GET A DOWNLOAD OF THAT
Top 40 chart expanded to include net sales
I So finally. songs downloaded legally from the internet are being included Ill the Top 40. along with traditional Singles sold on discs. While those fusty folks at the Dal/y Mail would probably imagine this would result in a dramatic skewing of the charts complexuon. Tony Christie’s comeback Single ‘(ls This the Way to) Amarillo' remained at number one. But. as The Independent reported. bands such as Basement Jaxx. Gorillaz and the Stereophonics all entered the charts on the basis of downloads. The Guardian (aye. those people who simply can't bear sexual stereotyping) reckons the amalgamation will result in more rawk getting into the charts. Why? ‘Because downloaders. who are overwhelmingly male. tend to favour rock numbers. many from back catalogues. while women — who tend to buy in shops — favour pop music.‘ Tell that to the mysterious sounding ‘Mrs M from Linlithgow'. who. according to the Evening News. has had to pay compensation to the music industry following a crackdown on illegal song sharing.
ROBBIE COLTRANE
Little play. big man. great big fuss
I Oh, how we salivated when we heard that Robbie Coltrane was coming to town. No, not for a signing or a premiere: he was actually in a play. Avoiding jokes about appearing in a season called A Play, A Pie and A Pint, the Scottish media contented itself with some straightforward euphoria about the appearance of such a bona fide celebrity. ‘The prodigal son returns,‘ panted The
8 THE LIST .‘t‘ A\:" l.‘..=..
POLITICAL MAGAZINES
Will Labour win the election even if no-one bothers to vote?
I While the General Election has been greeted by the British electorate with all the excitement of your granny receiving free tickets to an egg- sucking demonstration, the political journals have been frothing at the mouth. Their verdict on the current state of our political class appears to be ‘a plague on all your houses’. In The Spectator. Rod Liddle points out that, due to dubious postal voting and favourable demographics. the election is heavily loaded in favour of the government. The columnist also poses the case for inviting the Zimbabwean government to monitor our election. ‘If Robert Mugabe wanted to score an instant and hilarious propaganda coup against the “homosexual gangsters” of the Blair government, he could do no better than to dispatch a team of election monitors to Britain.’ A cartoon in The Spectator depicts a grinning Pope Tony I. with two cardinals complaining: ‘It all went wrong when we allowed the papal election to include postal votes!‘ Meanwhile. a Private Eye cartoon shows a candidate responding to ‘Fraud Shock‘ headlines. wailing: ‘The election’s been lost in the post . . .' Elsewhere, the election trail has run cold for some candidates. Lucy Sweet in The New Statesman pokes fun at the ‘Leader without a crowd' referring to Michael Howard's crowdless trip to Hampden Park. Glasgow’s never been the strongest of Tory strongholds. and Sweet describes Howard as being ‘as popular in Scotland as a gypsy encampment in Virginia Water’.
Sunday Herald, while its daily sister title opined that he’s capable of ‘dominating the stage, drawing pearls of laughter from the audience’. Being just a few feet away from the hairy one from Potter was evidently sufficient to justify such a toothsome munching of metaphors. But what did the critics make of the play? Of course, Scotland's grande dame of theatre criticism went to see it. No, we don’t mean The List’s own Steve Cramer but Joyce McMillan
in The Scotsman, who admitted that ‘Coltrane’s tremendous natural talent as an actor takes time to assert itself over his visible self-consciousness at returning to the live stage.’ In the end, despite the play’s ‘rough-edged moments’, McMillan was won over, describing Coltrane’s character as ‘a credible and tragic figure, a charismatic and talented man’, managing to find some five-star moments in what she evidently felt was only just a four star play.
‘I peed in my pants. Then I just got water and doused myself so no one would notice. I can’t stop when I’m in a race.’
‘I didn't really want to resort to that in front of hundreds and thousands of people but I was losing ten seconds every time my stomach cramped up.’ t’.i..‘t.:t1).t'.’. u'.’e‘."‘ he" .‘L‘."l‘.m‘t}""g,‘ ‘I’m stuffing myself with cheese, whole plates with four or five pieces of different types at least once a day.’
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