Your (Magic) Fly's down

Timeslip moment again...

We have been unceremoniously ejected from the "Death Star" and dumped in the middle of September 1977 - Silver Jubilee year (again), the year of Punk, Jimmy Carter, the Tenerife air disaster, the National Front, Donna Summer, the "Son of Sam", Star Wars, Lynsey De Paul, Virginia Wade, the Vietnam-Cambodia war, and the births of Apple Computers, Orlando Bloom. Princess Anne's son Peter Phillips and Claire from Steps.

In the news this month forty years ago: the Voyager 1 space probe was launched off to the outer reaches of the Solar System (and is still there, sending signals back to Earth on its trek), the last guillotine execution took place in France, the Red Brigade continued its terrorism in Germany with the kidnap and murder of industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer; in the ascendant: Freddie Laker (who launched his new budget airline Skytrain), Atari (which released its pioneering home video game console, soon-to-be-home of Space Invaders and Pac-Man) and Ford (whose Granada Mark II arrived on our streets); but the greatest of the Glam Rock trailblazers Marc Bolan was killed in a car crash in West London. In our cinemas: Smokey and the Bandit, New York, New York and Truffaut's The Story of Adele H. On telly: The Krypton Factor , It'll Be Alright on the Night, Secret Army.

And in our charts this week in '77? The world was still mourning the death of Elvis Presley, and his posthumous Way Down continued its five-week run at #1. Contenders to the top slot included David Soul Silver Lady (eventually to get there in October) and Jean-Michelle Jarre Oxygene; also in attendance were the aforementioned Miss Summer, The Floaters, Carly Simon, Candy Staton, Meri Wilson and Brotherhood of Man. But frustratingly held at the #2 slot again was this amazingly influential synth number by Space [surely the inspiration for Daft Punk?]...

Space - Magic Fly

Forty
Bloody
Years
Ago!