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There are many excited people around the office today. This is because the latest company project has finally come to fruition. After what they claim is 100 days of preparation, focus groups, brainstorming meetings, sales meetings, exciting looking deliveries of Power Macs in reception, dummy issues, fire alarms triggered by overheating lights and what I would imagine are a great many late nights, the talkSPORT magazine sees Issue One hit the web officially.

You can view it by going here, or bookmarking www.talksport.net/mag. It is an online magazine, thus taking advantage of all that the medium has to offer from live video and audio to a level of detail that you just cannot get on a standard site. For those still wedded to the offline concept you can even clip away your favourite pages and take a PDF home if you so desire. I'd be failing in my corporate duty if I didn't encourage everyone reading this to have a browse the moment you finish.

Regardless of the content, the whole concept is itself quite fascinating. Throughout the whole history of marketing, regardless of the medium, the brand has been King. Have a brand that people recognise, know and even respect, and half your work is done for you. In todays multimedia world of course not only is the brand the King, but it is a King searching for the Holy Grail - cross-platform ownership.

EMAP (now Bauer) have been trying this for years of course. Deciding that their magazine brands are the most recognisable thing they own, they have attempted to expand this across as many different platforms as possible, hence the existence of both TV and Radio channels called Heat, Q, Smash Hits etc. (the latter a fascinating example of the brand carrying on as an entertainment concept years after the actual magazine itself had become uneconomic and closed down). To be honest I have never quite followed how that was supposed to work. Regardless of how much research you do and how many focus groups you stage, assuming that the body of people who like the entertainment values of Heat magazine (and they do exist apparently) are going to lock on to a radio station that is playing music that it is presumed that they like simply because it has the same name is a slight leap too far.

This is what makes the talkSPORT approach so disctinctive. They have gone the other way, taking a radio brand that is hugely and wildly popular which thanks to its format has a "voice" and a style that no music station can match and translating that to a print format which it is hoped can serve a dual purpose. On the one hand you have a huge audience who keep telling us they are big fans of what we do which you can then direct to this new magazine project and instantly drum up a circulation that most other rivals would kill to have. Radio is the perfect sales medium - it always has been - so what better way to create an instant sensation than to use it to sell a product that simply because of the name, you know your audience are going to be sympathetic to and enthusiastic about.

There is the other side of course in that a successful online publication can play its own part in bringing a totally new audience to the brand. The magazine is deliberately targeted at a young audience (perhaps even too young for my own tastes) and one that maybe aren't quite as open to the concept of a radio station that does nothing except sit and talk to them all day. The magazine can serve as a way to introduce them to the house style, to the personalities we have on board, the issues that drive us day by day and in the process switch them on to the talkSPORT concept in a way that no other marketing campaign possibly could.

The final side of the coin (a three sided one?) is that from an advertising point of view there is now a huge potential for selling a campaign that covers several mediums in one fell swoop. If I have a product to launch and one that I am targeting at a particular sport-loving demographic, I can with just one purchase create a campaign that covers both verbal and print media and be both talked about and written about in a complementary manner. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

So you can kind of understand why today has been a moment people have been looking forward to for some months. If this concept works (and there is no reason why it shouldn't) then we have the chance to create a major new publishing platform as well as grow the audience for the radio station still further. Have you clicked yet? Really you should.

Full disclosure: talkSPORT magazine is published by UTV plc, owners of talkSPORT itself and my own fulltime employers. Whilst the gratuitous plug for the magazine itself is me doing my corporate duty and "telling all my friends", the views on what it can do and why it is such a good idea are entirely my own and nobody I work for was aware I was going to write them or has instructed me to do so.

1992 Rewind - Part Four

So for the home stretch, as our journey through the sounds of June 1992 reaches the Top 10.

10: Guns N' Roses - Knocking On Heavens Door

This could all have gone so very wrong but somehow ended up close to perfection. The token cover version from 'Use Your Illusion II', the track actually predated its parent album by some months, having first emerged on the 'Days Of Thunder' soundtrack back in 1990. The delay in its release as a single clearly did it no harm as the epic Bob Dylan cover stormed the Top 10 to fully justify the effort that had been lavished on it. Every element that made GnR so great was present and correct, from Axl Rose's trademark soulful howling right the way down to Slash going into full 'Sweet Child O' Mine' mode for the guitar solo which helped turn the song into a stadium-filling epic in a manner which Dylan surely never imagined. Best of all the single retained the extended coda from the album version with a multi-tracked Axl Rose becoming his own gospel choir for the final minute. There is a reason why the near-mythical 'Chinese Democracy' album is still so eagerly anticipated despite a decade-long gestation that surely means it will turn out to be a mess. Guns N' Roses at the height of their powers were the greatest rock band in the world, and until the evidence proves otherwise people cling on to a glimmer of hope that Axl can still recreate magic like this.

9: Take That - It Only Takes A Minute

Let's be honest, for a while it seemed like Take That were never going to justify the Smash Hits column inches that had been lavished on them almost from the very beginning. After three singles and a great deal of hard work all they had to show for it was a solitary Top 40 hit, and even 'Promises', the single in question hard only reached Number 38. So it was that their fourth single was seen as a final roll of the dice, one which might have killed their career stone dead had it gone the way of its predecessors. Hence they went for a nailed-on commercial cert, a fun and energeticy cover of the old Tavares (or should that be Jonathan King?) classic which in an era starved of genuine pop hits immediately sounded like the greatest record in the world. You would still have been hard pressed to find anyone who could name any of the group, but it didn't matter. Top 10 status was almost instant and the Take That project was finally starting to pay dividends. True mainstream superstardom was still some months off, but with their first big hit the way forward had suddenly become clear.

8: Ugly Kid Joe - Everything About You

The third Top 40 hit of the week from 'Wayne's World', although technically it wasn't as 'Everything About You' was missed off the soundtrack album. Largely forgotten these days, the fun rock track was a smash hit from the world go and of course helped launched the briefly flowering career of Ugly Kid Joe who achieved the impossible and overcame the novelty tag that could so easily have been attached to them to clock up five more Top 40 hits over the course of the following year. Back in the day I always took pains to make sure I played the full uncensored version of the track which was identical, save for an extra verse at the start of the closing rap which began "well I don't care a thing about your sister, f**k the little bitch cos I already kissed her". We students were easily amused, as you will see.

