November 1993

Someone asked me recently if I missed going out on the lash and pubbing and clubbing. I honestly hadn’t given it much thought, having been so busy since the time when I guess you could say that I ‘stopped’ doing all that.

Giving it some reflection though and casting my mind back, I have to say that initially (i.e. the first three years worth of clubbing) I didn't really enjoy it at all.

I’d been drinking in pubs for years – my first time being half a Guinness that my dad bought for me at the St George Inn in Portslade when I was about 4 years old. I was sitting at his feet at the bar and he opted to hand me down a half of the black stuff rather than a coke for that particular round!

But in terms of clubbing, I first went in November 1993.

Most (though not all) of my friends used to go to The Event nightclub (now called Prizm) in West Street, Brighton but in truth I virtually had to force myself to go, as I really wasn’t fussed about going. I had glandular fever and anaemia around the ages of 17 to 19, so maybe that explains my nonchalance to it all! Not that the first night I went clubbing was uneventful though…

I remember that first walk down the stairs into the club and seeing a particular girl from school – a girl that virtually everyone fancied – walking towards me and my mates. Now I’ve never been keen on girls being too heavily made up with garish lipstick etc. and have always preferred a more natural look, but she looking stunning and it struck me that we were no longer kids in a playground.

I didn’t get drunk, but that was mainly because I hadn’t really found my tastes in alcohol yet. I’ve never really liked beer, and I hadn’t discovered spirits at that time, so I tended to just push and tolerate my way through a few bottles of Budweiser and peel the labels off just waiting till midnight when the ‘decent’ music started. This would be a forty five minute session of 80’s music or commercial chart songs. I was never into the heavy techno, trance or garage music that was played for most of the night. I was far happier listening and dancing to Michael Jackson, Madonna, Wham!, Madness, Dexy’s Midnight Runners etc. than the other stuff on offer. They even played Beatles and Stones songs on occasion.

Pretty much that became the pattern for a few years. Save money, go clubbing, drink poor beer, enjoy 45 minutes of music, eat takeaway chicken and taxi home.

Hardly exciting times, but just to add to my indifference on that first night, on the way home one of the lads in our cab was sick which meant the rest of us chipping in to pay the cabbie the ‘clean-up’ fee. Deep joy.

And if that wasn’t enough, when I got home I found I had great difficulties in taking out one of my contact lenses. I kept trying to get hold of it and pinching and missing before eventually being in tremendous pain. It turned out I must have been at least partially inebriated as I’d actually already got the lens out, and was in fact pinching my eye-ball. Eventually I went to a&e, and after a few hours and scans later, the doctor said I had three scratches across my eye and put a few drops over them to ease the pain… though I had to put up with triple vision for a few days.

After a few years of trudging through boring nights out, things finally improved as I started to find other club nights, like 80’s nights and student nights (with music I liked played endlessly)…and the cheap spirits and mixers offers often helped!

It was mainly about the music for me, but once I worked out what drinks I genuinely liked (dark rum and coke / southern comfort and lemonade) I found my enjoyment of the nights out increased immensely.

And I believed I’d found the answer to clubbing enjoyment in one word:

Friday

Such a different group of people would go out in Brighton on a Friday night compared to a Saturday night. The atmosphere was so much more relaxed and you didn’t have to actively try and avoid the people who couldn’t handle their shandies.

My Friday nights between the ages 22 to 26 took on a life in itself. Work pending, I was out with a certain group of friends every other Friday. It possibly looks uninspiring looking back, and I didn’t travel the world and change lives etc…I just had a really enjoyable social life with my friends, with such a simple routine: 

1. Get ready between 4-5pm – music a-blaring throughout
2. 6pm: With a full wallet (£60) make way to friend’s house for a few alcoholic 'tasters'
3. Get to the Pull & Pump Pub at 7pm-ish and await the arrival of others in the crew
4. Move on to the Quadrant Pub for 8pm (cart wheeling through the Imperial Arcade on the way) - insist on the bar staff putting THIS on the jukebox and gently mocking the Bryan Ferry and Mark Owen look-alikes
5. Down to The Event (by 1015pm to avoid the queues)
6. Get hammered on cheap booze, do a circuit of the club to see who is about.
7. Dance ourselves sober
   
   
8. Get hammered again (do another circuit - week after week we would contrive to not pull a single girl- this is why >>>
   
9. Leave at about 130am to avoid the crying girls who invariably had lost their purses
10. Go to Hungry Years night club (RIP)...
    
