdeveloped thing next to Tower Bridge - which, you may know, isn't in LA - on parapets and in bowls. And ny sheer amazing coincidence someone in the crowd has brought a skateboard with them! Lofting it above their head they resist any temptation to either try out some moves or chuck it at them. The director gets bored with the overlong outro and puts the skater footage back on, after which we see the keyboard player dancing with the board. You know how Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who could surf - was he the only Carvell who could skateboard?

Wings – Mull Of Kintyre
"A long, long way from the skateboard scene" comes Paul near a cottage, then near a beach, then pipers on a beach. Macca gets up just as Linda approaches so he can go on a wander with Denny Laine. He must have had some explaining to do after that. "That must stand a big chance of being this Christmas' number one sound" Kid predicts, accurately by the show's standards in a stopped clock way, while surrounded by the apparent winners of a Brotherhood Of Man Dress-alike contest.

Bonnie Tyler – It's A Heartache
We've seen Bonnie before on here but this is the first appearance since throat nodules gave her the full cement-gargling treatment. "That sad sweetheart from Swansea", as an onomatopoeic Kid is keen to point out, Bonnie's voice actually seems to be rougher even than we've become accustomed to, borderline laryngitis. Footballer-resembling keyboard player in green T-shirt aside her entirely functional backing band are all in different shades of classic mid-70s brown, keeping it low key for now until the John Milesalike guitarist gets his solo and goes for his moment including a foot up on a non-existant monitor. A very odd moment right at the end, as while Kid confidently states her to be "my tip for success in 1978" - she didn't have another top 30 single until 1983 - Bonnie's voice on its own suddenly appears at seemingly louder volume than during the song for two and a half words, literally cutting off mid-syllable. Cut like that it can't have been a live vocal mistake, but surely a pre-record would have played in the whole band. Curious.

Darts – Daddy Cool/The Girl Can't Help It
"Those darlings of the doo-wop" have their first visit, falling Hegarty and all, repeated. Kid vouches for their live reputation, as if we hadn't just had a taste of it.

Leo Sayer – There Isn't Anything
Kid chooses to deliver his link not so much with his arm round a young woman (stop it) as restraining her with his forearm round her throat. Is she gurning and glancing round the studio out of choice or for assistance as the oxygen depletes? A carefree Kid tries her out as straight woman regardless of her situation. "There isn't anything... isn't it?" is his question to her at the end, again trying to work that particular charm of his, to which she can only say "no" and laugh because the question doesn't make sense without the song. Leo's on his own, as he has been before, a service we've only recently seen granted to Queen. To think there was a time when both would be of the same level of prestige. A blacked out studio highlights the brightness of his top and also the fact that he's basically trying to recapture the big ballad emotion of When I Need You only to find his big notes are just shouting before, using the magic of perspective, he wanders into a large picture frame towards a mike stand. He is, of course, on a part of the stage well behind the frame. What the point of that little sojourn was isn't clear but it keeps us guessing a little. Afterwards he's with a different woman, the stud, making a pointed remark about "beautiful Britain". No, Kid. Not now.

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers – Egyptian Reggae
Ah, paydirt. Kid cracks it's "the music a few English football managers are dancing to these days". Presumably that's a Don Revie joke, but he went to the United Arab Emirates. Still, all the same to Kid, isn't it? Anyway, the quixotic Richman instrumental gets the Legs & Co treatment. Treatment is the operative word. No words can do justice.



I described this on Twitter a couple of weeks ago as Legs & Co's equivalent of Pan's People's Get Down, not only in that it's probably the most likely of their routines you'll see on nostalgia clip shows but it's also people doing what on the face of it is a quite stupid looking routine with a great big animal-based elephant in the room with absolute poker faces and total commitment to their craft. In case you were wondering, according to the former it's Sue front end, Lulu at the back, and you have to say that Ms Cartwright's let the side down a little at the end there, assuming her end tableau position half a bar early while Sue's still wobbling her/its head, though she's also half a second late in the climactic head drop. And see the venomous power of that snake! I really have no idea how Pauline didn't run cowering. Or alternately piss herself laughing. "I'm sure Jonathan Richman would like that" Kid says, giggling. Well, he might.