7: Nick Berry - Heartbeat

Into every life some crap must fall. This wholly unwarranted resurrection of Nick Berry's singing career came on the back of the launch of long-running ITV drama series 'Heartbeat' in which Berry was at first the main star. In true Dennis Waterman style he got to sing the theme tune as well, a by the numbers and in all fairness affectionate cover of the old Buddy Holly song which had barely scraped the Top 30 for its originator in the late 50s. By crashing into the singles chart this week in 1992 the single had the unexpected side effect of removing Nick Berry from the list of one hit wonders, his previous chart career before this date having been limited to the 1986 Number One hit 'Every Loser Wins' dating from his days as a star of Eastenders. As throwaway as this track was, it is perhaps the most enduring of all the hit singles on this particular chart, given that it remains to this day the theme of the long running show and as a result will be instantly familiar to a large chunk of the TV watching population. Years ago there was a 'Songs From Heartbeat' album which featured the title song, but it is of course long since deleted. Have a homebrewed YouTube video of the song then, put together bizarrely it seems by a Scandianvian fan:



6: Utah Saints - Something Good

Topically enough of course here is a track that will be familiar to anyone with even half an eye on the charts in the present day. Hearing the original after so much exposure to the recent remix only serve to highlight how dramatically different the two versions of the track actually are. The success of the 08 mix was not only due to the strength of the source material but also due to the way it discarded large chunks of the original production to create instead a contemporary sounding club track that was relevant for the 21st century. By contrast the original was a dark and intense single, borrowing heavily from the "stadium house" style invented by the KLF to make a track that was suitably and chart-rogeringly epic. How did I react to hearing this again? By being reminded even more than the remix did, just how great the Utah Saints actually were.

5: Richard Marx - Hazard

It may have taken the UK a little while to catch on to Richard Marx (his first hits here weren't until 1989) but we were at least on board in time for his most famous composition to become a Top 10 hit. One of music's most famous open-ended narratives, the debate has raged ever since over what the outcome of the story was and just how culpable the narrator was in the apparent death of Mary. Actually it was only on looking up the Wikipedia entry for the single that I discovered that a school of thought existed which suggested that the protagonist was indeed the murderer, as even at the time it seemed quite obvious that he had been stitched up and was merely made a scapegoat thanks to the prejudice of the townsfolk which had dogged him since he was a child. Mary was the only person in his life ever who treated him like a human being, so why on earth would he kill her? Apparently it is the video which casts doubt on his innocence, but still, the debate rages and this point alone surely elevates 'Hazard' to the status of all time classic. Those wanting other narrative tales with ambiguous endings would do well to check out Bobbie Gentry's 'Ode To Billie Jo', just don't watch the film before you hear the song.

4: George Michael - Toofunky (iTunes)

Was there ever a time when George Michael was happy? He wasn't in the early 90s, locked in a dispute with his record label Sony which saw him sulkily refuse to release any material for them until they gave him his release. As a result his only musical output during this period was the odd one-off charity single, such as this release which had all proceeds donated to the Red Hot + Dance project. The single itself was at the time gloriously fresh and exciting, a club-friendly funk track that was a world away from the introspection and self-consciously "serious" atmosphere that made his 1990 'Listen Without Prejudice' album such a comparative commercial flop. The supermodel-staffed video was seemingly never off MTV at the time (assuming you had satellite) and so ubiquitous was this track on the radio that George's "myeah, myeah" vocal ticks became something of a clarion call amongst friends of mine at the time. As I've said before, we students were easily pleased. The only sad thing is that ten years later when George released 'Freeek' which sounded identical to 'Toofunky' and suggested that he hadn't advanced one tiny step musically in the intervening period.

3: Kriss Kross - Jump

Did you know this is possibly one of the most important rap singles ever made? Not so much because of its content which was after all the most mind-bogglingly inane piece of teen rap, performed by two 12 year old prodigys whose fashion style of wearing everything backwards was presumably an attempt to confuse everyone who wanted to kick them in the crotch for being so annoying. No, the record sits at the bedrock of musical history due to the fact that it was the first ever successful production of the then 19-year old Jermaine Dupri who plucked Daddy Mac and Mac Daddy from shopping mall obscurity and moulded them into flash in the pan transatlantic chart sensations. Now one of the most famous R&B producers on the block with a CV that boasts Usher, Mariah and Janet Jackson amongst others, the fact that as a teenager he was both mogul and producer of an American Number One hit demonstrates just why he ended up with the reputation he has today. 'Jump' is now, just as it was then, an incredibly annoying record sung by kids for kids, but because of the future that it represented actually deserves to be held in the very highest regard.

2: KWS - Please Don't Go

Deposed in this week from Number One, this is believe it or not the record that made legal history. The idea for a 90s club remake of the old KC and the Sunshine band ballad originated with Italian euro-dance outfit Double You in early 1992. Their version was a smash hit all over mainland Europe, but as was the way at the time, the UK release of the track was delayed to allow people to spend the summer on the continent and hear the track in-situ so to speak. It was here that Nottingham-based trio KWS saw their chance, recording a note for note cover of the Double You track and releasing it in late spring. Some clever promotion (including a tabloid-friendly story that it was a plea to footballer Des Walker not to quite their beloved Forest for a career in Italy) resulted in the single becoming a mainstream smash and settling in for an extended run at Number One. This was of course much to the chagrin of dance label ZYX who owned the UK licence for the Double You version and quickly discovered that their expensive purchase had been rendered worthless. A panicked rush-release of the "original" fell just short of the Top 40 just as the "copy" topped the charts. Lawsuits were issued and a full three years later a judge handed down the landmark ruling that yes, you could indeed claim copyright on a song arrangement as well as music and lyrics - much to the consternation of the music industry which up to that point had made no provision for paying royalties to the arranger of a piece of music. KWS went on to have several more hits with 90s-friendly remakes of disco classics. Double You meanwhile continued to have European club hits, none of which ever graced the British charts.

By way of a comparison then, here are both versions. First the KWS hit familiar to all in the UK:



And now the Double You? version. It's like one of those spot the difference competitions in the local paper... can you see what distinguishes one version from the other?




1: Erasure - Abba-esque

The Mamma Mia film. The musical. The celebrity TV specials. Heck, even the more or less essential 'Abba Gold' and 'More Abba Gold' compilations. It is entirely possible that none of these would ever have happened save for the work of two musicians who single-handedly made Abba cool again in the early 90s. Abba songs had long been a staple of Erasure concerts, Andy Bell as befitted his status as the gayest man in music at the time, making no secret of his love for the Swedish superstars. With half an eye on a whole album of covers, the duo recorded a selection of their favourite Abba songs and chose the best four for release as an EP single, one which instantly propelled them to Number One and giving Vince Clarke his first chart-topper after over a decade of trying. Of the four tracks on the EP, 'Lay All Your Love On Me' was pushed to the fore at first before radio stations and the public universally decided that 'Take A Chance On Me' complete with incongruous toast from the underrated MC Kinky was the standout cut. It was a pop high point that sadly it seemed Erasure were never able to match, and the next time they turned to covers just over a decade later it was in a desperate attempt to return to hitmaking form rather than as a one-off novelty. As a fun aside, not only did the single inspire the subsequent Abba rehabilitation later that summer, it also prompted a spin-off of its own, Abba tribute act Bjorn Again responding with the release of the 'Erasure-Ish' EP featuring their own takes on 'A Little Respect' and 'Stop!' in disctinctly Abba-esque style.

