Strictly Come Dancing

Mildly Interesting Pop Fact: The Kinks' first UK Top 40 hit for eleven years, Come Dancing peaked at number 12 in the Gallup charts in the late summer of 1983. As a child I thought this record was by Paul McCartney for some reason. Ahh, the complete stupidity of youth.

Anyway, here, in an exciting Radio 1 top 40 countdown stylee, are the eleven records that kept it from its rightful place at the top spot in that fateful week of 27th August:

11 - Malcolm McLaren - Double Dutch

"Hey ebon, eboneh!" Eh?

10 - David Grant - Watching You Watching Me

Isn't that what the presenters used to say at the end of Game For A Laugh?

9 - UB40 - Red Red Wine

This was one of the five singles my mother let me buy in order to placate me for the trauma of having to move fifty miles and switch schools when my dad relocated for work. The other four were: They Don't Know by Tracey Ullman, Modern Love by David Bowie, Heaven 17's Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry and Big Apple by Kajagoogoo.

8 - Herbie Hancock - Rockit

Successful jazzy type leaps on vogueish
body poppin' 'n' a-scratchin' bandwagon to great effect. Or does he?! (Yes.)

7 - Depeche Mode - Everything Counts

As The Kinks found to their cost this week, IT'S A COMPETITIVE WORLD.

6 - Madness - Wings of a Dove

I somehow managed to, ahem, inherit Matty Davis's copy of this. Hah! In your fizzog, Matty D!

5 - Wham! - Club Tropicana

..drinks are free. Fun and sunshine - there's enough for everyone... Admit it, this is great!

4 - Elton John - I'm Still Standing

Alongside my lovely wife Renata. Pfft.

3 - Style Council - Long Hot Summer

This just passed me by I'm afraid.

2 - Spandau Ballet - Gold

The royalties Gary Kemp must earn from this whenever there's an Olympic games - and accompanying musical montage - on. Must be almost enough not to have to swallow his pride and reform two decades later with the bandmate(s) he ended up despising. Almost.

1 - KC & The Sunshine Band - Give It Up

The song that must've launched a thousand - or at least a dozen - Radio 1 roadshows. Oh Smiley Miley, where are you now?

Come Dancing was, of course, a nostalgic paean to Ray Davies's childhood in post-war Britain, when dance halls like the one his big sister used to frequent were all the rage. It's quite poignant too in parts: "The day they knocked down the Pally, part of my childhood died - just died". Makes you think.

Tenuous link ahoy! Similar themes to those above were explored in classic BBC sitcom Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads AKA arguably the best sitcom of all time, which can now be bought in its entirety - 26 episodes, a Christmas Special plus all 8 surviving episodes from the 1960s precursor The Likely Lads - for a bargain £11.99 from HMV. Possibly the greatest theme tune ever too!