Hot Chocolate – Put Your Love In Me
The graphical wizards have already moved on from their rainbow coloured circles and seem to have constructed an oval out of coloured lights and wires to project close-up shots of instruments into the middle of. A little moving about and the effect is quite psychedelic for the 20p budget's allowance, though the CSO framing could do with some steadiness. Errol's ever emotionless face mostly gets the full screen treatment, of course, but after he's started there's some judicious wipes from the centre so we can be reminded who's boss round here. There is an audience at this taping, but they're only glimpsed once in a long shot in complete silhouette. Eventually they end with a pan to the lights, like they want to finish already.

The Bee Gees – How Deep Is Your Love
The intro to the video, the one with all the spotlights you're probably aware of, sees Kid take to the Egyptian set and hoists a hitherto unused novelty tiger head print stole over his shoulder. With it in place he tries an Eric Morecambe routine and gets it wrong. Honestly, we shouldn't expect that sort of prop-based fallacy from anyone. Apart from DLT.

Santa Esmeralda & Leroy Gomez – Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Odd demarcation, given "high stepping", as Kid refers to him, Leroy Gomez was the singer in the group Santa Esmeralda. It's Gloria Estefan And Miami Sound Machine before its time. Perhaps in protest Santa Esmeralda haven't shown up, which means fewer people to take issue when Kid in voiceover tells us they're "from the land of flamenco guitars, the group Baccara and Manuel". Just say Spain, Kid, we've heard of it. Leroy's up for it regardless, doing some frantic clapping as an intro before a full stage shot reveals it to be him plus three dancing girls - I don't think they're Legs & Co members, though I stand to be corrected, from other European TV performance clips it seems to be more like Leroy's personal harem - performing a routine big in standing side-on in pleated Spanish-type skirts, just to ram it home. Two of them are in their bras. The other probably counted as the demure offering. Gomez, in his afro, half-shaved goatee beard and half-open shirt with sleeves that resemble the shape of tin foil immediately after it's been removed to reveal the buffet sandwiches underneath, tries his best but it can't be helped that he's been placed out to one side of the stage so the dancers get most of the central space.

ABBA – The Name Of The Game
Still there, still at deadlock in their Ludo game. "The Kid", as by now he's calling himself, is back on that new "exotic "set seemingly surrounded by the entire audience, some of whom are in ties, some in rollnecks. Ahead of the Jacksons' Goin' Places he has only one thing left to wish us - "good week and good love!" What? Don't mess with a winning formula!

TOTP 31/3/77 (tx 12/4/12): and they said it would never happen

Oh, quickly before we start - Monday sees the start of an all-new (and just nineteen years after the first series) ten part run of Sounds Of The Seventies at 10pm, including that Jean Genie.

This was David Hamilton's final Pops - he upgraded from Radio 1 to Radio 2 in November and with him only having done the show thirteen times and Kid's introduction proving successful I imagine the thought was someone had to give way. Don't ask Diddy why, his Killing Of Georgie Fame anecdote suggests he still thinks his last show was six months earlier. But that's not the reason, tempting as it is, why this week in particular has attracted so much attention. Nobody really knows whether it's true BBC4 were going to skip this show for playback quality reasons - the initial schedules missed it out, but then initial schedules did that twice in 1976/2011. This is one of four shows, the others from before the BBC4 run started, that were wiped but recovered in 2009 from Diddy's personal collection, taped to Philips N1500. Essentially it's given the show a visual Instagram filter, the slightly off-perfect look of an old video recording but on proper telly, adding a whole new layer of nostalgia.

Also adding a layer of nostalgia, Diddy's choice of a red zip-up top. Leather or tracksuit. Can't tell. And with one last facile punching of the air at the very end of his intro link we're away.

