Sigh. Back to work.
As we're now in the month of May - the month Madam Arcati and I first got together twenty-five years ago, we're off in the TARDIS to get the gen on what was happening at the time...
In the news headlines in May 1998: footballer Justin Fashanu, being pursued by US police over an allegation of sexual assault against a seventeen-year-old male, committed suicide in London; the UK hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in Birmingham, which was won by Israel's Dana International (the contest's first trans winner); two nurses who had been convicted in Saudi Arabia for the murder of colleague Yvonne Gilford the previous year had their sentences commuted by the order of King Fahd; Kevin Lloyd ("Tosh Lines" in The Bill) was sacked over his alcoholism, and died days later; referendums on the Good Friday Agreement were held in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland with 95% and 71% support respectively; and the world mourned the death of the iconic Frank Sinatra.
In our cinemas: Sliding Doors; Scream 2; The Big Lebowski. On telly: Dawson's Creek; Open House with Gloria Hunniford; the 200th episode of The Simpsons.
And what of the charts this week a quarter of a century ago? That dreariest of boybands Boyzone had just toppled It's Like That by Run-D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins from the top slot. Also present and correct were Kula Shaker, Catatonia, Steps, Savage Garden, the Mavericks, and - ahem - Busta Rhymes; and Slime Dion was still lurking around despite every effort to sterilise the joint. But rocketing into the Top Five was another of my most beloved choons (and quite the earworm)...
...and by way of an extra - here's the (very camp) original upon which Tamperer's mega-hit was based:
Ah, memories...
