Tom has justifiably closed discussion on the “Telegram Sam” thread and not invited it on his entry about comment box policy, but I hope it’s not too late to have my two-penn’orth, and I hope you don’t mind me posting it here.

To be honest I thought I’d been the target of flaming from certain people here when I ventured to suggest that I liked the Sandi Thom record and preferred “Black Night” to “Band of Gold”. Those were among my first postings on the site, having “lurked” for a while, and at the time I felt like backing out of the debate myself, much as Doc Mod is talking of doing. But I’ve persisted and like to think that I’ve gained a measure of respect, while recognising that some people do have strong views and forceful ways of expressing them. So when Tom hinted earlier in this thread that my liking for a certain upcoming Number 1 (errr… it’s about a painter) might prove controversial, my reaction was “bring it on”.

We don’t want to lose someone with insights of the quality of Doc Mod (and btw it’s good to see the other Doc back as well) so I fully echo what Tom said in his separate post. As for “spoilers”, I don’t know whether it’s a particularly British usage deriving from newspapers giving away soap plots in advance, but I think DM is taking it a little too literally when she says “sorry if I spoiled the fun”. I do agree with Marcello to the extent that some people on this site are not as familiar with the sequence of number ones as others, and it is part of the game to hold off commenting on them until Tom gets there (with the obvious proviso that it’s fine if you’re making relevant comparisons) – but it’s nothing personal to appeal to people not to jump the gun. Please stick around though Doc – the more the merrier.

And Tom, not to jump the gun but I’ve had a certain synthesizer-based intro running around my head for a week now.

I’d like to be somebody else and not know where I’ve been
I’d like to build myself a house out of plasticine
Shake along with me
I’ve been driving in my car with my friend Mr. Soft
Mr. Clean and Mr.Ben are living in my loft
Shake along with me!

(”Better” and “more” being relative as 4 is still not a high mark.)

I know its kind of irrelevant because Shakermaker didn’t get to number one – but still this seems rather unfair on the New Seekers.

Sadly, Jeff, Number 2 Watch is the only place we’ll encounter “Beg, Steal or Borrow”. I liked the occasional New Seekers song at the time (and had a big primary school crush on Eve Graham), although wouldn’t argue much in their favour these days. I remember a pep talk given at work by our new head of division, which boiled down to admitting that our ‘new deal’ was as close to a decent deal as the New Seekers’ version of “Pinball Wizard” was to Pete Townshend’s power chord.

I was always disappointed hearing this that the words were completely different to the ad (I was too young to understand about advertising restrictions). ‘Over and over’ just isn’t the same as ‘Coca Cola’ ! Although the ad was mind numbingly catchy, the New Seekers version was pretty appalling and 2 is very generous.

In effect, the New Seekers, unlike Coca-Cola, weren’t “the Real Thing.”

I suppose there’s a certain aptness when we’re talking about brands that this is the work of the New Seekers, whose connection to the old Seekers is tenuous.

BTW, of course Don McLean had a Number One in 1972. I’ll save my comments for the time.

However ‘Things go Better With Coca Cola’ by the 5th Dimension (as found on the RPM ‘Magpie’ compilation) really does sound like sunshine and pleasure

um…feed the world…