Blue – I’m Gonna Capture Your Heart
Obviously not *that* Bl...what a pointless statement that is. Actually, yes, despite none of their members being born this early it's that same Blue scratching an AM radio MOR itch before they turned into a boy band. Happy? It turns out the pianist with the unnerving grin is the singer, and he's clearly been at the forefront of some band squabbling as he has the overhead lights all on him and the guitarist, singer of prominent backing vocals and wearer of a tie over a lime green shirt is at the far end of the stage in near complete shade for a line or two. Later on, finding himself in profile close-up, he starts miming out of the side of his mouth before reverting to attempting to sing while broadly smiling, walking a thin line between jovial and threatening. As was common the drummer is at the front despite looking like he failed the 10cc auditions and is wearing a poor Hawaiian shirt.

Billy Ocean – Red Light Spells Danger
"A red light, and the man who's really switched it on!" The key difference in fashion waywardness between Billy and any old Amoo is Ocean liked an outfit that was predominantly one colour and looked stylish in all the right lines and ways but coupled with something horribly clashing visible underneath. This week the smart buttoned up suit is crimson, the shirt is lemon and the cuffs folded back well over the jacket sleeves could easily act as emergency buoyancy aids.

David Soul – Going In With My Eyes Open
Diddy, flanked by two girls one of whom was surely a teenage Tilda Swinton, introduces Legs & "Company" in a comedy northern accent. Well, last chance and all that. Nobody's quite sure what to do with this so it ends up a mish-mash all round, long fluffy ballet skirts matched with criss-crossed straps for bras, ballet's graceful movements followed by the usual running round in a circle. Luckily things get more interesting for them in the coming weeks. The odd flicker and audio warp reminds us Mrs Hamilton must have been sitting directly in front of the set, fingers poised over the tracking buttons. Let's think of her this long week.

David Dundas – Another Funny Honeymoon
Ah, the long cruel winter of the one hit wonder (this did actually make the top 30, just, but do you remember it?) Doing away with his trusty piano he seems really quite unsure what to do, opening with some jigging-cum-jogging on the spot. It doesn't help that the orchestra have interpreted the recorded version's mixed down wah-wah rhythm guitar as a prominent chicken-squawk and removed most of the jug band bits copied off In The Summertime and The Pushbike Song, but Dundas could have done his bit by singing in the same octave as usual rather than a slightly deeper timbre. His backdrop reminds us that The Sky At Night was on last week.

Lynsey De Paul & Mike Moran – Rock Bottom
Now, it's Diddy's last TOTP, surely there's some sort of running motif with his presenting that they could squeeze one more out of... and sure enough two girls turn up wearing T-shirts which appear to depict a stylised drawing of Arnold and a radio dial and the legend underneath 'thanks to the TONY BLACKBURN SHOW'. So yes of course they're the Tony Blackburn fan club who've "just had their annual meeting in the phone box round the corner", introducing "Tony's theme song". Never fails us, Diddy. Then they join him in pointing off into the imagined stage distance! At this point Diddy became self-aware and had to go. De Paul and Moran's Eurovision song was last time performed back to back. This week a neat overhead shot revealed the two grand pianos almost slotting into Tetris-like place with the players facing each other, De Paul reading her 'ROCK BOTTOM' headlined newspaper. She's working confused gesticulations with which to start too, as the director hurredly switches between a camera behind both protagonists. De Paul then throws the paper over her shoulder only for it to apologetically fall right behind her, something that she apparently finds so hilarious she nearly corpses through her next two lines. Retake, surely? Meanwhile whatever the crowd are dancing to has a progressively faster pace. Two of them occasionally wave Union Jack flags. Two of them. Put the effort in, floor manager.

Berni Flint – I Don’t Want To Put A Hold On You
"...apart from the half nelson" Diddy appends, demonstrating one on himself somehow. Repeat.

The Stylistics – 7000 Dollars And You
"Looking good" Diddy makes sure to appraise, even though they look like snooker players and are completely aesthetically wrongly arranged, the two much taller members, one of whom is singing lead, to the right with the two shortarses immediately to their right, meaning they're the ones in the middle. It looks about as just-wrong as the film, actually, as their moves aren't quite drilled into dead-on choreography and Russell Thompkins Jr, for it is he, looks like he's wearing false eyebrows to go with his tight perm and, perhaps not unconnctedly, more often than not looks startled. At least they're all standing up this time.

