(Sometimes) With The Beatles

Have you ever considered the possibility that all musicians are a bunch of shiftless, dishonest bastards? It is a tantalising possibility, isn't it? Particularly with regard to groups. If you settle down to listen to a Bob Dylan LP, for instance, you can be pretty sure that ol' Bob was responsible for at least some of the sounds that you are hearing. But groups are a very different dynamic: the achingly fashionable Johnnies you saw on Top of the Pops last week might have had very little to do with their latest 45.

That said, there's nothing particularly wrong with this state of affairs. Artists have employed assistants for centuries to do all kinds of different work for them, often completely anonymously and without any expectation of credit. It is said that the modern day artist is more of a manager than a craftsperson, but it was ever thus: Andy Warhol got his mum to sign his work for him and while Michaelangelo did most of the figurative painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel himself, he still had a grunt on the ground telling him where to put extra pubes, mixing his paint and passing him up sausage rolls.

It is, of course, particularly rife in popular music. The majority of The Beach Boys' most famous recordings were made by the Wrecking Crew, a Los Angeles-based supergroup of session musicians. Led Zeppelin were similarly formed by players from the London recording scene. And the less said about Milli Vanilli, the better.

The Beatles: Jim, Peter, Gregory and Roland

Which brings me to The Beatles, who whether you like it or not happen to be the most famous and notable recording artists in history. This is a major advantage, as from a point in around the middle of 1962, no-one closely involved in their story has been able to do so much as a fart without Mark Lewisohn noting it down. As such, we are able to establish exactly who did what, where and when. The following is a list (possibly incomplete but hopefully not too badly so) of recordings released by The Beatles which did not have all four canonical members of the group playing on them. There will be a test later.

YESTERDAY
Only Paul McCartney appears on the record: the other musicians were a string quartet, arranged by George Martin and comprised of Tony Gilbert, Sidney Sax, Kenneth Essex and Peter Halling or Francisco Gabarro.

WE CAN WORK IT OUT
Is is unknown for sure whether or not George Harrison is present on this recording: some have argued that he provided the tambourine but others believe that this was played by Ringo Starr. Harrison did, however, contribute to the song's composition.

ELEANOR RIGBY
Ringo Starr is absent from this track, with John Lennon and George Harrison only providing vocals. The music was provided exclusively by a string nonet arranged by George Martin and comprising Tony Gilbert, Sidney Sax, John Sharpe and Jürgen Hess on violin; Stephen Shingles and John Underwood on viola and Derek Simpson, Stephen Lansberry and Peter Halling on cello.

LOVE YOU TO
John Lennon is absent from this recording, with Paul McCartney only offering vocals and Ringo Starr on tambourine. The group was bolstered by the addition of Anil Bhagwat on tabla and musicians from the Asian Music Circle on sitar and tambura.

WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU
George Harrison recorded this solo, assisted by musicians from the Asian Music Circle providing dilrubas, tabla, swarmandal and tambura accompaniment.

SHE'S LEAVING HOME
Features only Paul McCartney and John Lennon, who provide only vocals. She's Leaving Home is one of a scant few Beatles tracks on which none of the canonical four play any musical instrument.

THE INNER LIGHT
Ringo Starr is absent from this recording. Parts of this song, which appeared as the B-side of the single Lady Madonna, were recorded at a session in Bombay during the group's stay in India. It is the only song ever issued by The Beatles not to have been recorded solely in the UK.

BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.
DEAR PRUDENCE
Ringo Starr left The Beatles following a series of escalating intra-band arguments and did not appear on either of the opening songs on the white album. Paul McCartney provided the percussion instead.

WILD HONEY PIE
BLACKBIRD
All exclusively solo Paul McCartney projects.

MARTHA MY DEAR
Paul McCartney was again the sole representative on this recording, which was bolstered by a 15-man brass and string orchestra arranged by George Martin.

DON'T PASS ME BY
The first Beatles song solely written by Ringo Starr, only Paul McCartney joins him on the recording; with additional violin by Jack Fallon.

WHY DON'T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD?
Paul McCartney recorded this song solo, although Ringo Starr would later overdub his own drum track which eventually appeared in the finished version.

I WILL
George Harrison was otherwise occupied for the recording of this song, which required 67 takes.

JULIA
John Lennon's first and only exclusively solo effort as a Beatle.

MOTHER NATURE'S SON
Ironically recorded at a time of great disharmony within the group, McCartney recorded the song alone, later adding in a George Martin brass arrangement. Lennon and Starr were, reportedly, extremely peeved that McCartney had taken his own initiative.

LONG, LONG, LONG
SAVOY TRUFFLE
Lennon was absent from the session in which both of these songs were recorded.

GOOD NIGHT
Ringo Starr provides the vocal for this John Lennon-penned song, with orchestral accompaniment arranged by George Martin and backing vocals from The Mike Sammes Singers.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
Paul McCartney is absent from the Phil Spector-produced version that appeared on the Let It Be album, although he appears on the "birdsong" version recorded for the World Wildlife Fund at the request of Spike Milligan, which was subsequently released on Past Masters volume 2.

I ME MINE
John Lennon had left the band by the time this Harrison composition was recorded. However, the session - in which John Lennon instead spent his time dancing in the corner of the studio with Yoko Ono - appeared in Michael Lindsay-Hogg's film Let It Be and therefore had to be included on the finished album.

THE BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO
George Harrison was on holiday and Ringo Starr away filming The Magic Christian when inspiration struck Lennon to write this song, which he recorded with help from McCartney on vocals, bass, percussion and piano.

MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER
HERE COMES THE SUN
GOLDEN SLUMBERS
John Lennon was in a car accident in Scotland on July 1st 1969 which saw him hospitalised for six days and absent from several sessions for the Abbey Road album. Lennon had returned to London and to the studio by the time work began on Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but declined to take part because he thought the song was "rubbish".

BECAUSE
Ringo Starr is absent from this song, which required no percussion. Or at least, that was their story.

HER MAJESTY
A Paul McCartney solo.

(honourable mention: The version of Love Me Do that appears on the Please Please Me album (and also released as a single in the US market) features session musician Andy White on drums instead of then-newcomer Ringo Starr. However, Ringo is on the record, playing the tambourine. The version of Love Me Do that appears on Past Masters Vol. 1 has Ringo restored to his rightful seat.)

The last 50 years in beard styles

337 songs that changed your life

Last Saturday evening, hungover to tits and listening to The Velvet Underground, the conversation turned to the maddeningly inexact science that is musical taste. As with any such discussion, the issue of the one song that you really cannot stand was never far from our thoughts.

In a moment of idle curiosity, I asked Twitter for some nominations.

The moment that torpedoed my next 72 hours

It is safe to say that I had never anticipated what would happen next. By Sunday afternoon, my Twitter notifications were giving me a microcosmic indication of what it might be like to be famous. It turns out that being famous isn't all cocaine and hookers: or rather, if it is, those people aren't on Twitter. You wouldn't have the time: it turns what is normally a desert of anguish and boredom into a full-time occupation. I tried to imagine what it would be like if a significant proportion of each new tranche of notifications were abusive, quickly concluding that it would be straight up bullshit. Gary Lineker is an admirable man.

If I'm honest, I expected my tweet to go much the same way as all the other 68-odd thousand I'd done: shout into the abyss, wait for echo, forget it entirely, repeat until death. This time, however, I had touched a nerve. The medium was prepared just right: time of day, day of the week and subject matter all made for an extremely fertile thread. Overwhelmingly so, at times.

However, it was all entirely positive. One hundred percent. Not one single response was even slightly antagonistic, let alone insulting or to tell me that I had done a poo on a football pitch. It was a reminder of the goodness in people, and that social media is just as capable of reflecting this goodness as it is the badness. The whole thing was a genuine pleasure and if you are one of the many people who contributed, thank you.

So far, 337 songs have been nominated for the list. Some have been mentioned countless times - countless because I didn't realise that I should probably have been counting them and now I just don't have the time nor the inclination to wade back through. Others are outliers, including some entries that provoked astonishment at their inclusion.

Overall, it is a thrilling glimpse into the fragility of the human mind. I hope that some people were heartened to find themselves a ready-made online support community while others were just able to get something off their chest. The resultant Spotify playlist, which I have called Kryptonite Songs, is perhaps the most tantalising song roulette anyone could ever play. If you are anything like me, you probably like a significant percentage of the following songs and can tolerate a large rump of the remainder. But it's in there, isn't it? Just waiting for you.

Without any further waffle from me, here is the list. Free from the (admittedly slim) restraints of Spotify's library, it appears in its unexpurgated form. There is one small rider to this, which is that I will have almost certainly forgotten to include some of the songs: things were coming so thick and fast on Sunday afternoon that in the time it took to write up the latest 50 replies, there would be 65 more. So, if I missed yours off, I apologise. However, the list - and my Twitter - remains open, so I can almost certainly be nudged to fix any mistakes. Finally, if you haven't contributed yet and would like to, the original Twitter thread can be found here, or you can leave your nomination in the comments below.

10cc – Dreadlock Holiday
10cc – I'm Not In Love
The 88 – At Least It Was Here
Ace Of Base - All That She Wants
The Animals – House of the Rising Sun

21 Pilots – Ride
The inclusion of this song riled up one respondent's teenage daughter. This delighted me: people were playing the Spotify list to their children. Hearts and minds.

4 Non Blondes - What's Up?

ABBA – Dancing Queen
I love this song. More updates on this as we get them.

Aerosmith – I Don't Want To Miss A Thing
Aerosmith – Janie's Got A Gun
Aerosmith. Music for people who like to be uplifted but hate music.

Akon – Lonely

Amy Grant – Big Yellow Taxi
The Big Yellow Taxi saga was interesting. Many replies just said "anything by [artist]" or "any version of [song]". Big Yellow Taxi, however, was unique. Initially picked with the stipulation that it was any except the Counting Crows version. Within an hour this, too, was on the list.

Andrew Gold – Lonely Boy
Anohni – 4 Degrees
Aqua – Lollipop (Candyman)
Artful Dodger ft. Craig David – Re Rewind

The B52's - Love Shack
Oh, this one is really, REALLY unpopular

B*Witched – C'est La Vie
Babybird – You're Gorgeous

Babylon Zoo – Spaceman
The most disappointing song of all time?

Bananarama - I Can't Help It
Band Aid – Do They Know It's Christmas?
Barry Manilow – Mandy

The Beatles - Across The Universe
The Beatles - Hey Jude
The Beatles - She's Leaving Home
The Beatles - When I'm 64
The Beatles - Yellow Submarine
The Beatles – Yesterday
The Beatles, objectively the greatest pop group in history. Just accept it. However, I can't particularly argue with any of these selections. 

The Beautiful South – Perfect 10
BUT SHE WEARS A TWELVE

Bee Gees – More Than A Woman

Belinda Carlisle – Circle In The Sand
Belinda Carlisle – Heaven Is A Place On Earth
Belinda Carlisle – Leave The Light On For Me
Some have queried whether Belinda Carlisle deserved such shoddy treatment. But the people have spoken and what they said was, do our ears deserve such shoddy treatment?

