Arron Wright

First time I've tactically ignored songs in this format (not that it'll make a blind bit of difference!)

Pure distilled essence of 1979-2025, here. I’m loaded and loving it but somehow I can never shake this mortal terror that somewhere, some poor wanker might be eating a free cheese sandwich.

Brexit guru warns getting closer to EU will kill growth Shanker Singham says Britain can boost growth by breaking further away from EU regulations and says the UK's present woes are result of decades of bad decisions

Labour’s “Growth Commission” is chaired by Shanker Singham 👉 the same Brexit deregulator backed by Liz Truss + Tufton Street.

The man who sold “Singapore-on-Thames” 🦄 is advising Starmer’s Labour.

McSweeney’s fingerprints all over it.

Proof Labour’s been captured
www.express.co.uk/news/politic...

This is demented across all parties. Absolutely absurd. Real degradation in our brain capacities in the UK.

Imagine releasing this and it not being the best single of November 2005.

(that's still a week away🧪)

MADONNA HUNG UP

20 (PHYSICAL)

Connections
Puzzle #880
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩✅

#THETWEN2IE5 DAY 32

So begins... the first 19 songs I wrote down, in about [the length of the shortest one]

19.

CONFIDENCE MAN
'HOLIDAY'
Australia 2021

Many things bewilder me about these challenges.

This only having one other pick is right up there.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcCS...

The cover of LUX by Rosalia, an album released on 7th November 2025. "depicts Rosalía against a blue background in a white outfit resembling a nun's religious habit and veil. Her eyes are closed, her lips are coloured gold, and she is hugging herself with her arms underneath the outfit's torso."

I'm just saying, the last follow-up to my album of the decade was called LEMONADE.

No pressure then...

Do you have the final group 82:83:84:85 breakdown?

I mean why not, it's been an hour and 10 minutes since they last played it.

I might have given it points in the final group, but not over Rockit.

Also, I prefer both 'Soul Makossa' and especially 'Don't Stop The Music'.

Would have been my fourth choice off Thriller I think (BJ, BI, HN). Possibly 5th behind the title track, especially in an October poll :)

My take is that he (only) performed on three songs that unquestionably, 365 days of the year, regardless of everything, deserve to be in Pollhalla - two are there already and one wasn't nominated here. 🤷‍♂️

Will be much more invested in his sister for 1986-89.

Popbitch article on Frank Skinner 11:44 N ill 69 >> Skinned Alive << The doctor is in Frank Skinner's Manchester show went a tad awry this week when he did a routine about no longer being in the Top 10 list of most famous comedians. He comforted himself by asking: "Well, who's the most famous GP?" Cue gasps of horror from the audience, and someone shouting back "Harold Shipman killed my mother and father", before spending the rest of the gig sobbing in her seat. We're not sure Frank handled the heckling very well. "Well, how was I supposed to know that?" he asked the crying woman. To which another audience member helpfully provided: "You're in Manchester!" A cautionary tale in reading the room and perhaps editing your sets geographically. Reply

Connections
Puzzle #879
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪✖️

808 STATE PACIFIC STATE

36

Here are The Singles Jukebox reviews mentioned in my awestruck blurb.

thesinglesjukebox.com/sho-madjozi-...

20. SHO MADJOZI | CHALE Feb 2023 South Africa 1/3 2023: 6/11 Single Alpha 10, Chrono 32, Stream 44 PPP: B-sides winner, 2023 But my amapiano life peaked on record seven months later, when ‘Chale’ turned up in the 2023 Peoples Pop Poll, rightly crushed all opposition and became by far my favourite B-sides winner ever. I recommend reading the reviews of this at The Singles Jukebox - including the 10/10 by PPP nominator Dave Moore - because there’s no prospect of me conveying what’s going on in eight lines of text. To my untrained ear, it just performs a magic trick, somehow combining amapiano with a rap-inflected banger in the same ballpark as the magnificent Doechii. As Frank Kogan says, it might also be melded with the other breakout South African genre of gqom. Then there’s a stupendous double breakdown with the most unearthly syncopated bass sound. The 19 songs to come were the first ones I wrote down as essential, 15 of them as possible bonuses. Only ‘Chale’ could possibly top the rest.

A young woman shooting (basketball) in the gym.

#THETWEN2IE5 DAY 31

20.

SHO MADJOZI
'CHALE'
South Africa 2023

Thanks Dave.
Thanks Tom.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut3l...

That's why I gave my bonus to Imagination then.

From memory, 'Body Talk' deserved better in 78-81. The best (all) Black British band of a largely white-dominated era falling short of the final group would suck.

Oh, sorry!

I remember my jaw dropping at the Sue Cook bit... obviously pre-Partridge... it just seemed like an extraordinary commitment to verisimilitude for a TV drama, without any sense of clever-clever BBC meta.

(similar to Pendleton invoking the PM being on telly, but next level)

The end of E2 has one of the longest bits of Basil Exposition in anything, ever.

And it's still enthralling because of everything the writer and actors have built around it.

Even that photo of Bennett's face is going to pay off (in the best staring contest in TV history) next episode.

Frontline journalist on poppy watch.

This is the fearless journalism Britannia deserves.

Christ, the pandemic.

Heh, later on I might post a collage of my DVD, Faber script book and BFI Classics deep dive :)

Three of my viewings (2nd/3rd/4th) were the VHS, which is in three doubles and has some *terrible* edits.

The worst being that Craven's interview recording from the start of E2 is cut completely.

labour have looked at the mamdani win and the lesson they've learned is 'he uses social media' and not 'he is kind towards immigrants and trans ppl and wants to help the working class instead of corporate donors'.

Yeah, I'm sorry but the idea that being a racist cunt is a protected characteristic now is extremely clearly not the intent of the law and it's ridiculous to pretend it is.

HAPPY MONDAYS PILLS THRILLS AND BELLYACHES

35

2. Keir unfiltered - 'My Day' Picture the scene. Keir arrives in his Downing Street flat after a busy, tiring day as Prime Minister, gets a beer from the fridge, sits in an armchair in his living room, takes off his jacket, loosens his tie and says to camera: "What a day it's been. Let me tell you about it."

And this! This, which relies on the casual, magnetic charisma of Sir Keir Starmer KC.

Connections
Puzzle #878
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪☑️