There's no need to be unhappy

It's a mini-"timeslip moment", dear reader...

We've been dropped off by The Doctor, Romana and K9 at a pivotal juncture for the UK - January 1979. For this was indeed the notorious "Winter of Discontent" - with strikes at the ports, hauliers, railways, hospitals and public services, and snowstorms that brought the country to a virtual standstill - and Prime Minister Jim Callaghan's quote "Crisis? What Crisis?" (as above, the banner headline on the front page of The Sun) made such a lasting impact that Maggie Thatcher swept to power a few months later, and Labour failed to regain government for the next eighteen years. Also in the news headlines: Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge regime were deposed in Cambodia by Vietnamese forces; The Bee Gees, Abba, Andy Gibb, Earth Wind & Fire, Olivia Newton John, Rod Stewart, Donna Summer and more all sang at the "Music for UNICEF" concert and donated the royalties from all the songs they performed to the cause; and the deposed Shah of Iran fled his country. In our cinemas: Superman; Jaws 2; Capricorn One. On telly: Blankety Blank, Life on Earth, Give Us a Clue and Danger UXB.

And in our charts in the post-Xmas period, this week forty-two years ago? Just evicted from the top slot [to a collective sigh of relief from discerning music lovers] was Boney M Mary's Boy Child, and also present and correct were Chic, the Bee Gees, Racey, The Barron Knights, Elton John, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond and Hot Gossip. But the year opened with a new Number 1 - and possibly the campest, gayest one Britain had ever had! All together, now...

Village People - YMCA