Beyonce – Single Ladies
Billy Joel – My Life
Billy Joel – Piano Man
Billy Joel – Uptown Girl
Billy Ocean – When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going
Billy Ray Cyrus – Achy Breaky Heart
Bjork - It's Oh So Quiet

Black Crowes – Hard To Handle
The person who nominated this song tells me it is an FM radio staple in America. No wonder things are getting so fraught over there.

Black Eyed Peas – I've Gotta Feeling
This is one of the most nominated songs. The level of angst that it inspires, if harnessed properly, could end our reliance on fossil fuels.

Black Lace – Agadoo

Blondie - Heart of Glass
Blondie – Rapture
I was glad these were nominated. It's nice to have some great songs in any playlist.

Blue Mink - Melting Pot
No argument.

The Bluebirds - Young At Heart
Dunghampers.

Blur - Song 2
Bobby McFerrin – Don't Worry Be Happy
Two songs by otherwise popular acts, completely ruined by their ubiquity.

Bobby Pickett - Monster Mash
Bon Jovi – Livin' On A Prayer
These two are on rotation as the elevator music in hell.

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart
Brand New Heavies – Midnight At The Oasis
Bruce Hornsby – The Way It Is

Bryan Adams - Everything I Do, I Do It For You
Sixteen weeks at number 1. Sixteen! Someone must have been switching out the HRT pills for M&Ms that summer.

Bryan Adams - Summer of '69

Bryan Ferry – Let's Stick Together
Crap, warbled by a prick.

Buckcherry – Crazy Bitch

The Byrds – Mr. Tambourine Man
The worst band in history.

Callum Scott - Dancing On My Own
Carl Douglas – Kung Fu Fighting
Carly Simon – You're So Vain
Carly-Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe

The Carpenters – Yesterday Once More
A brother and sister, singing love songs to one another.

Catatonia – Road Rage
Celine Dion – My Heart Will Go On
Chas & Dave – Rabbit

Cher - Believe
Dance music for people who don't like dance music.

Cher - The Shoop Shoop Song

Cher - Walking In Memphis
My own personal choice. A song of irredeemable awfulness.

Chris De Burgh – A Spaceman Came Travelling
Chris De Burgh – The Lady In Red
Run away!

Christina Aguilera - Lady Marmalade
Chumbawamba - Tubthumping

Cliff Richard – Mistletoe and Wine
Cliff Richard – The Millennium Prayer
The first Christmas songs on the list. They will not be the last.

Coldplay – Clocks
Coldplay – Yellow
Coldplay invoke all kinds of ire, but these were the only two specific songs chosen. (Update: someone nominated every single song Coldplay have recorded, in alphabetical order of the title. Is this what my life has become?)

Coolio ft. L.V. – Gangsta's Paradise
The Coral – In The Morning
Counting Crows – Big Yellow Taxi
Courtney Barnett – Pickles From The Jar
The Cranberries – Zombie

Crash Test Dummies – Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Hnngh hnngh hnngh hnngh.

Crazy Town – Butterfly
The stink of RHCP all over it. Music for the tattoo parlour where you caught hepatitis.

Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman
Cutting Crew – (I Just) Died In Your Arms
Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Want To Have Fun
D:Ream – Things Can Only Get Better

Danny Wilson – Mary's Prayer
I'd forgotten about this one. One of my favourite choices on the list, it is a howler.

David Bowie – Across The Universe
David Bowie – The Jean Genie

Dead Or Alive – You Spin Me Round
The curse of 2016 stuck just a day later. Sorry, Pete.

Deee Lite – Groove Is In The Heart

Deep Blue Something – Breakfast At Tiffany's
Of all the songs nominated, this one inspired the most hatred and anger.

Des'ree - Life

Dexys Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen
A brilliant song by a brilliant band, so there.

Diana Ross – Chain Reaction
My mum's least favourite song.

Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
Dire Straits – Romeo and Juliet
Dire straights.

DJ Otzi – Hey Baby
Perhaps the only good argument as to why leaving the EU was a good idea after all.

Dobie Gray – Drift Away
Dodgy – Good Enough
Don McLean – American Pie

Doobie Brothers - What A Fool Believes
I sang this tunelessly the entire morning after it was mentioned. My wife left me.

Doop – Doop

Dream Academy – Life In A Northern Town
"President Kennedy... and The Beatles (scream)...". A sackcloth full of watery cum.

The Eagles – Hotel California
The other worst band in history.

Edwyn Collins – A Girl Like You
Eiffel 65 – Blue
Elbow - One Day Like This

Ellie Goulding – On My Mind
A friend played this to his 4-year old daughter. Her response? "Why's she saying that? This isn't even a song, dad".

Elton John – Candle In The Wind (1997)
Well, obvs.

Elton John – Crocodile Rock
Elton John – Your Song
Elvis Presley - Return To Sender
Eminem – Lose Yourself

Enigma – Sadness
For when your ambient dance track needs more Gregorian Chant.

Eve ft. Gwen Stefani – Let Me Blow Ya Mind

The theme tune from Everything's Rosie 
The curse of cBeebies.

Fairground Attraction – Perfect
Fountains of Wayne - Stacey's Mom
Frank Sinatra - My Way

The Fratellis – Chelsea Dagger
The sound of losing your virginity in a public toilet at a darts match as they counted up the results of the EU referendum.

Fun – Some Nights
Fun ft. Janelle Monae – We Are Young

Gary Puckett and Union Gap – Young Girl
A brilliant choice. I applaud whoever it was who suggested this one.

George Ezra – Drawing Board

Gerry & The Pacemakers – You'll Never Walk Alone
Full disclosure: the person who nominated this song's Twitter avatar is the badge of Everton Football Club. However, it all checks out. This song is bobbins.

Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
Extraordinarily popular choice. Because no-one likes saxophones.

Glasvegas – Daddy's Gone

Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
The most nominated song to include the qualifier "I'm sure no-one else has said this, but..."

The Goo-Goo Dolls – Iris
Green Day – Good Riddance (Time of your Life)
Guns 'n' Roses – Sweet Child o Mine
Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl
Hinder – Lips Of An Angel

House of Pain - Jump Around
The early leader in the popular vote. The party song for people who don't go to parties.

Idina Menzel – Let It Go
Inner Circle - Sweat
The Jam - A Town Called Malice
James Blunt – You're Beautiful

James Brown – I Feel Good
Someone was obviously having a bad day.

Jamie Lawson – Wasn't Expecting That
Jamiroquai – Canned Heat
Janet Jackson – Rhythm Nation
Janis Joplin – Mercedes Benz

Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
Surprisingly, this is not on Spotify. So you all dodged a bullet there.

Jennifer Rush – The Power of Love
Jim Diamond – I Should Have Known Better
JJ Barrie – No Charge
Joe Dolce – Shaddap You Face
John Lennon – Imagine
John Mayer – Your Body Is A Wonderland
Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi

Journey – Don't Stop Believin'
I have a long-standing suspicion of songs with abbreviated words in their title.

Justin Bieber – Baby
Baby baby baby, ooh (repeat x1 fucking trillion)

Kate Nash – Foundations
Kate Tempest – Circles
Katie Melua – Closest Thing To Crazy
Katie Melua – Nine Million Bicycles

Katrina and the Waves – Walking On Sunshine
Some people don't like to be happy.

Katy Perry – California Gurls
Katy Perry – I Kissed A Girl
Katy Perry – Roar
Katy Perry has three songs on the list, representing 50% of her entire artistic output.

The Killers - Mr. Brightside
An outstandingly unpopular and awful record.

Kings of Leon - Sex On Fire
Ffffuuuu

Kings Of Leon – Use Somebody
The La's – There She Goes
Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven
Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah

Lighthouse Family - Lifted
Lighthouse Family – Ocean Drive
The elevator music in Purgatory.

Limp Bizkit – My Generation
Lisa Stansfield – Around The World
Little Eva – The Locomotion
Lo-Fang – You're The One That I Want
Los Del Rio – Macarena
Lou Bega – Mambo No. 5
Lukas Graham – 7 Years

Lulu - Shout
Lulu - The Boat That I Row
Lulu is not nearly as popular as Absolutely Fabulous would have you believe.

Madness – Baggy Trousers
Madonna – Like A Virgin
MAGIC! - Rude

Manfred Mann's Earth Band – Blinded By The Light
A solid choice. 

Manic Street Preachers – SYMM
A song. About writing a song. About Hillsborough. A song about writing a song about Hillsborough.

Marc Cohn – Walking In Memphis
The worst song ever written, performed by the culprit.

Mariah Carey – All I Want For Christmas Is You
Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk

Maroon 5 – Animals
Maroon 5 – Moves Like Jagger
Maroon 5 – This Love
No-one likes Maroon 5.

Meatloaf – I'd Do Anything For Love
Do it and get off.

Meghan Trainor – All About That Bass
No treble?

Men At Work – Down Under
Mercury Rev - Goddess On A Hiway
Michael Buble – It's A Beautiful Day

Michael Jackson – Earth Song
Considering his enormous popularity, ubiquity and cultural significance, a surprising solitary vote for Michael Jackson. Then again, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen didn't get any. But then again, neither of them recorded Earth Song.

MIKA – Grace Kelly

Mike and the Mechanics – The Living Years
This one made me nod my head so hard I think something broke off inside.

MN8 - I've Got A Little Something For You
Mousse T ft. Tom Jones – Sex Bomb
Mr. Big – To Be With You
Mumford and Sons – I Will Wait
Natasha Bedingfield – These Words

The New Radicals – You Only Get What You Give
Inspires nought but rage.

Nicki Minaj – Anaconda
Nickleback - Rockstar

Oasis - Champagne Supernova
I think the original nomination sums this one up better than I ever could:

Oasis - Shakermaker

Oasis - Wonderwall
One of the most nominated songs of them all. Is it because it has been over-played? Or just because it is shit? Or both?

Oasis – All Around The World
"IT NEVER FUCKING ENDS" argues the nominator.

Ocean Colour Scene – The Day We Caught The Train
Offspring - Come Out and Play

OMC – How Bizarre
This song inspires such ire that it renders a lot of people speechless.

Paolo Nutini – New Shoes
Paul McCartney – We All Stand Together
Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmastime

Peter Sarstedt – Where Do You Go To My Lovely?
An exceedingly popular choice.

Pharrell Williams – Happy

Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight
Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love
Phil Collins – Easy Lover
You couldn't not have a bit of Phil.

Picture House – Sunburst
The Pogues and Kirsty McColl - The Fairytale of New York
The Proclaimers – I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
The Prodigy – Firestarter

Psy - Gangnam Style
This song is the national anthem of the list.

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Queen – Don't Stop Me Now
Queen – We Are The Champions
Queen – We Will Rock You
I like one of these songs, but you'll have to guess which one while I go and throw up.

R.E.M. - Shiny Happy People
My mate Kev's choice, the first song committed to the list.

