This week...

• Top of the Pops from 8 juni 1989, with Transvision Vamp, The Beautiful South, D Mob, and canned Jason Donovan. Plus dull vids from Cliff Richard, Guns n' Roses, Paula Abdul, and something great from Soul II Soul.
• 1989: "One of the great punctuation marks of twentieth century history." "There are bloodstains on the ground today in Peking." "The old, failed order is being rejected with the old, failed leaders." The death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the religious leader of Iran. A crushing defeat for communism in Poland. Hundreds dead in Russia as trains spark a gas leak. .
• Blue Peter does more Doctor Who.
• Sunny and warm.

Apparently, there are going to be votes for "mares" in various places, including around this blog. This really is an insult to democracy. The people of Birmingham were asked if we wanted a mare in 2001, and we said no. We were asked again in 2012, and again we said no. The settled will of the people is that we do not want a strong mare, and the imposition of one shows that the will of the people will be ignored when it's inconvenient for those who claim to hold power.

Nevertheless, BBC1 gave over an hour last Thursday for a mass debate between some of the wannamares. Here's roughly what happened.

(More: Question by question through the mass debate)

The atmosphere was not terribly loud, we assume the audience were told not to clap or cheer. Which pretty much sums up this damp squib: loved by nobody, rejected by more.

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'A badly written spider, like, for example, OpenAI's will say "Oh look at all these websites that are linked together!" and will essentially get trapped pinging the sites. At one point, OpenAI's GPTBot was crawling Levine’s site as many as 150 times per second.' So if autocomplete bots couldn't spin the Wheel of Fortune the correct way, is it because their bot cannot tell an eye from an I?

Life is a Sacred Text has the antisemitism post. Danya Ruttenberg writes clearly and passionately about the history of Jew-hatred.

What does someone mean when they say they're are zionist? A primer for the rest of us.

[For this blog, a mix of 3 and 6, with dashes of 13 and 14. Jewish people have a right to self-determination; so do Palestinian people. It would be unreasonable to force the Jewish folk back to ancestral homes they may never have visited. Whether the sustainable answer is a single country, or two, is for people on the ground to determine. The world needs to stand against antisemitism, just as the world needs to stand against all forms of discrimination. The people in Israel/Palestine need to come up with their own political settlement, a mutual commitment to peace and justice and living with each other.]

In 2022, the Regional Court of Cologne ruled that denying that transgender people were victims of the Nazis qualifies as 'a denial of Nazi crimes', which in Germany may be prosecuted as a crime. Food for thought for all people who put their names to works in the My Immortal universe of Tara Gilesbie.

What could devolution look like under Labour asks City AM. Labour's proposals to return powers from the centre to the people. Just for once, Labour remembers that power is loaned to the government, it has nothing without general consent. We're lukewarm on the claim that getting Whitehall out of the way will drive economic growth; we're lukewarm on the claim that economic growth is a good thing in any event.

We also fear that Labour's proposals will raise the spectre of the postcode lottery. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when there was more power locally, different places had different priorities, and this led to different outcomes. Some places were better at health, others had a bee in their bonnett about Sunday trading. Rabble-rousers like Lynn Foulds-Wood and Anne Diamond would rail against this localism, saying it was a postcode lottery if your priorities matched with the local councils'. What is Labour's response to this line of attack?

Dave The Eager Young Space Cadet is back for one final crash landing, reports Politico, and he's been very hawkish on the Israel question. David Cameron-Cameron has variously stated he was "worried" Israel may have breached international law; challenged its refusals to work toward a two-state solution; and warned that his administration's support for Tel Aviv was "not unconditional". He's also warned that the Yankee republicans are operating like Hitler's appeasers, and has incurred the ire of one of Poutine's mouthpieces.

Mr. Space Cadet is able to speak plainly, and doesn't have to prove his fealty to the party leader [whoever that is this week]. Does he have freedom to represent the views of people outside the Westminster bubble? Does the fact that he's not running for re-election allow him to take calculated risks and get shit done?

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What's caught our eye this week?

Scofflaw told to scoff no more A Brazilian judge opened an investigation into Elton Mesk for obstruction of justice. It came after the fascist nepo baby said he would defy a court order to remove Twttr accounts accused of spreading disinformation about Brazil's politicians and judges. The probe will examine whether Musk, who owns Twttr, engaged in obstruction, criminal organisation and incitement. His company will be fined €20.000 every day until it falls into line.

Sure Start, England's first large programme to provide holistic support to families with children under five, greatly improved the GCSE results of disadvantaged children. And yet it was cancelled without a replacement, or without evidence.

Some videos: the PBS Nightly Business Report from 2 January 1990, feel the commodity prices, and do remember to sell at the top of the market.

Another vid: Live Your Dream With Bon Jovi's David Bryan, which we think is an instruction video on how to play keyboards. The fourth best-known member of Bon Jovi tells us how to play the keyboard like the fourth-best known member of Bon Jovi. And he creeps around malls as if he's going to bump into Tiffany.

Olivia Newton John's television special from 1978, with other stars including ABBA and who cares who else. Metafilter, so the comments are worth a look.

A competitor on Interior Design Masters talks about how she could be her authentic Jewish self.

Millie writes on Joni Mitchell and female singer-songwriters, and the girlhood essay, and how gender essentialism holds everyone back.

Radio Insight listens to Radio 1, Radio 2, and 6 Records from the BBC. Interesting to see how the Yanks don't *quite* get us.

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Ceasefire, purlease UN Security Council passes Gaza ceasefire resolution. The body approved a text calling for an lasting and sustainable cessation of hostilities, the provision of more aid to the people of Gaza, and the immediate release of all remaining hostages. This is a particularly uncontroversial humanitarian position, not even the Yankees could object to it. Shockingly, the Yankees didn't object to it. It shows how the Yanks are giving up on Netanyahu.

