Beautiful Stranger

Pete Paphides - yes, he wears cardigans

I listen to Pete Paphides' Soho Radio show on Tuesdays. This week he laid down on the studio couch and bared his soul: "Black Coffee in Bed isn't really a Squeeze song", he said.  "It just fell into the wrong hands. Everyone knows it's a Smokey Robinson song. Don't they?"

And so the floodgates opened: Somebody to Love was seemingly snatched from the Proclaimers at birth, and palmed out to Queen. Donald Fagen was just in the right place at the right time when Madness foisted Walk Between the Raindrops on him.

It's that kind of programme. I heartily recommend it.

I'll leave you with this:

In 1999, after posting flyers on telegraph poles that read "LOST SONG. GOES BY THE NAME OF BEAUTIFUL STRANGER", the Charlatans heard this coming out of their radio:

Damn you Madonna

Single of the Year (and it's still only March)

That's right. If a better single is released between now and New Year's Eve then you'd better point me in the direction of the nearest Burton's.

And here's the thing about The Charlatans (well, two things actually): it transpires that they don't come from anywhere near Manchester. And, they've never split up: God knows what they've been up to in the last twenty years - I don't think I've heard a peep out of them since the heady days of Britp*p and TFI Friday.

Anyway, their latest 45 may sound suspiciously like Good Enough by Dodgy (and none the worse for that), but as The Number One Son said to me last week, you don't get many Rhodes dominated tunes sounding half as infectious as this.