Razorlight - America

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Californication
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Under The Bridge
"Whenever anyone hears a song and asks 'what is THIS shit?', the answer is always Red Hot Chilli Peppers"

Rednex – Cotton Eye Joe
The Cast of Rent – Seasons of Love
Reverend and The Makers – Heavyweight Champion of the World
Richard Harris – Macarthur Park
Ricky Martin – Livin' La Vida Loca
The Righteous Brothers – You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling
Rihanna – Take A Bow

Robbie Williams - Angels
Robbie Williams - Millennium
Robbie Williams - Rock DJ
Robbie Williams – Candy
Robbie Williams – Freedom
Robbie Williams – Mack The Knife
Robbie Williams – Rudebox
No-one has as many entries on this list than Robbie. He has touched many lives.

Robert Palmer - Addicted To Love
Robin S – Show Me Love

Robin Thicke – Blurred Lines
One of the most frequent choices. A dumb-as-shit, rape apologist, piece of fucking garbage sung by a peenarse.

The Cast of The Rocky Horror Show – The Time Warp

Rod Stewart – Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?
Nope.

Roy Orbison – Oh, Pretty Woman
Run DMC ft. Aerosmith – Walk This Way
Rupert Holmes - Escape
Sacred Reich - 31 Flavors
Sam Smith – Money On My Mind
Sandi Thom – I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker

Santana – Smooth
The soundtrack to trying to pick up a really runny dog shit.

Sash – Encore Un Fois

Savage Garden – Truly, Madly, Deeply
Music for, and by, virgins.

The Scorpions - Winds Of Change
The Scorpions – Still Loving You
The band that made people want to rebuild the Berlin Wall. Not on Spotify, you lucky people.

Scouting For Girls – She's So Lovely
The Script – The Man Who Couldn't Be Moved
Shaggy – It Wasn't Me

Shania Twain - Man! I Feel Like A Woman!
Songs with unnecessary exclamation marks in the title.

Shanice – I Love Your Smile

Shut Up And Dance – Raving I'm Raving
A rave track that samples Walking In Memphis. What's not to like?

Simply Red – Fairground
You know how smug Hucknall's face must have been when he finished this one. 

Simply Red – Stars
Sister Sledge - Frankie
Sixpence None The Richer – Kiss Me

Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody
I like this one and I don't care. Although, not in October.

Smash Mouth – All Star
Snap - Rhythm is a Dancer
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
Social Distortion - Story of my Life
Sophie Ellis Bextor – Murder On The Dancefloor

Space ft. Cerys Matthews – The Ballad of Tom Jones
No nomination made me laugh as much as this one. It is perfect, brilliant and entirely correct.

Spice Girls - Wannabe

The Spin Doctors – Two Princes
One of the most magnificently unpopular songs on the list. I guarantee that when I go back to Twitter after finishing this post, there'll be a new tweet nominating this. Probably with the word "fucking" in it.

Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
Starship – We Built This City
Stereophonics - Hurry Up and Wait
Stereophonics – Have A Nice Day
If you ever doubt how much people hate these two groups, just read the Twitter thread.

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
Steve Miller Band - Abracadabra
Steve Walsh – I Found Lovin'

Stevie Wonder – I Just Called To Say I Love You
Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney – Ebony and Ivory
Perhaps the two most hateful songs ever written, for any fans of irony out there.

Stiltskin – Inside
The Stranglers – Golden Brown
Supertramp – The Logical Song
Survivor – Eye of the Tiger

Sweet – Wig Wam Bam
The fucking Sweet. The other, other worst band in history.

T'Pau – China In Your Hand
I like this, so nur.

Take That ft. Lulu – Relight My Fire
Tammy Wynette – Stand By Your Man

Taylor Swift – I Knew You Were Trouble
Taylor Swift – Shake It Off
Taylor Swift is not on Spotify so you won't be able to enjoy what a brilliant song Shake It Off is. Or how arse-clenchingly dreadful the other one is.

Terence Trent D'arby – Wishing Well

Terry Jacks – Seasons In The Sun
A tumour.

They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse In Your Soul
The inclusion of this one sparked controversy in my timeline, with calls to name and shame. Cards on the table, I like it. Many, many others do not.

Tina Turner – The Best
Hah!

TLC – No Scrubs
Tom Petty – Free Fallin'
Tony Christie – Is This The Way To Amarillo?

Toploader - Dancing In The Moonlight
Hands down, this is the popular choice for the most hated song in history. The sound of Hard Brexit happening as Jamie Oliver runs over your dog in his VW camper van.

Traditional - Jerusalem
"...when it is sung by old posh ladies". 

Traditional - Little Drummer Boy
Traditional – I'm Proud To Be An American

Trio – Da Da Da
Twista ft. Anthony Hamilton – Sunshine

U2 – Beautiful Day
A song so cataclysmically awful that it drew the fire from the remainder of the U2 canon.

UB40 - Red Red Wine
Ultrabeat – Pretty Green Eyes
Ultravox – Vienna
Van Morrison - Brown-Eyed Girl
Vance Joy – Riptide

Waterboys – The Whole of the Moon
The overwhelming choice from Irish and Scottish respondents.

The Weathergirls – It's Raining Men
Westlife – You Raise Me Up
Wet Wet Wet – Love Is All Around
Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag
Whigfield - Saturday Night

Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
My dad's least favourite song.

Wings – Mull Of Kintyre
Wizzard – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

Yello – Oh Yeah
Oh no.

++ LATE NEWS ++

There continues to be significant interest in this project, significant enough to increase the 337 songs to 373 and then to 380. Which is more. For the benefit of science, here are the new entries:

Anohni - 4 Degrees
Basement Jaxx - Do Your Thing

The Beatles - Octopus's Garden
And yet, still nothing for Rocky Raccoon. Or Oh-Bla-Di, Oh-Bla-Dah. 

Benny Mardones - Into The Night
Beverly Knight - Shoulda Woulda Coulda
Billy Swan - I Can Help

Bran Van 3000 - Drinking In L.A.
Songs from adverts, a surefire recipe for resentment and anger.