Bonnie Tyler – More Than A Lover
"That cheeky girl, I'll give her three weeks to change her mind!" Is that an offer of no-strings sex, Diddy? Wow. Maybe that's why it was his last one. The picture quality, while giving parts of the show a not unattractive Vaseline lens smeared effect, really comes into its mushy own here as Tyler is surrounded by very bright red and green spotlights that cast flares on the camera, which combined with the set's homage to the Warner Bros Looney Tunes logo, the back of which seems to be both reflective and made out of black bin bags, give it the effect of the set of a mooted knockoff German disco programme called something like Club Disco 77. Meanwhile a very young looking Bonnie emotes gravelly, unconcerned by it all. Afterwards Diddy has a guest, a deeply bearded and confused looking Mike Nesmith, promoting his "great single" Rio. Diddy asks him what it's about. "Hollywood movies" is Mike's quite direct answer, upon which apparently he "went bananas". Diddy, evidently not having been listening to that answer: "Have you ever been there?" Nesmith: "To bananas or Hollywood movies?" Diddy: "No, have you ever been to Rio?" Nesmith: "Oh, er, yeah...no, I never have, except in Hollywood movies". They could have carried on like that all night.

Abba – Knowing Me Knowing You
...except there's a number one to introduce. "Do you know what it is?" "Yes." Pause. "What is it?" "It's a song by Abba." "What's it called?" "I haven't a clue". As I say, this was the last Top Of The Pops Diddy ever did, and probably the last Nesmith ever did come to that. Off into the glaring in the snow, Elvis' Moody Blue plays us out, and in between the two Diddy waves us goodbye with a bellowed "BYE-BYE!" And don't forget to pull the tab out.

TOTP 4/11/76 (tx 24/11/11): we've had lots of letters

Fourth last retained show before Christmas, but it looks like Noel has been a little ahead of schedule by surrounding himself with big sacks. Oh, no, it's the other possible gag: "tonight's programme is dedicated to everyone who wanted me to get the sack".

Steve Miller, who we'll see later, gets a cutout that doesn't work in two dimensions, pointing the guitar head right at camera as he is. It's almost as alarming as the Pipe Smoker Of The Year Lalo Schifrin.

Showaddywaddy – Under The Moon Of Love
Since we last saw the 'waddy, in the real world singer Dave Bartram has retired and secondary frontman Buddy Gask has died, so consider this a tribute. The canned applause at the end of the countdown completely masks Romeo Challenger's big kettle drum intro, surely revival rockabilly's most exciting moment that doesn't involve Den Hegarty. There's a big concept to this one as it's been recorded twice, once in white suits, once in black suits, the former the default but with clips of the latter being cut in gradually more often. It's a neat method of confusion, not that a stage full of faux-Teds in Daz-sparkling suits really needs more visual gimmickery to stand out. Bartram makes an appealing frontman, lots of side looks to camera and for the bridge getting down on his knees on the lip of the stage so as to greater appeal to the girls who it turned out rarely returned the compliment in awestruckness terms, but they'd got to find something for the two auxiliary members to do other than BVs, handclaps and turning in circles. Everyone, after all, is already doing that step-forward-step-back thing. Lots of tipping of the shot to the side too, which we haven't seen since Dancing With The Captain, appropriately given in conjunction with the band's perpetual motion it threatens seasickness. Eventually Bartram sits on the front of the stage and then does so in black too, which spoils the impression of in-the-moment improvisation. As a crowning coda Challenger gives the timpani one last double whack after the playback has finished. That natural reverb goes a long way.

The Manhattans – Hurt
"The sound in the chart with the big deep voice at the beginning - no, not Lena Zavaroni!" Girls behind Noel actually laugh. One falls off a small ledge in mirth. He's found his level at last. Just nobody mention that Zavaroni was going to have had all the chart success she'd have by mid-1974. This video in all its overhead spotlit, dragging nature was on back in October. It feels longer, actually.