    
    
    ...to meet with others in the crew
11. Head to Subway for a foot long double (quadruple) cheese, double bacon, single turkey, BBQ sauce and salt fest… served by a kid we called Andy. But that wasn't his real name… or was it? He might have been called Bob.
12. Walk as far as we could before we were just too knackered to go on... and hail a cab with whatever change we had left, and get dropped off wherever the money ran out
13. Leg it across Easthill Park kicking an imaginary football into the goalposts that were set up for the Saturday morning league games
14. Get home at around 3am and go on ICQ to talk again to the people I’d spent all night with
15. Start to eat Subway...fall asleep
16. Wake at 7am to finish Subway and down a glass of strawberry milkshake and rejoice at yet another night out with no hangover!

Happy days… the trend stopped during 2001, and after that I had children and priorities changed!

When I stopped going, I definitely missed it, but I think I’d had my time and in particular I thoroughly enjoyed the latter part of it. Many of my other mates who didn't come along used to give me tremendous stick for my habitual routine, but I couldn't care less… it was my music and my time and I loved it.

And tellingly, whenever they came with us, they tended to love it too.

I went many years before going clubbing again, but relived a few good nights nonetheless. When Michael Jackson died in 2009, during a period when I was going through something of a personal breakdown, I went to The Event (by then renamed Oceana) as where better to go to grieve on various levels than to somewhere that was celebrating his musical legacy. They didn’t let me down and literally every other song that night was a Jackson classic.

And this boy was last seen leaving a nightclub in August 2009, with Black or White playing in the background…

Update!

Rummaging around I came across the song list for that first night clubbing - the aforementioned '45 minutes of decent music':

Boom! Shake The Room - Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff

We Will Rock You - Queen

Right Here - SWV

Grease Megamix - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

Summertime - Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff

Satisfaction - Rolling Stones

Out Of Space - The Prodigy

Leader Of The Gang - Discredited 70's artist

Baggy Trousers - Madness

Atomic - Blondie

Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners

People Everyday - Arrested Development

Moving On Up - M People

Informer - Snow

Jump Around - House Of Pain

Relight My Fire - Take That & Lulu

Just don't ask me why I still have that play list to hand!

Update 2016!!!

Remember the girl on the stairs at the Event near the start of this blog?

Well in August 2016, I bumped into her for the first time in years at a friend’s birthday party.

 

Many mutual friends from back in the day were there and as 40 year olds we drank, laughed and danced to 80’s / 90’s music galore, just like before. And for completeness I thought it might be nice to offer up this little soundbite that she told me:

“I miss nights like these…”

Opinions

I’ve been blogging for exactly 6 weeks now (time flies when you’re having fun) and it’s been quite interesting to note the reactions it has caused.

People paying lip-service is one such reaction. “It’s just not my scene” is another. Criticism for not doing enough blogs and criticism for doing too many blogs!

The most frequent question I’ve been asked though is:

“Well WHY are you blogging!?” and my response to that is usually “Well why not!?”

For me there’s no ulterior motive here. I’m seeking neither praise nor criticism. I’m not trying to make friends or enemies. I’m definitely not doing it to ram my opinions down anybody’s throats… and it’s not something I can earn money doing (dammit!)

I’m genuinely just doing it for fun, and writing about things that interest me is simply something that I gain a lot of enjoyment in doing.

Obviously I’m HUGELY grateful to anyone who reads what I scribe, but I’m clear in my head that it’s of 99% irrelevance to me whether they like it, hate it, disagree with it or love it!

The 1% is the ‘I’m only human’ part of me that is quite pleased when someone is genuinely kind about my blogs, but I know that very easily any book can be put down, so I don’t get over excited about praise, nor sad about negativity.

It’s just me blurting about things that I like– hopefully with a fair degree of confidence – and sharing my opinions about the topics in question.

And it really is all about opinions isn’t it? Disagree or agree as much as you like with what I write – either way you will be paying more attention to the matter than I am!

And then on Facebook yesterday, I saw this gem attributed to Prof. Brian Cox:

 I couldn’t agree more – love it!!!

So (for fun) having done a bit of research on ‘opinions’, please peruse some of the below quotes:

(with thanks to the Good Reads website)

• “People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.” ― Anne Frank

• “People have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.” ― Voltaire

• “If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas.” ― John Scalzi

• “Opinions are like nipples, everybody has one. Some have firm points, others are barely discernible through layers, and some are displayed at every opportunity regardless of whether the audience has stated "I am interested in your nipples" or not.” ― David Thorne

• “I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but holding it a sound maxim, that it is better to be only sometimes right, than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.” ― Abraham Lincoln

• “I have learned that trying to control other people’s opinions of you is the fastest possible route to unhappiness.” ― Dan Pearce

• “A ‘normal person’ is what is left after society has squeezed out all unconventional opinions and aspirations out of a human being.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

• “As uncomfortable as it might be, I refuse to let the comfort of being agreed with suffocate my opinions.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

• “The strength of one's opinion should not exceed their knowledge on the matter.” ― Eric Hirzel

• “If ten eyewitnesses are asked to describe a suspect, you'll get ten different variations. The same applies to readers and their opinions about the same book. And that's how it should be; we're not robots.” ― Shawnda Currie

• “One test result is the worth one-thousand expert opinions.” ― Werner Von Braun

• “Don't let other people's opinions distort your reality. Be true to yourself. Be bold in pursuing your dreams. Be unapologetically you!” ― Steve Maraboli

Just a few to pass comment on (I couldn’t resist could I!?)

• “It was always disconcerting to discover that you shared opinions with someone you had no respect for.” ― Anon

In my opinion(!) that is utter garbage and snobbery at its peak. A more contrived stance I’d be hard pressed to recognise.

• “I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them.” ― George H.W. Bush

None of my own words can do that justice!

                                                                                    

And I’ll leave you with this one, which could be associated with my blogging to date:

• “Opinions vary.” ― Kira A. McFadden

The Great Storm of October 1987

Anyone who lived in the south east of England, and was awake during the night of 15^th – 16^th October 1987, will never forget the great storm. My 12^th birthday was just two weeks prior, but even now at 39 years old the events are still quite clear to me.

The day before the storm we’d had a charity event at school, raising money by running laps round our playing field. We even got to meet Olympian swimmer Sharron Davies before for a photo shoot and I was lucky enough to have a chat with her (about toast) as the photographer had to change his film before proceeding with my photo. It was a terribly blustery and wet day, and when I got home, I recall my Dad (a keen weather enthusiast) noting that it was going to be very windy during the night.

Having gone to sleep, the next thing I knew was my Dad waking me and my brother up and in a calm voice he simply said:

"Get up, there's a hurricane outside!"

Even in my half-awake state, being the cock-sure-know-it-all youth a year shy of being a teenager, I retorted quick as a flash with "we don't get hurricanes in this country."

I'd barely finished the words, when the roaring noise hit my ears and shut me up! Technically it wasn't an official hurricane (Michael Fish was right!) but to all intents and purposes it felt like one at the time.

My Dad told us to get dressed as quickly as possible and go downstairs. This wasn't altogether unusual for me as my Dad often woke me in the middle of the night to watch thunderstorms with him, but as I began to dress I found myself staring in disbelief out of the window at a group of sixty feet tall, hundred year old trees thrashing back and forth at impossible angles, all being lit up in the middle of the normally dark night by what seemed like constant lightning.