Bros - When Will I Be Famous?
Caro Emerald - Liquid Lunch
Charlene - I've Never Been To Me
Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
Corinne Bailey-Rae - Put Your Records On
The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary
Donna Fargo - The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.
Elton John - Passengers
Eternal - I Wanna Be The Only One

Europe - The Final Countdown
Dur dur dur dur, dur dur dur dur dur.

Flying Machine - Smile A Little Smile For Me
Fools Garden - Lemon Tree

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax
Look, I don't choose these songs, OK?

Jeff Beck - Hi Ho Silver Lining
Although if I could, I would.

LMFAO - Sexy And I Know It
Madonna - Die Another Day

The Mavericks - Dance The Night Away
The creeping menace of modern country music.

M.C. Hammer - U Can't Touch This
Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning
Nelly Furtado - I'm Like A Bird
Okkervil Rover - A Girl In Port
Outkast - Hey Ya!

Prefab Sprout - The King of Rock and Roll
Hot dog.

Procul Harem - A Whiter Shade of Pale
R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts
Rod Stewart - Sailing
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil
I fundamentally disagree with three out of these four choices. I will leave you to guess which is the odd one out. (It's Rod Stewart).

Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
Stan Ridgway - Camouflage

Steve Winwood - Higher Love
Southern Sound FM, Woodingdean 1991, representing.

The Streets - Fit But You Know It
Swing Out Sister - Breakout
Tight Fit - The Lion Sleeps Tonight
I can see how these could wear you down.

My favourite photograph and the glacial creep of world evil

The other day the wife was looking at a thread on Reddit. She said, "have a look at these, it's a thread about people's favourite photographs".

Every single one was donkey porn.

Nevertheless, it gave me an idea for something I could potentially address you peasants about, because I was able to quite quickly think of a number of photographs that fit into that category for me.

Every single one is donkey porn.

In fact, they are not. I do not find donkeys particularly appealing sexually. Even really good-looking donkeys with great big gopping arseholes or big wangers or anything. However, a number of the photographs that I thought about instantly are probably just as unappealing to some people, if for slightly less bestial reasons. This is because, as you will all probably be aware, I have rather morbid tastes in things. Or rather, things that are rather morbid hold a particular fascination for me.

And so we come to perhaps my all-time favourite photograph. I think it is one of the most dramatic pictures ever taken, full of action and yet crystallising the last seconds of innocence on a day that changed the world forever. It was taken nearly 50 years ago by Associated Press photographer Ike Altgens in Dallas. It was 12.30 p.m. on Friday 22nd November 1963.

(Click it, it will go bigger)

It mesmerises me. There's an awful lot going on, yet at the same time it is so still. In four seconds time, the President of the United States will be dead. And yet here is the moment just before that, frozen for all time. Some people clearly realise there is something untoward going on, others are still wrapped up in the excitement of seeing Kennedy in the flesh. Every single person in this photograph is about to have the most dramatic story of their lives to tell forever.

As with the majority of the pieces of documentary evidence concerned with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, over the past half-century this photograph has variously been used to definitively establish every single possible argument and theory, particularly those which are diametrically opposed to one another.

From my point of view (as a sane man), I think it very clearly proves that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin from his window on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. All the people concerned with safety surrounding the caravan are looking over their shoulder to that location, having obviously just heard a sharp sound. In the Presidential limousine itself, we are clearly able to see Kennedy and Governor John F. Connolly have both been hit by Oswald's second shot, the one which conspiracy theorists term "the magic bullet".

My particular favourite conspiracy theory surrounding this photograph in particular is The Man In The Doorway. If you look almost immediately behind Kennedy in the limousine, you can see a gaggle of people stood in the entrance to the Texas School Book Depository, probably mostly on their lunch break and deciding to watch the parade. But some have claimed that one of their number is Lee Harvey Oswald, the Book Depository's most famous ever employee, thus establishing his status as the ultimate patsy for the most brazen conspiracy ever perpetrated.

There he is, look!

Could this be the world's most infamous political assassin, making a dramatic last-gasp bid for a not guilty plea? Or is it, as many other researchers have argued, another employee of the Texas School Book Depository? It would certainly seem to make sense, especially as Oswald was otherwise occupied at the time elsewhere in the building. Furthermore, the man in the doorway doesn't half resemble one of Oswald's colleagues, Bill Lovelady:

Compared to the more angular features of Oswald, it does make a compelling case:

However, the beauty of all these conspiracy theories is that they are born out of an inability to find absolutely definitive proof, so everyone can continue to idly speculate for as long as they like. What do you think? Lovelady or Oswald? Let's have another look:

Oh hold on, it can't be, surely? IT IS!

We've seen this face before:

It's Cher, from the front cover of the single Walking In Memphis, the worst ever rendition of the worst song ever written! Thus definitively establishing the link between the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and World Evil.

No room for conspiracy theories there.

What, no Urban Hymns by The Verve?

I have scientifically determined the 57 greatest albums of all time. There's no need to thank me. I love "all-time top" lists, not least because they feature lists of things which is all I really care about. But when they are about things I enjoy anyway it's an even bigger thrill.

However, all-time top 100 album lists are fraught with problems. If they are voted for by critics, they can often be populated with a high proportion of things that are generally considered "worthy": in other words, albums that we OUGHT to be listening to. Conversely, lists voted for by the general public are likely to be swayed by outright popularity, fads and fashions: these lists can sometimes just be alternatively titled charts of the all-time best sellers. The time and place that a list is made is also a significant factor. A list made by an American audience is likely to feature a lot of releases by acts that no-one in Europe has or ever will have heard of and vice versa. Also, any popular new releases will - due to novelty alone -be propelled to an artificially high position and will often bring a number of albums from an act's back catalogue along with it.