With that the chart show comes to an end and it is time to usher in Pete Tong and The Essential Selection Part 2. As you may have guessed I've a genuine soft spot for this period with much of the music forming the soundtrack to a distinctive period in my own life. As I never tire of telling people, music is as much an emotional experience as it is a sensory one and the right song heard at the right time can forever be a trigger for memories of the way you saw the world and the people you shared the time with. For that reason the songs from June 1992 will forever be associated with Lonsdale Annexe Room C209, walkman sunbathing in Alexandra Square, Monday morning breakfast on URB with a handover to future Dr Who writer Paul Cornell afterwards and above all the deep brown eyes of Liz 'Hedgehog' Davies. Hope they do a similar thing for you.

1992 Rewind - Part Three

So what was I doing in June 1992? I was theoretically supposed to be studying for first year exams at university, but for the fact I had enough coursework marks to ensure just spelling my name right in the exams would mean a pass. As a result I spent the summer on the campus radio station, getting out of bed at 6am two days a week to present a breakfast show that almost certainly had an audience of one but where for the first time ever I was discovering new music, plucking random promos out of the box and enthusiastically talking about them to the imaginary audience. It is the kind of music radio that everyone imagines they will end up doing but a world away from reality where actually TALKING ABOUT THE MUSIC is secondary to getting the frequency correct.

I digress. Shall we press on with the Top 20?

20: Oceanic - Controlling Me

David Harry and Jorinde Williams were Oceanic. The duo shot to fame in the Autumn of 1991 with smash hit single 'Insanity' which within days of its release had quickly become something of a national phenomenon. The record was to all intents and purposes the perfect dance record, boasting a nagging, insistent beat, a strong melody, the invigorating growling vocals of Williams and most crucially of all the most deadly of all killer choruses, the track exploding in a frenzy of joy that was enough to persuade even the most hardened wallflower to hit the podium. The closest thing clubland has ever come to a universally guaranteed floorfiller, 'Insanity' was a thing of joy and the kind of creation you could happily retire on, knowing you would never come close to surpassing it as an artist.

Except of course with a hit of that magnitude it was hard to resist the temptation to try again and a deal was quickly signed for an Oceanic album. The problem was that the duo just didn't have the quality of material to stretch that far and so when the lazily titled 'That Album By Oceanic' finally appeared in the summer of 1992 it was a massive disappointment. True, there were two version of 'Insanity' on there but virtually every other track was a blissed-up chill-out groove, a world away from the party rave of their debut. The only thing that came close to matching the earlier classic was 'Controlling Me' which duly became their second single but in spite of its message "lazy days and hardcore nights" just paled in comparison with their earlier work. The single limped to Number 20, the album barely tickled the charts (Number 49 in a two week run), and just like that Oceanic were history. Finding any of their work online is pretty much impossible and even 'Controlling Me' has slipped through the cracks of most people's collections. So here instead is the video to 'Insanity' which let's face it is the only thing people remember them for.


19: Incognito - Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing

Jazz-funk veterans Incognito magically found themselves chart stars for the first time ever in the early 90s when the Acid Jazz movement swept them along in its wake. Thus 'Always There' became a Top 10 hit in late 1991 and it was followed by this second hit single, lovingly crafted cover version of the famous Stevie Wonder track which first appeared on his 'Innvervisions' album way back in 1973. Maybe not the biggest hit in the world, but it seemed like it was never off the radio at the time and on hot June days was the top down cruisers soundtrack of choice. It is hard to go wrong with a song of this pedigree, but this was effortless cool at its very finest.

18: Cyndi Lauper - The World Is Stone

It is a little unfair to describe this as a "comeback" for the quintessentially 80s pop pixie as on that basis she had had about five of them during her career. Ms Lauper had a knack of reappearing with new material about once every three years, long enough for people to have all but forgotten her previous hits but with enough frequency to ensure she retained a loyal audience who loved everything she did. Hence this single, her first since the 'I Drove All Night' era of 1989 and one which looked at one stage as if it was going to take the charts by storm, charging up the listings from the mid-30s in a manner which was quickly going out of style in 1992. By no means her greatest ever hit of course but easily a long way from her worst ever offering.

17: Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness

I never worked out if it was a genuine plan or just a headline-grabbing conceit, but at the time of the release of their debut album 'Generation Terrorists' the Manics claimed that it was the only album they would ever record, intending to split up once it was all over. The amazing thing is had they done so they would still be spoken of in the same legendary terms as they are today, for that first album contained songs that still stand up as their best ever work. Case in point - 'Motorcycle Emptiness', a near perfect three and a half minute tale of heartbreak and longing, soundtracked by an achingly beautiful guitar melody and James Dean Bradfield singing a vocal so warm and soulful that he will spend the rest of his life trying to surpass it. For a long time I held this up as one of my favourite singles ever and whilst it would be foolish to suggest that a decade and a half later they have never made anything better, 'Motorcycle Emptiness' still stands tall as one of their greatest ever moments on record. All the stranger then that it lies all but forgotten thanks to the odd attitude of radio programmers that the Manic Street Preachers didn't become "mainstream" until the 'Everything Must Go' album.


16: Wedding Present- California (iTunes)

It was a bold and unusual step but for Leeds' finest it was a marketing trick that paid huge dividends. The concept was "The Hit Parade", the band releasing one limited edition single a month for the whole of 1992. The a-side would be a totally new track whilst the b-side of each was a cover of a famous old song done in their own unique style. The result was that the indie stars achieved something that had not been done since the days of Elvis, landing 12 Top 30 hits in the space of a calendar year. The nature of the releases also had a fun side effect for us chartwatchers at the time as once people had caught on, the limited edition singles all sold out their 10,000 copies pressing within a few days of release. Thus the subsequent chart placing of each single provided huge clues as to the state of the singles market at the time, the higher they charted the weaker sales were. Hence 'California', the sixth offering of the year, was a Number 16 hit - indicating that the market had recovered since May when previous release 'Come Play With Me' hit Number 10 as the one and only Top 10 single of their career. As you might expect, by Christmas time things had improved dramatically and the final Hit Parade single 'No Christmas' only limped to Number 25.

15: SL2 - On A Ragga Tip

One of the few dance singles of the era to be instantly recognisable to a casual crowd, 'On A Ragga Tip' was far and away the biggest hit single ever for Slipmatt and Lime, aka Matt Nelson and John Fernandez whose reputations as producers and mixers extend far beyond the handful of hits they had as SL2. Based on an almost incomprehensible reggae sample (by Jah Screechie if anyone is keeping track), the single fused the Jamaiacan doggerel with hardcore rave beats to create a mainstream smash hit. For all that I actually hated it at the time and to this day would struggle to explain just why this single became so famous - but then again in sixteen years time you will find me unable to offer an explanation as to why the Basshunter record spent so long at Number One. Some things are just of their moment and defy all rationality - 'On A Ragga Tip' is simply one of them. Finding a link to the song is actually tricky as the only versions on sale appear to be the needless 1997 remix version. That calls for a video.