Netenyahu ordered his envoy to cancel a meeting with Biden, and pulled out of talks with Hamas to release the hostages. Quite clearly, Netenyahu is frit-scared of the truth, and puts his own premiership ahead of the safe return of the hostages.

Abuse of process Judge dismisses Elton Muskrat's suit against hate speech researchers. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech. It's clear that racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic, and conspiracy shite is being published on Muskrat's Twttr; and that his claim that they'd scraped the erstwhile social network is baseless. Muskrat is also a hypocrite - claiming to be in favour of unlimited free speech, with the only limits being what's against the interests of Muskrat.

Abuse, allegedly Jeffrey Donaldson resigned as leader of the DUP, the leading Protestant party in Northern Ireland. Donaldson has been charged with rape and other historic sex offences.

We're not going to comment on the particular case, though we will note that there seems to be an awful lot of sex crimes amongst MPs and senior politicians at the moment. Are we going to have to assume that they're all perverts unless demonstrated otherwise?

Bridge strike A container ship, the Dahli, struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore harbour, causing it to collapse. Six maintenance workers died when the bridge gave way and they fell into the Patapsco River; officials were able to prevent traffic from entering the bridge before it gave way.

Julian Assange, again. After letting time run out on allegations that he'd raped women in Sweden, the self-promotional activist is now facing extradition to Yankeeland for publishing leaked documents. There have been interminable tussles and arguments. A court in London has finally boiled down to the nub of the matter: the Yanks need to confirm that Assange will not be subject to judicial murder, that he will be able to put forward a defence based on freedom of expression, and that he won't be discriminated against for being an Aussie. The court rejected a claim that the case was retribution for Assange's political opinions. Julian Assange has never stood trial on rape allegations.

Slow it down Humanity is literally slowing the planet down. Because ice caps are melting, and more water is sloshing around in the oceans, the planet is spinning a little bit slower. It's thought possible that a negative leap second may be required towards the end of the decade - where 23.59:58 is followed by 00.00:00.

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Nominations for the Carnegie Medal are out. Lots of poetry and verse this year, and what looks like eight great books to look up.

Taylor Swift's eras. The Mary Sue gives us a potted introduction to the biggest pop star of this century.

Can we see the contract with West Coast Trains? "No." Given that the operator is still cancelling a third of the trains on the Birmingham route, and effectively operating just one departure an hour, we rather hope that money is flowing from the privateers Avanti to the taxpayer.

Possible future grand bargains in the Israel - Palestine problem.

Why it's easier than ever to have a number one hit, or why this blog still looks primarily at download charts where available.

I want my cuntry back, Chris Grey on a loaded phrase.

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France approved a move to enshrine the right to abortion in the constitution. Members of both houses of parliament gathered for a joint session at the Palace of Versailles and approved the measure 780-72. President Emmanuel Macron said, I made a commitment to make women's freedom to have an abortion irreversible by inscribing it in the constitution.

How Richie Sunack misrepresents legitimate protest as "violence", for his own partisan reasons.

University, challenged A look at the new University station, in Birmingham. The enlarged station was desperately needed about twenty years ago. (Caution: comments are taken over by a very tedious reply guy.)

Jewish Orthodox women activists hold sex strike. One of the women, Malky B., is being denied a religious divorce by her husband. Borrowing an idea from Lysistrata, Malky's friends in Brooklyn are refusing to complete ritual bathing, and hence refusing to have sex, until Malky is allowed to divorce. When your husband says, "Why?" say, "I could be the next agunah [woman chained to a marriage] until Malky is free. I could be the next agunah. Please call your rabbi and figure out a way to help free Malky."

The Yankees are finally doing something about the massive humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Airdrops of food aid are relieving the starvation tactics imposed by the occupying Israeli army. There are also moves to build a pontoon dock allowing supplies to arrive by boat from Cyprus: such deliveries have been stopped by force in the past. All of this suggests that the Yanks are doing as much as they can to break the discredited Netenyahu regime, any other prime minister would be better for a lasting peace.

Great Big Shite. Autocomplete bots were asked to make a Great Big Sea song. The results were as rubbish as you'd expect.

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Five Star rose from nowhere to become the biggest band in Britain, and then they fell away as quickly as they'd arrived. By April 1989, the group was really unpopular, and they appeared on Going Live. The Sunday Mirror reported what happened next:

"A youngster stunned a children's BBC TV programme with a stream of four-letter abuse at pop group Five Star.

The band were answering phone-in questions on Going Live when Elliot (sic) Fletcher blurted out, "I would like to ask Five Star why are they such fucking crap."

As presenter Sarah Greene sat in shocked silence, he added, "They are fucking cunts" before being faded out."

Five Star were a family group. Lorraine, Doris, Denise, Steadman, and Delroy were the children of Buster Pearson, who was also their manager, and who styled them in the mode of the Jackson Five. Signed to Tent Records (prop: B. Pearson), the group made vocal pop with synth stylings. It was the way of the mid-80s. After a couple of small-release singles, All fall down very gently grew its way up the charts during late spring 1985, and follow-up single Let me be the one gave them a chance to get into the TOTP studio.

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It won't be long before Five Star are completely anonymous. Five Star never had another hit album, and had to sell their swank-pad in Sunningdale when the royalties ran out. The star of the piece was unplanned audience questionner, stand up comedian, and general loudmouth Michael McIntyre. This early brush with stardom doesn't merit inclusion in his autobiography, which begins in 2005.

Have we just demonstrated that The Wheel is all the fault of Eliot Fletcher? Quite possibly.

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This blog's great friend Jaeda died last week. Here's an obituary-slash-tribute.

(More: A life, well lived and curtailed. And described in 12,500 word detail.)

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