I tried to get around these problems and I'm happy with the list that has resulted. Of course, there are still always going to be difficulties. Births, marriages and, particularly, deaths will always be a significant factor in the popularity of albums but these are a lot harder to eliminate from the equation. Who knows how many voters may have been swayed against including a Michael Jackson LP in their ballot on one day - citing some of his alleged "practices" and "lifestyle choices", only to have tearfully and gratefully put five in on the day after he died. Also, performers who were active before the album as a widely-accepted self-contained artform came into being are pretty unfairly discriminated against. Rest assured that any one of the albums in the eventual list could never have existed without the work of artists like Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters or Buddy Holly.

Anyway, here's how it works. I took a critic-voted list from an American perspective, the 2005 Rolling Stone magazine 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and a public-voted list from a European perspective, the Virgin 1000 Greatest Albums of All Time list from 2000. I picked these two because they went beyond a top one hundred. This was important, because then I wanted to make some exclusions. Firstly, I ruthlessly expunged all greatest hits collections from each list's top 100: Rolling Stone was worse for this than Virgin, although the latter was maddeningly inconsistent in which greatest hits compilations it would and would not allow in its chart. Rolling Stone's list, however, lost far fewer titles once I applied the second exclusion criteria: records that were released within five years of that list's publication.

Once I had my two top 100 lists, I then eliminated all the titles that appeared on one but not the other, until I reached an accord between the two. The resulting list contains 57 albums which, science itself would suggest are very good indeed and should probably be residing somewhere within your crevices. OK? Right, here they are then. Prick up yer ears.

(In alphabetical order)

A LOVE SUPREME John Coltrane
ABBEY ROAD The Beatles
ACHTUNG BABY U2
AFTER THE GOLDRUSH Neil Young
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED The Jimi Hendrix Experience
ASTRAL WEEKS Van Morrison
BACK IN BLACK AC/DC
BLONDE ON BLONDE Bob Dylan
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS Bob Dylan
BLUE Joni Mitchell
BORN TO RUN Bruce Springsteen
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER Simon and Garfunkel
COURT AND SPARK Joni Mitchell
DARK SIDE OF THE MOON Pink Floyd
ELECTRIC LADYLAND The Jimi Hendrix Experience
EXILE ON MAIN STREET The Rolling Stones
FOREVER CHANGES Love
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD Elton John
GRACELAND Paul Simon
HARVEST Neil Young
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED Bob Dylan
HOTEL CALIFORNIA The Eagles
HUNKY DORY David Bowie
IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK Public Enemy
KIND OF BLUE Miles Davis
LED ZEPPELIN II Led Zeppelin
LED ZEPPELIN IV Led Zeppelin
LED ZEPPELIN Led Zeppelin
LET IT BLEED The Rolling Stones
LONDON CALLING The Clash
MOONDANCE Van Morrison
NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS HERE'S THE SEX PISTOLS The Sex Pistols
NEVERMIND Nirvana
OTIS BLUE Otis Redding
PET SOUNDS The Beach Boys
PHYSICAL GRAFFITI Led Zeppelin
PURPLE RAIN Prince and The Revolution
REVOLVER The Beatles
RUBBER SOUL The Beatles
RUMOURS Fleetwood Mac
SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND The Beatles
SIGN O THE TIMES Prince
SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE Stevie Wonder
STICKY FINGERS The Rolling Stones
TAPESTRY Carole King
THE BAND The Band
THE BEATLES The Beatles
THE DOORS The Doors
THE JOSHUA TREE U2
THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS David Bowie
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO The Velvet Underground and Nico
THE WALL Pink Floyd
THRILLER Michael Jackson
TOMMY The Who
TROUT MASK REPLICA Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band
WHAT'S GOING ON Marvin Gaye
WHO'S NEXT The Who

And here's 43 more to make it up to a round hundred, why not? I chose these, so all complaints to the usual address. Any complaints about the first 57 should probably be sent to the Royal Society, however.

ARETHA NOW Aretha Franklin
AT FOLSOM PRISON Johnny Cash
AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE R.E.M.
BEGGAR'S BANQUET The Rolling Stones
BITCHES BREW Miles Davis
BLUE LINES Massive Attack
BLUR Blur
BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 4: LIVE 1966, THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL CONCERT Bob Dylan
CLOSER Joy Division
DON'T STAND ME DOWN Dexys Midnight Runners
DUMMY Portishead
DUSTY IN MEMPHIS Dusty Springfield
ELVIS PRESLEY Elvis Presley
HARD DAY'S NIGHT The Beatles
HISTOIRE DE MELODY NELSON Serge Gainsbourg
HOT BUTTERED SOUL Isaac Hayes
HOT RATS Frank Zappa
KING OF THE DELTA BLUES Robert Johnson
LOADED The Velvet Underground
LOW David Bowie
MOON SAFARI Air
MUSIC FROM BIG PINK The Band
NEW BOOTS AND PANTIES Ian Dury and The Blockheads
OK COMPUTER Radiohead
PARKLIFE Blur
PINK MOON Nick Drake
RAW POWER Iggy and The Stooges
ROXY MUSIC Roxy Music
SAFE AS MILK Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band
SCREAMADELICA Primal Scream
SEARCHING FOR THE YOUNG SOUL REBELS Dexys Midnight Runners
THE BASEMENT TAPES Bob Dylan and The Band
THE BENDS Radiohead
THE CLASH The Clash
THE MODERN LOVERS The Modern Lovers
THE QUEEN IS DEAD The Smiths
THE SMITHS The Smiths
THIS YEAR'S MODEL Elvis Costello and The Attractions
TIME OUT OF MIND Bob Dylan
TOO-RYE-AY Dexys Midnight Runners
TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS Kraftwerk
UNKNOWN PLEASURES Joy Division
WITH THE BEATLES The Beatles

There's no need to thank me, there really isn't. This is a free service.