14: En Vogue - My Lovin'

Oooooh. Pop. Arguably the first ever New Jill Swing group, the ladies who paved the way for the likes of Jade, TLC and Destiny's Child after them only really had three big hit singles. One was utter garbage ('Don't Let Go (Love)'), one was just annoying ('Hold On') but the middle one was a thing of beauty. So here it is, a slick R&B single with the girls cattily rebuffing the attentions of the loser to whom the song is addressed, immaculately produced and of course featuring that moment of ecstasy in the middle where the music stops dead for an acapella breakdown by the quartet. All the best pop records have these moments, the ones that suddenly stop the track becoming aural wallpaper and all but command you to pay attention to the rest.

13: Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

I never really worked out just what it was that transformed perennial rock underdogs Faith No More into stars during the same era that Nirvana and Pearl Jam were ripping up the rulebook and consigning more traditional rock acts into oblivion. Maybe it was the way they moved away from the rather cartoonish novelty approach of their earlier work and got on with the business of making hardcore noise that still worked on the radio, but the 'Angel Dust' album would produce some of Faith No More's biggest hits, most notably 'Midlife Crisis' which shot them into the Top 10 for the very first time. When they finally split six years later, the record company circulated a sampler of their swansong Greatest Hits collection with a note that suggested it would remind everyone just how good they were in their prime. Hearing 'Midlife Crisis' again for the first time since kind of suggests that still holds true.

12: Cure - Friday I'm In Love

There is an urban legend that says the Cure's last ever smash hit single was originally conceived as a more downbeat and ironically joyful track but for a mastering error whilst resulted in the song being mixed at the wrong tempo, the half semitone difference thus caused transforming it into the happy go lucky pop record we all remember. Yes, that even sounded ludicrous while I was typing it but such are the ways people try to work out just why Robert Smith should out of nowhere cast away his trademark intensity to write such a simple nursery rhyme. Still, let us not spoil it by analysing things. Held back as the second single from the 'Wish' album and released appropriately enough on a Friday in mid-May, 'Friday I'm In Love' duly shot to Number 6 a week later to give the group their second biggest hit ever and their last ever Top 10 hit single. Whether you loved it or just found it annoying, there is no denying this was the essential core of the soundtrack to the summer.

11: Elton John - The One

Even five years before Diana-gate, Elton John was still held up as a national treasure of sorts. He had begun the 1990s on an all time career high, finally and famously topping the charts as a soloist with 'Sacrifice/Healing Hands' in 1990, the knock on effect being his next new material was greeted with an anticipation not seen since his 70s heyday. New single 'The One' was a straightforward enough piano ballad but thanks to some clever production that built from a solo piano to a rousing crescendo of a full band, it was a smash hit from the moment he debuted it on a live Top Of The Pops performance. Still climbing on the chart here, the single would eventually poke its nose into the Top 10 to become one of his biggest, if maybe not greatest ever hits.

1992 Rewind - Part Two

What else was happening in June 1992? As if to prove that the more things change the more they stay the same, Europe was in turmoil as Denmark had just rejected the Maastricht treaty in a referendum. Also the Euro '92 championships were getting underway. Graham Taylor, draws with sides England should have beaten and Gary Lineker throwing the armband away in disgust. Hey, Leeds United were league champions at the time. Not everything stays the same.

Back to the chart then, and numbers 30-21

30: Beautiful South - Bell Bottomed Tear

The third single from the infamous '0898' album (the one with the cover art of disembodied heads on turtles which the label blamed for poor sales). The single was notable for not only being the Beautiful South's first flirtation with C&W balladry but was also essentially female singer Brianna Corrigan's finest hour on record as she took an achingly pure lead vocal on this typically bittersweet tale of heartbreak and fractured relationships. To this day it remains a gorgeous single, and in style and atmosphere can be said to have laid the seeds for their famous cover of 'Everybody's Talking' two years later.

29: Craig McLachlan - One Reason Why

Why indeed. The curly-haired Australian actor had already had one smash hit album back in 1990 when he was at the height of his teen appeal as Henry in Neighbours, leading to Bo Diddley cover 'Mona' hitting Number 2 and his album being played incessantly by my 13 year old sister who didn't know any better. Rewarded with a second album, he had a final chart swansong with this lead single, a well meant but ultimately rather stodgy soft rock ballad that owed as much to his continuing TV fame (by now a fixture on rival soap Home And Away) as it did to any musical merits. Perhaps unsurprisingly this is almost impossible to find online, save for one enterprising soul who has put a home-brewed video on YouTube:

28: Curiosity - Hang On In There Baby

As the Pasadenas had already shown, if you were a faded pop act in 1992 you were more or less guaranteed a hit with a timely cover of a disco or soul classic. So it proved for the artists formerly known as Curiosity Killed The Cat as they had an all too brief career revival by shortening their name and releasing this affectionate and rather well done cover of the Johnny Bristol classic. So good in fact that it shot to the Top 3 to wind up as one of their biggest ever hits, even if it proved to be their last as despite two more singles from a never-charted third album they never troubled the Top 40 again. Hear this and wear a smile at just how well done this was, particularly the bit at the end where Ben Vol-Au-Vent loses himself in the moment and just scats into the final bridge.

27: Ce Ce Peniston - Keep On Walkin'

A more or less obligatory follow-up single for the 'Finally' lady who managed in one stroke to wipe out memories of her instant club classic by this rather stodgy and dare I say whiny single which plodded on for four minutes in search of both melody and chorus. This is always the peril of a retro-chart, discovering that very often long-forgotten singles are forgotten for some very good reasons. ABove link is to the video on iMeem if you are that keen to hear it again.

26: Tia Carrere - Ballroom Blitz

The Wayne's World soundtrack rears its head a second time with the one and only hit single for Tia "Cassandra" Carrere, A fun cover of the classic Sweet track (another 70s cover you will note), the track formed the perfect backdrop to the frantic and hilarious climax to the film but on record and devoid of its proper context it somehow lost much of its charm. Still, the video exists as a snapshot of the moment with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey appearing in character to cause as much chaos as possible, intercut with some of the best moments of the film. No of course you can't buy it online. Why did you even ask?

25: Bassheads - Back To The Old School

Falling down the chart, the second hit single for noted producers and remixes Bassheads. They had made their chart debut in late '91 with still classic 'Is There Anybody Out There' and followed it with this slightly less well remembered single. I've lost track of where this fitted in the sea of dance genres at the time, so let's just categorise this as our first obligatory rave single of the week and move on. Maybe it is just my old fashioned tastes showing again but this is as close to generic dance as you are ever likely to get.

24: Inner City - Pennies From Heaven

A new entry on the chart for Kevin Saunderson's outfit who despite their origins in the Detroit scene of the late 80s managed to sustain a reasonable hit-filled career throughout the whole of the 90s. 'Pennies From Heaven' heralded the release of second album 'Praise' and kept neatly to the formula that had already served them so well, synthesised piano melody and Paris Grey's always distinctive vocals to the fore. The Complete Book Of The British Charts takes time out to note that backing vocals on the track were supplied by Members Of The House, Rachel Choate and Ann Saunderson. I've not idea if that was meant to be a selling point or not. The single progressed no further.

23: Annie Lennox - Precious

Things we'd all forgotten: Annie Lennox's much-vaunted solo career very nearly fell of the rails before it had even begun. After going Top 5 with debut single 'Why' earlier in the year she followed it up with this lavish remix-friendly single which immediately stiffed just outside the Top 20 and I'm sure led to some furrowed brows at the label who had invested a great deal in pushing her as a solo star for the first time in her 15 year career. Of course we now know they need not have worried. The magical pop appeal of next single 'Walking On Broken Glass' in the autumn, plus the teaming of club smash 'Little Bird' with the newly recorded 'Love Song For A Vampire' meant that two further Top 3 hits were forthcoming and the 'Diva' album would be a chart fixture for most of the next two years.

22: Tina Turner - I Want You Near Me

Another myth exploded. The dance/rave/Madchester injection of fresh blood into the music scene didn't totally kill off the chart careers of the veterans although few would argue that the likes of Tina Turner were essentially running on fumes before they gave up altogether later in the 90s. That said, this all but forgotten single (a token new track on 1991 hits compilation 'Simply The Best') contained a clue as to the direction Tina Turner could have been taken in, its gentle funk rhythm and her always powerful vocals suggesting she could have been reinvented as a club diva with more or less no effort. Sadly the moment the chorus kicks in here you know the moment is lost as 'I Want You Near Me' is a safe, Simon Bates-friendly MOR plodder that presumably must have found an audience to climb this high but in the context of everything else around her stood out as a tired anachronism. Still what do I know? Her next single was a Top 10 smash.

21: Shakespear's Sister - I Don't Care

Shakespear's Sister are another of those acts who are somehow wrongly defined by their biggest ever hit . 'Stay' may have been a career-making instant class eight week Number One single but it was actually this follow-up which represented just what the duo were about musically. An eclectic yet radio friendly track which neatly highlighted their overwhelming strength - the almost hypnotic contrast between Marcella Detroit's growling vocals and the high pitched tone of Siobhan Fahey . The highlight of 'I Don't Care' remains to this day the still incomprehensible middle-eight monologue about Queen Victoria drinking hot drinks whilst arriving on a rocking horse in an iceberg. Seriously, what the hell is she going on about here?

Oh yes, and as a minor curiosity, each chart countdown is preluded by a plug by Mark Goodier for the "megahits" sequence which ran each weeknight on Radio One at the time. You dialled 0891 97 99 and then added the chart position of your favourite track. The votes thus cast were used to compile a Top 10 which was played in early evening and for those of us with sufficient interest was a fun midweek indicator of the popularity of the current crop of hits. Kind of the iTunes chart of its day if you like. Back in the day of course there was no mention on air of the costs of calling what was presumably a premium rate line, although by voting you got the chance to win a prize draw for "£1000 of stereo gear", which back in 1992 was a very tidy sum indeed.

1992 Rewind - Part One

I promised at Easter that the next time I did one of these Top 40 nostalgia sessions it would be a look back at 1992, so with the sunshine streaming through the windows and hay fever season in full swing, there seems no better excuse to dig out an old tape and celebrate the past for a few hours.

For newcomers, this is how it works. Rather than a straightforward countdown of an old Top 40, these pieces are based on the worryingly vast collection of Radio One Top 40 shows that I own, all recorded at roughly four week intervals. We select a tape at random and see what memories each song played manages to conjure up. Where possible, each song will have a link back to the appropriate page on 7digital.com so you can sample and even buy a copy if so interested. When 7digital doesn't have a copy of the song on sale at the time of writing, I'll provide a link to iTunes. Plus, given that their code doesn't seem to be as browser knackering as some, where the video exists in Yahoo!'s database, you can watch the track in full.

Of course moving into the 1990s now means we hit the era when the Top 40 show had expanded to play all the songs on the chart, not just the most significant 30. This could end up being a trilogy in four parts in that case, so let's press play and see how we get on. Presenting the Top 40 show as recorded on June 7th 1992.

First disappointment, Mark Goodier is the stand-in host as Bruno Brookes was off for the week. This was a few months in to Bruno's second tenure as Top 40 host and marked a slight reboot of the show. For all of 1991 and the first part of 1992 the show was an odd two and a half hours long, meaning that to fit all 40 records in some quite brutal editing had to take place at times. This was fixed with the expansion of the show to three hours, although perversely this was actually about ten minutes too long and so back then, as now, the start of the show was taken up with filler. In this case it is a recap of "some of the biggest movers from last weeks chart" which effectively means playing three songs we are due to hear later anyway. What happened to just recapping the Top 3 for heavens sake?

Finally we hit the good stuff.

40: Alice Cooper- Feed My Frankenstein

There is an odd thread that connects several of the songs on this chart - the movie Wayne's World which was packing them in at multiplexes (and the tiny two screen Lancaster Odeon that I had to put up with at the time). Yes, the film that launched Mike Myers and Dana Carvey on the non-SNL viewing population of the world, by a happy combination of circumstances had a soundtrack positively crammed with potential hit singles. Hence this tongue in cheek hammer-horror themed track performed by the veteran star who had a memorable cameo as himself halfway through the film. The track first appeared on his 1991 'Hey Stoopid' album which had already spawned two Top 30 hit singles, and with this he added a third albeit minor chart entry.

39: Pop Will Eat Itself -Karmadrome/Eat Me Drink Me Love Me Kill Me

The early 90s dance boom was something of a Godsend for longtime Burmmie indie strugglers PWEI as they neatly plugged themselves into the beats and chanting zeitgeist (elevating drum machine Dr Nightmare to a full touring member of the band) and were rewarded with a string of mid-table but never less than memorable hit singles. That said, I'd all but forgotten this one, a track which entertainingly dates itself immediately with its "1999 come knocking" opening lyrics. Truth be told this is best left as a forgotten moment in their career, a raucous mess compared to many of their offerings and for all its energy is three and a half minutes of a group trying just a little bit too hard.


38: Prefab Sprout - The Sound Of Crying

Summer 1992 saw Prefab Sprout release a long awaited (and to this day sparklingly uplifting) Greatest Hits collection, packed out of course with the requisite new tracks. The first of what would ultimately become four never before released singles, 'The Sound Of Crying' was a new entry here and would ultimately peak at Number 23, astonishingly making this their second biggest hit ever. The hits collection was entitled 'A Life Of Surprises' after a track from their 'Protest Songs' album and as if to prove just how timeless they could be at their best, it became the fourth single in early 1993 and climbed to Number 24, a full eight years after it was first recorded.

37: Wilson Phillips - You Won't See Me Cry

Now I'll be honest. When second generation stars Wilson Phillips emerged in 1990 with debut single 'Hold On' I was enchanted. Here was a single drenched in California sunshine with a cracking melody and almost angelic harmonising from the three singers. It did however quickly become apparent that the formula had a built in novelty value which became old and annoying very quickly. Case in point, this lead single from their second album 'Shadows And Light' which saw the Blonde One, the Dark One and the Fat One croon passionately about some unspecified heartbreak in a manner that not only made you want to punch them all but also invite the sax soloist to wear his instrument home. The single had a cup of coffee at Number 18 but whilst America was still loving them to bits, Britain had moved on from corporate mush like this and quite rightly so.

We now pause (why?) for a sixty second news bulletin, presumably the extension of the Top 40 show not coinciding with a reduction in Radio One's public service requirements. Top story: the shooting of two police officers in Tadcaster by escaping IRA gunmen.

Back to the music.

36: Soul II Soul: Move Me No Mountain

When we last ran into Soul II Soul at the start of their career back in 1989 I noted that the whole phenomenon largely passed me by, their records inoffensive enough my ears but never so good that I was on board with the whole "Jazzie B is Britain's next soul superstar" hype that surrounded them. Hence I was equally baffled by their almost overnight fall from grace as heralded by this single. The first release from third album 'Volume III Just Right' was the Richie Stephens fronted 'Joy' which had made a due appearance in the Top 5 earlier in the spring. To general astonishment this second single effectively bombed with a Number 31 chart placing. True, they turned it around in 1995 with two more Top 20 hits but whatever magic they had which had all but guaranteed them smash hits up to now had pretty much gone forever.

35: Pasadenas - I Believe In Miracles

Remember these guys? Hailed upon their 1988 debut as the new face of British R&B with hits such as 'Tribute (Right On)' and 'Riding On A Train', their career had gone off the rails so to speak in 1990 when second album 'Elevate' had bombed and failed to chart at all. To rescue the situation their label all but ordered them to become a covers act, prompting third album 'Yours Sincerely' to spawn five hit singles of varying size, all up to date remakes of soul classics. 'I Believe In Miracles' was the third, a revival of the classic Jackson Sisters track, first recorded back in 1976. Finding a copy to buy or even view online is surprisingly hard, so the link above redirects to imeem.com where you can at least have a listen.

34: Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea

Now we come to the stuff of which legends are made. Effectively the track that launched the careers of both Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain, 'Papua New Guinea' is a rare example of a track that carved out an entirely new genre for itself. The ambient dub track mixed wailing vocals, sound effects drenched in echo and a frantic rhythm track (actually borrowed from Meat Beat Manifesto). It was music that was quite literally ahead of its time. In 1992 nobody was making dance records like this, yet in 1997 just about everybody was. The single peaked at Number 22 here and was revived in 2001 in a barely needed remix to peak at Number 28. As if to hammer home just how ahead of the game the duo were, summer 1992 also saw the re-release of 1988 hit 'Stakker Humanoid' which charted untouched from its original mix and didn't sound a day out of place.

33: Black Sabbath - TV Crimes

Ozzy! Except of course it wasn't as this was the post-Osbourne version of the band which soldiered on throughout the 80s and 90s with what at times seemed like an ever-changing lineup of musical personnel and lead singers. To date their last ever entry on the singles chart, 'TV Crimes' may have been a rather stodgy mess and sounded instantly dated compared to the reinvention of rock that was taking place on America's West Coast at the time, but even by crawling to this Number 33 peak it still became their biggest chart hit since a 1980 reissue of 'Paranoid'.

32: Lisa Stansfield - Set Your Loving Free

Lisa Stansfield is one of those artists who is rather unfairly defined by an early smash hit which somehow eclipses the success of anything they do afterwards, despite only representing an early stage of what they were capable of musically. 'Set Your Loving Free' was the fourth and final single taken from her second album 'Real Love' but is actually head and shoulders above anything she did before or perhaps even since. Hearing this track with fresh ears makes you appreciate just how cleverly it was put together. Chicago house rhythms dovetail with wah-wah guitars and a hint of Philly strings to ensure the track keeps a foot in two camps, being at once an affectionate nod to classic soul of the past as well as being a credible, contemporary club track. Add to that Stansfield's trademark velvety vocals and you have something of a forgotten gem. Of all the songs on this chart so far, this is the first to have inspired genuine joy at its rediscovery. Is there anything better than hearing a hit for the first time in sixteen years and being blown away by just how good it really was. Have a YouTube version as proof:


31: Lightning Seeds - Sense

"I'm flying high on something beautiful and aimless/It's got a name but I prefer to call it nameless". Ian Broudie's greatest fame may well have been still to come, but for my money he reached his artistic peak in 1992 with the second Lightning Seeds album, the first fruits of a new songwriting partnership with Terry Hall. Following a mid-table hit with 'Life Of Riley' came the title track. The most eloquent song ever written about the sheer intoxicating euphoria about being in love, 'Sense' is three minutes of exquisitely crafted pop music crafted with such lavish care that even sixteen years later you find yourself weeping silent tears that it was all but overlooked at the time and failed to become the defining sound of the summer it surely was always destined to be. Forget the '3 Lions' nonsense and the trying too hard stompers about sugar coated icebergs that came later, 'Sense' is Broudie's crowning glory and if you were compiling a definitive list of the best pop songs of all time, this would surely have to be given due consideration.

Cash Machine Inflation

Prices rise. Sure, the value of your investments can go down as well as up, as the financial adverts are so keen to advise us, but the one constant in life is that over the long term everything rises in price, if not necessarily in overall value. Any item you buy today can be assumed to have cost much less just ten years ago.

I forget what age it was I started to notice the price of certain things and framed my own point of reference. There is certainly a point when you look back at the past and just can't imagine things being so cheap. Reproductions of old newspapers show cover prices of around 2p and old television shows date themselves with economic references (note the episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em where Frank Spencer is intrigued by the prospect of a job that pays a whole £3000 a year). Topically enough I do remember an early 80s television report about the horrors people were experiencing as petrol prices broke through the psychologically important £1.50 per gallon barrier. I also remember the day when in a father-son bedtime chat I asked my father just how much he earned, and I remember being incredibly impressed that his pay before tax crept above the £1000 mark every month. To me that was a huge sum of money and I was convinced we were millionaires.