We made our way downstairs to find my Mum huddled up on the sofa and crying. Storms at the best of times used to frighten her, but this was a different storm to anything we'd heard or seen before. The constant roar was immense and didn’t seem to let up at all. Within minutes of going downstairs the loudest, most scary crashing noise I had ever heard in my life made all of us scream and jump. Before we had a chance to consider what it might have been, it happened again - and again! It was the roof. It was literally being lifted off its weakened supports and was crashing back down to somewhere near to where it was propped before.

Where we lived was at the time one of the highest locations on Foredown Hill in Portslade, so we were obviously a bit exposed to potentially damaging gusts. My Dad didn't waste any time at all in deciding we'd actually be safer elsewhere. We daren't even go upstairs again for fear of being injured or worse. My Grandparents lived on the other side of the village in Drove Crescent, Portslade which was also on a hill, albeit significantly lower and better protected, so my Dad decided we should head over there - it was no more than a 10 minute walk and we'd be there in no time. Or so we thought!

Having grabbed what extra warm clothes we could from downstairs we abandoned the house and started the mile long trek to my grandparents. That said, we'd only just started walking, when I shouted out: "there's a tree in the road!" - I had to shout as the wind was too loud to talk normally.

Foredown Road

Sure enough about halfway down Foredown Road, a massive tree had come crashing down and blocked our route. Several other trees had come down too and we literally had to climb four or five feet over the trees to get down the road. Once we got through and down into the valley the wind was less, but this proved to be short-lived as we slowly fought the gusts climbing up Drove Crescent. As if this wasn't enough we encountered the new danger of roof tiles flying at us from all angles. My Dad suffered a blow straight to his mouth from a piece of debris and he was lucky to get away with a couple of chipped teeth. Me and my Brother can't remember it, but my Dad insists he tied books to the sides of our heads to protect us before we'd left the house – this became a source of mirth over the years as my Dad more and more insisted that’s what he did – he also thought he put a crash helmet on my brother! We’re still unconvinced we had any form of head gear! Anyways, we arrived at my Grandparents without any further injuries.

They were both awake already and had lit several candles as the power cut was now widespread and in fact the only other light was the arcing of the nearby power lines. My Grandad kept hearing tiles coming off his roof and wanted to go outside to check! It took my Dad some effort to keep pulling him back indoors as it was obviously highly dangerous. We stayed there till the sun rose some 3 hours later, the storm having done its worst.

Shortly after sunrise my Dad left us to return home to see how the house looked. He eventually came back to us a couple of hours later, bringing with him some more clothes and the news that two trees had come to rest on the house and porch roofs. Though anxious to get home to have a look, we actually took a bit of a tour around Portslade to see the incredible aftermath of the storm. Walking through the carnage of dozens of cars crushed by trees and hundreds of tiles all around us, it was an incredible experience to take in, although excitement is an inappropriate term as tragically some fatalities had occurred.

We detoured to view the devastation at Easthill Park. There were hundreds of trees down, and the park was never the same again. I wish I’d taken a photo of how the old play park looked as I can only recall it in my mind’s eye now. It was demolished shortly after to make way for new trees which was a real shame because that type of ‘industrial’ play park is not really to be found anymore. Certainly the apparatus were scarier than you’d expect to see in the bark chippings and rubber laden parks that started to appear everywhere in the mid 1990’s.

Despite the immense damage all around, it struck me just how beautifully bright, sunny and eerily peaceful it was. No-one would ever have guessed what had just happened. Indeed when recounting my story to my friends at school (once it had reopened) I remember some telling me that they'd slept through the whole event!

My mates said that we must've been mad to go out in that weather, but upon arriving home and seeing the damage to the house, I was convinced my Dad's judgement had been sound and that we were indeed safer and better off having abandoned the house.

Having got home we saw that amazingly most of the roof was still in place, though many dozen tiles were spread about the area, and the porch had a huge tree embedded in it.

As we started the immense task of cleaning up, I remember my Mum's boss turning up almost to check to see if she had a valid reason for not going to work! 

