There are dozens of posts on this Blog that mention the music quiz Pop Master. Until March 2023 it was on Ken Bruce’s BBC Radio 2 show at 10.30am every weekday morning. Ken moved to Greatest Hits Radio last month, and Pop Master went with him. My most recent piece with “Pop Master” in the… Continue reading Pop Master: 20 more minutes in my day
Just over two years ago, in this piece, I wrote about English managers in the Premier League (the top division in English football). At the time there were 8 English managers in the league, and I found it worthy of note that the 7 teams at the bottom of the table were all managed by… Continue reading English Managers in the Premier League, revisited
The BBC Radio 2 mid-morning quiz Pop Master has been mentioned many times on this Blog. There are pieces that list all the questions for an entire week (such as this one from 2021) and pieces that summarize my scores and only list the Bonus questions and the ones that I got wrong (such as… Continue reading Pop Master: 1,000 maximum scores
The Album Charts here in the UK are not what they used to be. This page on the Official Chart Company website, “All The Number 1 Albums”, lists every chart-topping album going back to the first official chart in 1956. It shows how things have changed in the intervening decades. In the early years there… Continue reading The Album Charts are not what they used to be
An earlier piece on this Blog (“Double A Sides at #1”) reflected on changes in how the UK charts are compiled. The Double A Sided single played a big part in chart history. In recent years, with the figures based mainly on digital downloads and streaming, Double A Sides have rarely featured in the Top… Continue reading 15 questions about Double A Sided #1s
When I was growing up it was easy to understand how the UK singles chart was compiled. It was based on the sale of vinyl records. There were stories about how the charts could be manipulated because sales figures came from a sample of record shops and these shops could be targeted by pluggers or… Continue reading Double A Sides at #1
If you are into your chart trivia you will probably know the titles of the shortest #1s in UK chart history. They consist of just two characters: “If” (Telly Savalas, 1975) and “19” (Paul Hardcastle, 1985). Recently I asked my son which songs Sara Cox had played on her “Half Wower” slot between 6.30 and… Continue reading More Chart Trivia: #1s with the shortest combination of song title and artist
A new series of ITV quiz show “Tenable” began last month. Here are the questions and answers for Friday 21 October 2022, Series 6 Episode 24 (S6Ep24). As with Series 5 last year, I am posting one piece for each episode containing the following: the questions, how the team fared and the answers. The Questions… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, Friday 21 October 2022 [Series 6 Episode 24]
A new series of ITV quiz show “Tenable” began last month. Here are the questions and answers for Thursday 20 October 2022, Series 6 Episode 23 (S6Ep23). As with Series 5 last year, I am posting one piece for each episode containing the following: the questions, how the team fared and the answers. The Questions… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, Thursday 20 October 2022 [Series 6 Episode 23]
A new series of ITV quiz show “Tenable” began last month. Here are the questions and answers for Wednesday 19 October 2022, Series 6 Episode 22 (S6Ep22). As with Series 5 last year, I am posting one piece for each episode containing the following: the questions, how the team fared and the answers. The Questions… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, Wednesday 19 October 2022 [Series 6 Episode 22]
The Compartments 