My own personal reference point is noting just how much it is sensible to withdraw from a cash machine in a single transaction. When I first started banking with real world (as opposed to pocket) money it was just £5. This was at the start of my university life when, armed with lots of useful advice about budgeting and knowing how to manage your money I used the experience gained by a summer of working for accountants to produce a lovingly crafted budget spreadsheet. Even if I do say it myself it was a work of art, my monthly income from my parents carved up so that money was set aside for the next terms rent and the rest shared out to give me a daily budget. Anything spent over or under that amount was amortised out over the remaining days of the month, thus ensuring that I would end the month having spent exactly what I could afford, no more and no less. As chance would have it the first monthly total worked out at just under £5 a day, so part of my lunchtime ritual was to queue at the cash machines in Alexandra Square and withdraw my daily budget, a crisp £5 note that was to buy me both lunch and dinner any other sundries I needed from the chemist (my drinking entertainment money came from another account and so wasn't factored in here). So strict was I about this financial salami slice that if the machines had run out of £5 notes and were only giving out tenners, I would instead queue up inside and make an over the counter withdrawal of my allotted amount.

Yes of course that sounds anal, but that attitude meant that when I finally went crawling for an overdraft in the summer of my final year, the personal account manager in the branch was astonished I had lasted that long.

Now even in 1991 you would actually struggle to find a cash machine loaded up with fivers on the high street and I suspect the only ones I am ever likely to see were the ones on the university campus, specially configured to take into account the lesser resources of the student population who patronised them. I sometimes idly wonder just how long it had been since cash machines stopped dispensing £1 notes, as presumably they must have done at the very start of their existence.

So of course once out in the real world, inflationary pressures meant that the minimum sum available was £10, an amount I always made sure to spin out for as long as possible. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of money always running out faster when you have it on you. I don't trust myself to carry large sums of cash around, simply because I know I will spend it if it is readily to hand. I still remember those horror days when my finger slipped and I withdrew £100 instead of £10 and had to work hard not to blow a fortnights spending money in too short a period of time.

As the years go by, a single £10 note never quite stretches as far as it should, and so cash machine inflation kicks in again, raising the bar to £20 as a sensible minimum withdrawal for day to day living. I still hate doing this. I'm still convinced I can spend £20 far quicker than I can two lots of £10 but as time goes by I live in fear that the number of machines prepared to dish out tenners grows smaller by the day.

The other problem here is that as far as my spending habits are concerned, £20 is still rather more than I need at any one time. This particularly becomes a problem when you have visited a machine to get the cash to buy something small. There is nothing I dislike more than trying to pay the bloke in the station kiosk for a newspaper with a twenty pound note and so for politeness sake I'll pick up a drink or a bag of chocolates just to bump the total up to a more respectable amount. That way I can offer my cash machine fresh crisp note with the confident swagger of a man for whom it is piffling change rather than as the evil bastard who is going to rob the poor man of his days float all for the sake of a copy of The Sun. Even if that does mean your precious cash reserves go down just a little faster due to the unwanted extras you have just splashed out on.

This brings us to the other dilemma of course. What happens when your spending plans necessitate the withdrawal of £20 but you are also after small(ish) change for the newspaper stand. Asking the machine for a straight 20 is like playing some exciting lottery machine. Will it decide to dip into its precious cargo of £10 notes and give you two of equal value, or will it elect to go down the simple route and neatly present you with the inconvenience of a purple large one. Those in the know assure me that the machine is programmed to calculate a sensible split of denominations when processing a request, but we all know that is bollocks. Cash machines will sense what you need the money for and dump it on you in the most inconvenient manner possible.

This is why I've taken to introducing my own inflationary pressure on the cash machine process. If I want £20 I'll ask for £30 instead, thus forcing the evil box of electronics to offer me one note of each type. Victory is mine. I have both the twenty I need to function as a normal member of society, plus the ten pounds I can use for fiddling purchases such as comics or the tissues you never seem to have enough of during hay fever season. Still it can be a problem, as I'm sure I spend £30 far quicker than I would £20. Thus cash machine inflation gets us all in the end.

Next time: when your pockets are swollen with two pounds worth of copper coins, how do you avoid looking like a down and out when you use them to pay for a bottle of water?

Sisters Wedding - The Event

"Make yourselves comfortable, this could take some time" was my cheery cry to the last guests as they made their way up the path towards the church. Shit, why am I worrying? This isn't my wedding after all. Still, knowing my family's propensity for delay, plus the distance they have to travel, means I feel almost compelled to assure everyone that any excessive tardiness is not totally unexpected.

Eventually there was a flash of metal and two ostentatiously decorated cars meandered their way up the country path. The first disgorged four green bottles of wine, better known in their proper guise as the bridesmaids. They patiently stood in a gaggle as the silver Jaguar swung round, everyone craning for a look as the bride made her first appearance.

"Wait, stop! Don't get out, sit there for a moment!"

Is there an issue with the train? A patch of mud in the way? No, it seems that the video cameras aren't quite in position and so my sister has to wait for the shot to be arranged before she can step out into what quite thankfully has turned out to be bright sunshine.

With everything in place, the sound guy is given a nod and the church filled with music. By prior arrangement the bridal procession is to be heralded by me escorting my mother to her seat. I resisted the overwhelming urge to turn to her and put on my 'talk to old people voice' and say "ALRIGHT DEAR? I'M HERE TO SHOW YOU TO YOUR SEAT. NOW ARE YOU BRIDE OR GROOM?" and instead merely parade gently with her to the front. Once there it becomes clear that either we walked far too fast or just set off too soon, as we now have to sit and wait for a full minute for the song to play through to the appropriate moment.

A word about the music my sister has chosen. Whilst I arrived at my wedding to the strains of Mark Knopfler, Rachel preferred a more conventional route and so went for the old faithful of the theme to Love Story. At dinner the previous night I had gently pointed out that she was choosing to arrive in church to music that originally accompanied the moment when Ali McGraw's character bought the farm due to cancer but I was assured that this juxtaposition had been considered and was unlikely to be spotted by anyone else. So it was that the music swelled to a climax, Ryan O'Neal shed some Oscar nominated tears, the congregation rose to their feet and my sister proceeded down the aisle for the moment she had been building up to since Christmas.

As I watch this all unfold, even a committed atheist like myself cannot help but be slightly moved by the significance of where we are. Harewood Church closed for business, so to speak, before I even moved to the village as a small child so I have only ever known it as a relic. It sits normally as a monument to a community lost to history, operating in a rather half-hearted manner as a museum to the still magnificent alabaster tombs of past Earls and landowners that are scattered around its environs. The only time I've ever seen it full of people as it was in its heyday has been every Christmas Eve when the entire village marches down for the annual carol service, illuminated by candles and bare lightbulbs and warmed by scarcely adequate personal heaters, as if to ram home the fact that this is a makeshift operation in a building which ins't supposed to hold people any more.

For the wedding, however, things are different. The altar is dressed and lit, the pews lined with people in their Sunday best (or penguin costumes), there are flowers everywhere and a priest at the front ready to conduct a Christian service. For the first time in my life I've seen the church alive and functioning, just as it was originally created and just as it had been just a generation earlier. If nothing else I am glad we were all there to see it.