The Cul-De-Sac we lived in only housed 6 premises, and our house was really the only one that suffered damage, but all the neighbours rallied round to help clear the debris and saw up chunks of massive trees in order to get our home back to normal. Stereotypical as it may now sound in these more enlightened and equality driven times, but the men cleared the paths as the women and the children supplied the tea, horlicks and bacon sandwiches to them. No-one complained, and neighbours who had barely spoken to each other were all now getting on with the job in hand.

Things were back to normal pretty soon, though we had a deja vu moment in January 1990 with a lesser daytime storm which brought it's own excitement as we were dragged out of school, but I'll never forget that night when the fantasy of a ‘storm in a film’ became reality.

The Top 30 Best Selling UK Singles Part 2

Please see Part 1 here!

Part 2: 20 – 1

20. Imagine – John Lennon

Imagine if John hadn’t been killed. This song might genuinely have forever been condemned to being a poor performer in the charts. Not even a released single when it first surfaced (1971), it then only made number 6 in 1975 before the mourning of a nation revived it in 1980 to become one of his best loved compositions. Another track that has become a Christmas / New Years anthem due to the timing and circumstances of its 1980 release.

19. Happy – Pharrell Williams

This one will continue to rise up the list as it’s still in the charts at the time of writing. A remarkably simple effort from Pharrell in creating a track that is popular whether you’re aged 3 or 93… and all done without the help of Robin Thicke or Nile Rodgers. Clap your hands.

18. Last Christmas / Everything She Wants – Wham!

Possibly the greatest number 2 ever (don’t!), possibly one of the best Christmas songs ever and possibly the slickest remix ever (check out the Last Christmas Pudding Mix). In fact the only disappointment for me is that Everything She Wants wasn’t released elsewhere in the year in it’s own right as that song is just so Wham! at their best.

17. (Everything I Do) I Do It for You – Bryan Adams

Yet another song carried along by the success of a hit film. Overplayed? Perhaps, but not quite worn out like I will Always Love you has become. You can’t knock 16 weeks at number 1 though, so well played to the Canadian Canadian.

16. Believe – Cher

Wow! Cher’s voice on this. Not done using a vocoder as was originally thought, but by rigging an auto tune machine to warp 3 sets of her vocals. Innovative. And then Madonna did it.

My main memory of this is going to an awful nightclub in Crawley, West Sussex and hearing it played four or five times an hour. Strong song with a good video too.

15. Evergreen – Will Young

An early effort of the yearly X-Factor song that reduces the once revered Christmas chart to a farce every year. Nothing against Will Young, but he did far, far better songs after this one.

14. I Want to Hold Your Hand – The Beatles

The song that really broke the Beatles into the American market. Not many better intros to a song than heard on this zippy belter.

13. Barbie Girl – Aqua

Novelty songs – you gotta love ‘em eh!? Well no not always. It’s harmless, poppy fun, but I’m not over bothered with it. Aqua could do a job though, and I politely refer you to Turn Back Time, as heard in the soundtrack to Sliding Doors. See!? Get a song in a movie and it’s a sure fire chart scorcher.

12. I Just Called to Say I Love You – Stevie Wonder

Now if this ‘ode’ had come out nowadays, would it have been a hit? Would it be renamed?

Maybe: I Just Texted 2 Say I luv U - LOL

11. Unchained Melody – Robson & Jerome

There must be a million different covers of this song, and whilst R&J (a bit like an old version of Ant & Dec) did their best, no-one is gonna convince me that the Righteous Bros effort isn’t the definitive cover.

10. Mary's Boy Child – Oh My Lord – Boney M

And into the top ten we go. Again, the Christmas sales probably helped this one make the list, and I suppose if you can rework a traditional slumber seasonal carol into a pseudo Christmas Disco multi million seller, then you must be doing something right. Oh My Lord indeed.

