Back with the heavyweight Jams

Timeslip moment again...

Our trusty TARDIS has thrust us headlong into 1991 - the year of the final demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the "Cold War", the creation of fifteen new post-Soviet states, Boris Yeltsin climbing atop a tank in Red Square, end of apartheid in South Africa, Sunday trading, Canary Wharf, Tim Berners-Lee, Truth or Dare, the IRA mortar attack on 10 Downing Street, Operation Desert Storm, The Commitments, Jack Kevorkian, the collapse of Yugoslavia and ensuing war, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) fraud scandal, Edward Scissorhands, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, Chancer, the Mount Pinatubo eruption, Rodney King, France's first female prime minister Édith Cresson, civil wars in Sri Lanka and Ethiopia and El Salvador, Magic Johnson, Stella Rimington, and (Everything I Do) I Do It for You being at #1 for fifteen weeks; the births of Johanna Konta, Jedward, Louis Tomlinson, Sonic the Hedgehog, Pixie Lott, PC World, the National Gallery's new Sainsbury Wing, the Big Issue, the Citizen's Charter and bloody Ed Sheeran; and the deaths of Freddie Mercury, David Lean, Margot Fonteyn, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Lee Remick, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, Robert Maxwell, Michael Landon, Gene Roddenberry, Yves Montand, Graham Greene, Eric Heffer, Thames Television and TV-AM.

In the news in May 1991: HM The Queen's official visit to the USA, the trial of Winnie Mandela, Croatia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia, the Israeli rescue of thousands of Ethiopian Jews from that country's civil war in "Operation Solomon", Sony's announcement that it was to build a new factory in Bridgend with 1,400 jobs, and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi; in the ascendant (literally) was first British person in space Helen Sharman (who spent eight days with the researchers on the Russian Mir space station), but we bade a very sad farewell to "that effing lady" Miss Coral Browne, and to TV comic Bernie Winters. In our cinemas were Misery, Mermaids and Silence of the Lambs. On telly: the snooker-based game show Big Break; Lynda Bellingham and James Bolam in Second Thoughts; Richard O'Brien's The Crystal Maze.

And what about the UK Top Ten this week twenty-eight years ago? The eternal Cher was at week three of her five-week reign at #1 with The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss), and also present and correct were Crystal Waters, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Cathy Dennis, Electronic, Beverley Craven, Blur, Zucchero featuring Paul Young, and a re-working of Tainted Love by Marc Almond.

And this one!

KLF featuring The Children Of The Revolution - Last Train To Trancentral

Fab-u-lous!

It's not worth dyin' for

I was about to embark upon one of my regular "timeslip moment" posts, focusing on this week in 1991, when I realised that - apart from being the year of the first Gulf War, the new Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, the IRA mortar attack on 10 Downing Street, Boris Yeltsin, the World Wide Web, Jeffrey Dahmer, the collapse of Cold War-era political structures including Yugoslavia and the USSR, the "Birmingham Six", the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, and "Sonic the Hedgehog"; the births of Ed Sheeran, Pixie Lott and the National Gallery's new Sainsbury Wing; and the deaths of Serge Gainsbourg, Robert Maxwell, Freddie Mercury, Graham Greene, Margot Fonteyn, Coral Browne and Lee Remick - this was the year that the godawful Everything I Do, I Do It For You took over the world!

Bryan Adams's song from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is still remembered with a shudder, yet it knocked Jason Donovan and his Joseph show-stopper Any Dream Will Do off the top in July twenty-seven years ago, and began its "The Black Hit of Space" run for four whole months! During its uncomfortable stranglehold at the top - even Radio 1 DJs began referring to this as "The Bryan Adams Years" - this behemoth saw off the likes of Guns & Roses' You Could Be Mine (fom the Terminator soundtrack), Heavy D & The Boyz and their heavy-on-the-rap version of the O'Jays classic Now That We Found Love, the karaoke favourite ballad More Than Words by Extreme, House/rave classics Move Any Mountain by The Shamen, Charly Says by The Prodigy, Insanity by Oceanic and Things That Make You Go Hmmm by C&C Music Factory, the Right Said Fred sing-a-long I'm Too Sexy, Ibiza chillout number (and Spandau Ballet True-sampling) Set Adrift On Memory Bliss by PM Dawn, Prince's Get Off, Let's Talk About Sex by Salt-n-Pepa, Wind of Change by The Scorpions, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Monty Python (which was actually re-released by popular demand in an attempt to unseat Mr Adams), and Get Ready For This by 2 Unlimited, before (finally) being knocked off the top slot by (of all things) The Fly by U2.