The service itself presented me with a brief moral dilemma. Given I rejected all notions of religion and spirituality a long time ago, just how is one supposed to behave when the process of singing hymns and offering prayers begins. Not only am I sat at the front, but I'm sharing a hymn book with my mother who I'm aware with one disapproving glance can make me feel like I am five years old again. I settle eventually for miming the hymns or humming along, whilst dispassionately staring ahead in discreet silence whilst the rest of the congregation offer up their praise to their fictional deity.

The vows conducted, the signing of the register was accompanied by several songs from a mature ladies choir from the neighbouring village who serenaded us with immaculate harmonies for what seemed like forever. I may well be committed atheist but I was tempted by their performance to find belief again, if only to offer up a prayer that they weren't going to start on a fourth song.

The end of the service results in what I hope will be my only missed cue of the day. As the bride and groom pass by us towards the back, my father and mother immediately set off behind them, leaving me glued to my seat unsure whether to follow. I elect not to, reasoning that my responsibility for protecting the precious registers overrides everything else. As everyone else starts to file out, I march to the corner and pack everything back into its protective briefcase. I later learned that this caused some minor puzzlement outside as whilst the rest of the family assembled for the post-service photographs I was nowhere to be found, trapped inside the church at the back of the queue of people who were steadily emerging into the sunshine. I suspect that was actually a lucky escape.

Next on the agenda was pretending to be nobility for the afternoon, as the bride and groom posed for more photographs on the steps to the entrance to Harewood House itself. Escorting my mother down, I suggested that in years to come my sister and her new husband would be able to wind their children up, showing them the pictures and telling them "this is where we lived when we first got married".

Next it was to the terrace at the back of the house for the champagne reception where live musicians serenaded what would turn out to be an entire afternoon of mingling and chatting. It was here amongst the crowd that I worked out just what this wedding represented and how it neatly illustrated the difference between my sister and myself.

I live my life for the immediate present. Despite occasional bursts of nostalgia, I'm defined by what I do and the people I know day to day. Looking back, I move through phases of life discarding much of what has gone before. I'm in contact with nobody from my school days. I have barely any connection with the people I knew at university and have entire photo albums full of pictures of former housemates and past colleagues, all of whom were close trusted friends at the time but who now might as well be strangers for all the links I have with them. Hence my wedding was a small-scale affair, attended only by close family, the only link to the outside world being best man Louis as befitted his status as the one true friend I respect, admire and trust.

My sister on the other hand defines herself totally by the people she has known and the places she has been in life. Her guest list was drawn therefore from virtually every life experience she had ever known. Making conversation on the sunshine drenched steps were childhood friends, old junior school teachers, friends from her teenage years, her old headmaster, university friends, contacts from study in France and former colleagues stretching back almost a decade. She had assembled around her the sum total of her life experiences so far, the people and memories that defined the person she had been up to that moment, just to share the event that represented the crowning glory of her life so far.

Philosophy aside, I reminded myself that I needed to exercise self restraint. I still vividly remember the first champagne reception I ever attended, not long after moving to the capital. Louis had invited me along to the presentation of the Guardian Book Awards and I spent a very pleasant two hours mingling with celebrities, competition winners and invited guests, all the time having my glass refreshed by attentive waiters. As a consequence I probably downed a bottle and a half of champagne without noticing, its effects only becoming apparent when we emerged into the evening and my legs stopped functioning. Repeating the experience at a wedding would be ill advised so after the first few glasses I put my glass down on a wall and walked away from it, thus preventing the ingestion of any further sparkling nectar.

It was during the drinks that we ended up as something of a tourist attraction. Although on a semi-private bit of the terrace, the rest of the park was open to the public as usual, vistor numbers swelled by the added bonus of Chinese dragon boat racing taking place on the nearby lake. As various party members were assembled for yet more photographs, small groups of immaculately dressed Chinese people wandered by and whipped out their own cameras to capture the occasion they stumbled across a genuine English white wedding.

After everyone had mingled with everyone else and I'd run out of ways to politely decline the offer of a fresh glass of something I'd regret within the hour, the party migrated once again down the hill to the palace of lilies and sheet-draped chairs, better known as the venue for the dinner reception. This was as you might expect a lavishly and expensively catered affair, a meal suitably befitting the occasion. That said, I'm never the biggest fan of reception dinners due to the production line nature of it all. No matter how highly skilled the chef, the experience can never live up to a proper restaurant meal. At such an establishment I can be reasonably assured that my meal has been specially cooked upon my request, the chef applying the highest standards before allowing the meal to come to my table with his name attached. Dinner receptions to a set menu mean that effectively the kitchen is required to generate 80 identical platters simultaneously and it is maybe inevitable that quality control will suffer along the way. Still, the meal was edible and satisfying even if there did appear to be a 10 minute gap between the top table receiving their main courses and the rest of us being furnished with hours. I speculated to nobody in particular that they were probably hand rearing a fresh batch of roast ducks for the main body of the guests.

With dessert ("a trio of Yorkshire rhubarb") polished off and coffees distributed, it was time for the speeches. Most of my public speaking style was learned from watching my father at such occasions, the ability to mix humour with pathos and heartfelt emotion one trait I am glad I inherited. The presentation of embarrassing pictures passed without a hitch and everyone laughed in all the right places. I was particuarly entertained by his use of a well travelled anecdote about a friend of his at university noting that all women eventually turn into their mothers, noting that the last time I'd heard him use it was at my grandmother's funeral some nine years earlier, an occasion that had much of the same crowd in attendance. Still, you would be hard pressed to find a similar tale that worked as both a humourous aside at a happy occasion and as a moment for fond reflection in front of a group of mourners.

The groom's speech was something of a revelation as Mike, my sisters new husband, has a maybe unfair reputation as being a man of few words. A decade long association with my sister can do that to a bloke. It was therefore good to hear him speak at length and offer up the usual effusive thanks to the assembled crowd. As he sat down I noticed by sister stuffing discreetly into her bag the notes she had prepared just in case it fell to her to fill in any gaps.

Everything else (best man, cake cutting etc) based by in a blur and as the sun fell it was time for the final part of the day's festivities as what was left of the party migrated to the courtyard for drinks and dancing. The traditional first dance was to the accompaniment of the hired wedding singer, a besuited crooner who put in a passable rendition of "I've Got You Under My Skin" even if his top end and overall timbre perhaps left a little to be desired. By this time it was late evening and the amount of time we had all been on the go had begun to take their toll. Tales of carnage would inevitably emerge from the rest of the evening but after saying polite goodbyes, Mila and I withdrew from the festivites and made our way home.

For every member of my family I suspect it was a watershed moment. My sister had the wedding day she had been imagining since the age of five. My mother saw her only daughter progress up the aisle just as she had done forty years earlier and my father fulfilled his final duty of ceremonially giving her away to the charge of the man she had chosen.

What of the brother of the bride? Well he too got to live out his own white wedding fantasy, leaving the reception arm in arm with the best looking bridesmaid.