09. Love Is All Around – Wet Wet Wet

Another cover, another song from a movie soundtrack, so obviously another multi million seller. In fact ‘The Wets’ might have sold even more, but they actually ordered the cessation of production of units whilst they were still at number 1. Apparently this was because they didn’t want to condemn the song to the over played graveyard (too late)

More likely they didn’t want the embarrassment of being replaced at the top by Whigfield’s Saturday Night…

08. She Loves You – The Beatles

Now we’re cooking. 18 weeks in the top 3 alone, and this included TWO different spells at number one, with a few weeks gap in between hitting the summit. No other song in chart history has had quite the storyline that the chart run of She Loves You has. The tragedy is that the version we all know is in fact a splice of more than one recording and is the reason why when the Remastered Stereo albums box set was released, SLY was one of the only songs not actually presented in crisp stereo. This for me is singularly the saddest tale in the history of the British charts. Still, it didn’t put millions off buying the song I suppose!

07. Rivers of Babylon / Brown Girl in the Ring – Boney M

Controversy klaxon. This was another double A-side (though originally was a plain old A and B-side), yet you never hear ‘Brown Girl…’ played on the radio. Like ever.

Is there a race reason behind this? A bit of research suggest it’s nothing of the kind, and is based on a West Indian children’s song – a bit like Ring of Roses, which has its own history. As a child, I loved singing and dancing to it, and still prefer it any day to the original A-side. So dammit DJ’s of the UK, show ME a motion and play it more often!

06. Relax – Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Like many people possibly, I had no idea what the lyrics to this belter were referring to at the time of release, but does it really matter? Songs inferring sex have been around since the Edison Phonograph. Mary had a little Lamb indeed.

In fact well over half the songs in this top 40 have at least subtle sexual overtones (or undertones), so get over yourselves and be happy and gay.

05. You're the One That I Want – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

Wow a second entry from the same film. I’m running out of characters, so see Summer Nights blurb from Part1!

04. Mull of Kintyre – Wings

As a child I think this came on to my radar before I knew who The Beatles even were.

I like to imagine Lennon hearing about this song the day before it was released…

The Lennon Diaries, Thursday November 10^th 1977:

‘Pfft – Just heard about Macca’s latest! ROTFL… Bagpipes and a beach in Scotland? Good luck with that pal. Gear fab, gear fab’

03. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen

It’s hard to knock this one, but I’m still not sure about combining two chart runs (1975 & 1991) to elevate it up the list. I wasn’t keen on Queen until poor young Freddie passed on, but their music was everywhere in the aftermath of his death and one couldn’t help but admire what they’d contributed to British music. When clubbing at The Event II (blimey another RIP!) nightclub in Brighton in the 90’s, this was frequently referred to as the club’s ‘anthem’. I’m still not convinced by this, but maybe it was helped by the additional tie in with the film ‘Wayne’s World’. Let the head banging commence.

02. Do They Know It's Christmas? – Band Aid

Just when you thought we’d done Christmas to pieces, along comes the biggest one of them all.

What’s not to like? Always likely to remain a classic at Christmas, and that’s a good thing. It won’t be a popular view, but I liked the 1989 SAW version too. Not keen on the Band Aid 20 version though, as even I could’ve done Bono’s line better than he did. It’s all going to charity though so we can’t knock it.. and then there was Band Aid 30...
#feedtheworld

01.   Candle in the Wind 1997 – Elton John

Elton John’s music was heard everywhere for weeks after the death of Diana PoW, and upon his performance of the rewritten song at her funeral, the inevitable charity release followed. They couldn’t make enough copies of the single fast enough. I remember eventually buying it about a month after its release, simply because it was sold out everywhere.

The funeral version differs slightly and is better in my opinion (and you’ve had enough of those lately), but the irony is that Diana herself might have preferred another of Elton’s songs given the choice, as she had cited his early single ‘Your Song’ as one of her all time favourites.

So what are the themes in this list to guarantee a huge seller?

·        Christmas

·        Movie soundtrack

·        Sex

·        …and – rather morosely – death.

And what one don’t they play on the radio? The children’s song

So I’ll leave you with this final thought:

Go download baby and Show Me Your Motion

XxX

The Top 30 Best Selling UK Singles Part 1

Okay so after a brief hiatus from blogging, I’ll start up again with a bit of music! 

