The Other UK Singles Chart: 2. The New Musical Express Singles Charts

A beginners’ guide to the NME Charts, the UK’s original Hit Parade

The UK’s first singles chart, like its American pioneer owes its existence to an iconic music magazine. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, it is the Billboard Singles Chart that was (and remains to this day) compiled by Billboard Magazine. In the United Kingdom, the New Musical Express magazine led the charge.

An Awesome Alliterative Album: Rebellious Mixtape #12

Can you create a good album with songs by alliterative artistes? Rebellious Mixtape will be your music and your friend

Before social media became a thing, we used to stand out from the competition by using catchy names and jingles. ‘Murray’ would always rhyme with ‘hurry’ among Baby Boomers because of a 1950s advertising jingle.

Slam Door Trains We Have Known and Loved: The Not So Perfect Ten

A good excuse to reminisce about pre-privatisation diesel and electric multiple units

Alongside today’s Pacers and Sprinters, our first generation EMUs and DMUs were known in the late 1980s as Heritage Units. The bulk of which being slam-door trains.

Television Puppet Stars Through the Ages: The Not So Perfect Ten

From Sooty to Hacker

John Logie Baird demonstrated his early televisual experiments with a ventriloquist dummy’s head. On the 02 October 1925, his dummy’s head known as Stookie Bill, was used to demonstrate early television pictures.

90 years on, we still use puppetry to entertain viewers young and old. Whether it’s a mule and Annette Mills or the goings-on at Furchester Hotel, they bring joy to many of us. Sometimes they can get away with things that human actors couldn’t do. Or upstage them.

Lost from the Supermarket: A Trolley Load of Anachronisms

Several things which 21st century children will never see or hear in their local superstores

Take a trip to a 21st century superstore, anywhere in the United Kingdom. Today’s stores are sprawling; some of which architecturally nondescript. Commonly, a great number have petrol stations and generous amounts of free parking.

Great Non-GMT Standard Double Deckers: The Not So Perfect Ten

A round-up of some of the greatest non-SELNEC/Greater Manchester Transport double deckers ever to grace the Earth

Regular readers on East of the M60 would be familiar with any of the references to Ralph Bennett (particularly the distinctive Bolton and Manchester Leyland Atlanteans), or the GMT standard double deckers. For this month’s Not So Perfect Ten, we are spreading our wings a little and focusing on groundbreaking vehicles from other parts of the United Kingdom. Both aesthetically and functionally.

Some Kind of Wonderfuel: Publicly Owned Gas and Electricity in Tameside

When NORWEB and North West Gas was king

If you were born some time before 1985, a common feature of our High Streets was the gas and electric showrooms. They were the public face of our gas and electricity boards, nationalised and consolidated upon in 1948 and 1949. At one time they belonged to us, rather than a clutch of investment banks and overseas subsidiaries.