During that interminable sixteen weeks, in addition to the cavalcade of contenders above, Mr Adams also managed to see off not one, but two hits by one of our fave bands here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Erasure! And here they are, dear reader...

Erasure - Chorus

Erasure - Love to Hate You

Much better...

Dance while the record spins

Timeslip moment again...

Let's flit back in our trusty DeLorean twenty-five years to 1991; a world where the World Wide Web was merely a newly-born graphic browser, the Tories continued in power in Britain - even after the unceremonious dumping of their greatest-ever leader Maggie Thatcher - with John Major's fractious administration presiding over a recession, Bryan Adams topped the charts for sixteen weeks, the Eastern Bloc had fallen, and the the Gulf War and Yugoslav wars began.

In the news this week, the beginning of December, 1991: the crumbling Soviet Union was dealt a killer blow when Ukraine's populace voted overwhelmingly for independence; the world was still mourning the recent death of Freddie Mercury; a rebellion of sorts was afoot as thousands of UK shops and superstores illegally opened their doors for trading on a Sunday, in an (ultimately successful) effort to change the law; in the ascendant were Alan Bennett (whose play The Madness of George III opened in the West End), the wonderfully-named Boutros-Boutros Ghali (elected as the new Secretary-General of the UN) and Terry Anderson (finally released after six years captivity in Lebanon; the last hostage held by Hezbollah), but one of the world's biggest airlines Pan Am went bust after 64 years. In our cinemas: The Fisher King, Point Break, Other People's Money. On telly: Noel's House Party, Dawn French's Murder Most Horrid and London's Burning.

And in our charts? Michael Jackson and Vic Reeves with the Wonder Stuff were battling it out at the top, at #1 and #2 respectively. Also in attendance were 2 Unlimited, East Side Beat, Michael Bolton, Bassheads, Altern*8, Miss Ross and (new arrivals) Nirvana. But among this mixed bag, one "rave fave" was the hip-shaker I preferred to dance to - here's Bizarre Inc and Playing with Knives:

Bizarre Inc Playing with Knives

Groovin'...

Holy Moses, our hearts are screaming

Another timeslip moment, methinks! And it's an appropriate one for our little countdown to Gay Pride 2015 on Saturday...

For we've landed in June 1991, when, after a hiatus since my first time in 1985 - having recently ditched a very unpleasant five-year relationship [and spent those years without having been anywhere, at all, let alone to anything as "gay" as "Pride"; it's a long story] - I gathered my skirts and trolled off to London with some chums for what I recall as being a very modest, yet hugely entertaining, Gay Pride march (from Embankment to Kennington Park) and festival (with loads of covert "in-shrubbery action")...

It's the year that Serena McKellen was invited for tea with then-PM John Major to talk about gay rights, and was knighted; there was a lesbian kiss on LA Law; Freddie Mercury died; The Lost Language of Cranes, My Own Private Idaho and Thelma & Louise were on the big screen; and, this very week twenty-four years ago, the mighty duo Erasure were "gaying-up" the upper echelons of the UK charts...

Erasure - Chorus

Go ahead with your dreaming
For what it's worth
Or you'll be stricken bound
Kicking up dirt
For when it's dark
You never know what the night it may bring

Go ahead with your scheming
And shop at home
You'll find treasure
While cooking up bones
But the knife is sharp
You'd better watch that you don't cut your hands

And they covered up the sun
Until the birds had flown away
And the fishes in the sea
Had gone to sleep

Go ahead with your dreaming
For what it's worth
Or you'll be stricken bound
Kicking up dirt
For when it's dark
You never know what the night it may bring

Go ahead with your scheming
And shop at home
You'll find treasure
While cooking up bones
But the knife is sharp
You'd better watch that you don't cut your hands

And they covered up the sun
Until the birds had flown away
And the fishes in the sea
Had gone to sleep

Holy Moses, our hearts are screaming
Souls are lifting only dreaming
We'll be waiting some are praying
For a time when no one's cheating

The sunlight rising over the horizon
Just a distant memory the dawn chorus
Birds singing bells ringing
In our hearts in our minds

And they covered up the sun
Until the birds had flown away
And the fishes in the sea
Had gone to sleep

Ah, memories...

Erasure official website