I don’t tend to buy many music magazines these days, having spent years thumbing through NME and MOJO back in the day. However I do tend to have more of a glimpse when they have their latest greatest songs of all time poll results. National newspapers have a crack at it too occasionally, and whilst there are some songs that regularly make the higher echelons of the lists, the variety and current trends always amaze me. Maybe that’s good though, as music should be ever evolving – after all, The Beatles wouldn’t have achieved immortality had they recorded ‘Love Me Do’ songs for ten years. 

I’m never satisfied with the lists when they come out though. For years I’ve craved a poll that truly reflects the greatest songs ever, and the only way I reckon that could be achieved would be to add it as a mandatory question in the National Census: 
Question 15: What is your favourite song?

Only then will it be definitive! 

It’s hard therefore to do a personal review of the greatest songs of all time as it provokes too much doubt and debate as to whether certain songs should be on the list in the first place. 

What IS definitive is a best SELLING singles list. 

To this end where else to go but Wikipedia to view the Top40 Best Selling UK Singles , and have a little play with that list. 
I’ve included double A-sides where they warrant a mention – note to kids: ask a grown up what a double A-side is… 

Strictly speaking blogs shouldn’t be more than 800 words to keep people vaguely interested, so I’ll do this one as a two parter to stop you getting bored, and restrict it to the top 30!

Curiously though, not one of these songs makes my own favourite top ten…

Part 1: 30 – 21

30.  Eye of the Tiger – Survivor

To me this is all about Rocky 3 (my favourite of the franchise I should add) – undoubtedly aided by being associated to the film, I wonder if it would be on this list, had Sly Stallone hung up his gloves after Rocky 2?

29.  Can't Buy Me Love – The Beatles

Unsurprisingly there are a few Beatles entries in this list. I love the Beatles to the n^th degree, but controversially I have to confess CBML is not amongst my favourites. Can't put my finger on why as I can rarely find fault in any of their catalogue.

28.  Three Lions (and 3 Lions ‘98) – Baddiel & Skinner & The Lightning Seeds

Hmm.. not sure the idea of the game is to combine two chart runs of a song that actually each has more than 50% different lyrics. Brilliant record which brings back memories galore of the summer of 1996 – but lucky to make the top 40 on this combined issue.

27.  Perfect Day – Various Artists for Children in Need

I bought the CD single of this primarily to hear the gender specific versions included therein – probably available on YouTube to have a listen to. The original composer Lou Reed (RIP) himself sings on this, so thankfully it wasn’t butchered. Seemed to linger in the charts for ages, and the accompanying video was pretty good too.

26.  I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston

Talking of lingering in the chart for ages. Poor Whitney (again RIP) gets a bad rap for this on the basis of it being overplayed, and by default of being a Christmas number 1 it has since become a Christmas playlist staple. I liked it in 1992, but a little less as each year goes by.

25.  Don't You Want Me – The Human League

I wonder if lead singer Phil Oakey knew how much this song would eventually be covered by millions due to his long lost cousin Carrie? A definitive 80’s classic though. Even the cover by The Farm wasn’t bad either – plus the video of the latter version featured one Rik Mayall (another RIP)

24.  Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke featuring T.I. and Pharrell Williams

Ah 2013 – the year Pharrell Williams became omnipresent. I shouldn’t really indulge, but the X-rated version of this catchy song is worth a view on YouTube (if you’re an adult) #cough

Even just a year later, where is Robin Thicke now?

23.  Two Tribes – Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Again another song accompanied by an interesting video. Worthy follow up to the other FGTH song that appears higher up this list…

22.  I'll Be Missing You – Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans

I wonder how well this song would have fared had Diana POW not died. Songs often bring far more comfort in times of pain than we might realise, and this certainly benefitted from a nation in mourning. To be fair the song is a good sampler, as samplers go – and who could fail with that STINGing bassline?

21.  Summer Nights – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

I never really got into Grease as a child. I think because my dad didn’t like it much, and therefore nor did we as children. And then you grow up and change your mind! The less said about Grease 2 the better though.

Part 2