Steve Miller Band – Rock 'N' Me
Those sacks? They seem to contain a lot of letters of potential names for what Noel pointedly refers to as "our new all lady dancing group". In fact "you've ruined it, totally ruined it" - us, Noel? The problem is at your end, surely, if you can't find time to read and weight up all the suggestions. Leaving the announcement to "DLT next week" - yeah, about that... - he instead bids "see you next week for that announcement", which seems undue of him. For their third week of nameless wondering the girls are lost in a fog of dry ice amid a song that (knowingly) rips off the intro to All Right Now. Some patented strutting, shimmying and smiling follows in tops and skirts of a variety of lengths and glitteriness. Gill and Pauline get to do some backwards back arching work but in truth it all looks a bit of a mess of routines. Now, I got this wrong last week, but getting a bit of a solo at the end as everyone else retreats mysteriously into the gloaming... that is Patti, isn't it?

The Who – Substitute
This is fascinating for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, Noel is correct in saying the live footage shown is from their gig at Charlton Athletic's The Valley, but it's the show from 1974 rather than that from May 1976 that set a longstanding record for the world's loudest gig (and from which this marvellous piece of Moon/Townshend exchanging of views comes). In fairness Noel doesn't give a year so maybe he'd hoped nobody would look it up. Secondly, what's it doing back in the charts anyway? To promote The Story Of The Who, in fact, and perhaps latch onto that aforementioned gig. Thirdly, it doesn't seem the clip is that well circulated. Even to a BBC considerably better off than it is now when it's reduced to putting 35 year old stupid pop show repeats on its arts and learning channel, how much must it have cost to clear?

Bonnie Tyler – Lost In France
Noel's keen to mention Bonnie is from South Wales; I'm keen to mention that the hexagon backdrop has been redesigned so it looks even more Holnessised to our modern eyes. Can't work out if the lights coming back from its surface are CSO or reflections. Bonnie's enjoying herself alone on stage , which is far more that her audience are visibly doing. Noel, even by his own standards, is stretching things: "She obviously went Toulon, went to Rouen, Paris the thought". Nobody laughs at that.

Tavares – Don't Take Away The Music
The glittery bolero/matador jackets and even more dry ice than Legs & Co got are back.

Climax Blues Band – Couldn't Get It Right
Noel lets on that he'd only just found out that they're British, though in fairness otherwise would be your first impression. He then calls the song Couldn't Get It Wrong, because he's a wit. It's a new performance, as shown by the singer's heavy five o'clock shadow and a new band logo sign right behind the drummer's head. The letters flicker with lights! Though that may be visual editor majick, actually, as shown when the cardboard star for some reason attached to the bass changes shade. A group of kids near the back shuffle self-consciously in an attempt to look hip, grin and then just turn round and watch the monitor instead. At the end one of them, and someone else across the other side of the crowd, wave at the crane camera. Yes, we can see you.

Before we get to number one, Noel has guests of some standing joining him by those kettle drums. Terry Kath, Peter Cetera and Danny Seraphine of Chicago, in fact, whom Noel soft soaps by going on about how their number two sound should be number one. Behind his back Peter is doing lots of pointing that he imagines is self-effacing. Noel's interview technique makes Jools Holland seem like David Frost, starting with asking the wrong person what inspired the song ("experience") and then failing to get anything of note out of anyone. Noel consciously mentions jet lag. Not sure that's the half of it.

Pussycat – Mississippi
It's right at the end of their little chat that the real gold comes as the music starts, maybe out of producer blind panic, and we get the sight of Kath, a large man, starts dancing. I say 'dancing', he kind of bends at the knee while air guitaring and making an appropriate face, one part meaningful to at least four parts downright mocking. The director cops out and cuts to a close-up of Noel's face lest the moment of a fourth week at number one (for a song placename "nowhere near Chicago") be spoilt by his full move set. God knows it would have been far more entertaining than that video again.