By the way, this post and absurd project were both inspired by my friend Bloop's new project, listening to the NME's list of the 100 best albums of all time from 1993. It's a lot more in-depth, intelligent and considered than this old toot, and you should definitely give it a read.

Let's dine

Those of you wondering what you might like for an evening repast today may like to take some inspiration from the 1976 book Chinese Cooking For All. This was either published by Octopus or written by an octopus, the book doesn't specify. Either way, there are some delicious oriental treats for everyone to enjoy. Observe:

Full of eastern promise

Everyone's favourite meat: live, angry, bull

CHINESE CHILD: What's for dinner?
CHINESE PARENT: Cauliflower.
CHINESE CHILD: What, again?

Radioactive clouds from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continued
to affect Chinese pork farms for decades afterward

CHINESE CHILD: What's for dinner?
CHINESE PARENT: A bowl of diarrhoea.
CHINESE CHILD: CAN I HAVE BROCCOLI WITH IT?
CHINESE PARENT: Only if you finish your angry, glistening, sienna-coloured knackers.

CHINESE DINNER PARTY HOST: Under the "fleece" of deep-fried noodles is shit-braised lamb
and atomic carrots, oh wait, you've died.

Angry stools on a nest of uncooked noodles, with tapeworms

What lurks in the Yellow Sea and Pacific Ocean? No-one can say for sure, but it can't necessarily be killed by cooking alone.

Raw fish pickled in sherry with pineapple. Yummers.

CHINESE CHILD: What's for dinner? Lobster and beansprouts?

Dinner party treats. The Chinese like nothing more than a banquet, unless it's a banquet that glows orange with the energy of a thousand suns.

Almonds and celery, two noted tastes of Chinese cuisine

Glow in the dark, glow in the duck, glows coming out

Chinese people love eggs and vegetables, but being a mysterious and inscrutable bunch they don't like to give the West any idea as to why that might possibly be.

CHINESE DINNER PARTY HOST: How do you like your eggs?
CHINESE DINNER PARTY GUEST: Beige.

Omelettes in a rich tincture of ebola virus

Sweet and sour cabbage: beware of aeroplanes landing on your dinner

But Chinese food is not the one-trick pony that many people whose only experience of it is Western-style restaurants and takeaways think it is. There are also an array of alluring desserts and sweet treats to cap your evening and cleanse your palate.

Cubes of wobbly jellied almond milk with terrifyingly crystallised things

Eight treasures rice: the eighth treasure is AIDS

Dog problems

I've become a dog owner by mistake. I'm looking after my girlfriend's dog for two-and-a-half weeks. He is a very nice dog and very well behaved. Naturally, then, he's driving me nuts. I've never had a pet dog before, so all of this is something of a voyage of discovery for me, although I was already aware of the fact that I was nuts.

I always thought that the whole concept of there being dog people and cat people was probably an over-simplification. But actually, it isn't. The demands of a pet dog and a pet cat are such polar opposites that it's surprising that there are any similarities at all. There are, of course. Both dogs and cats are cute and loveable and like a fuss and a play. Both dogs and cats eat food that stinks out of tin cans. And both of them watch you eat your food with an intensity that makes it clear that they kind of wish they didn't. However, after a week of looking after a mutt I now believe that people who prefer dogs to cats must have a chromosome missing.

A dog, yesterday

It is a truism emblazoned on a million bumper stickers that a dog has a master while a cat has a servant, and I think this is the root cause of the difficulties that I'm experiencing. I'm tending to deal with this canine interloper as if it is some kind of firefighting operation. My key concerns are to make sure he gets out to do his excretions and therefore doesn't park anything in the house, and that he doesn't bark because people as highly-strung as I am don't take very kindly to such malarky. It's fairly easy to see why I don't feel that I'm getting very much out of this experience other than a headache. Instead of enjoying it I am largely treating him as if scientists had finally managed to graft working legs onto a piping bag filled with turds.

Although prepared for a few dog things, I'd not factored in quite how much talking in the street dog ownership entails. I spend half of the day in a dialogue with this dog, for at least an hour of which I am in public. They like it, need it and want it. I speak to cats, too, but I've never found it met with anything other than thinly-veiled contempt. I kind of miss that.

And there's the rub: ultimately, cats hate you. They want you to feed them and then leave them be, which is a mission statement not dissimilar to my own. Dogs love you unconditionally all day long, and that freaks me out. But though I am a grouchy bastard with a heart of stone, I am also a creature of logic and reason and logic and reason tell me that this unconditional love means that the dog has no intention of ruining my day. He'd not even have dreamt of it, nor could he even conceive of a way he might go about doing so (dogs are thick). Therefore, if he has ruined my day it can only because I have allowed him to. So the onus is on him to adapt to a new pace of day-to-day life, and on me to be less of a fanny.

There is no prize for guessing which of these is likely to happen first, by the way. Shut up.

There goes the neighbourhood

Some people may tell you that the best zombie film ever made is not Night of the Living Dead but I'm afraid that these people are deeply misguided. While Living Dead is not the first film that deals with the problems of the undead (many people sing the praises of I Walked With A Zombie but don't be taken in, it is interminable), it is undeniably the one which set the agenda for all the films that followed it. Night of the Living Dead is so responsible for the creation of its genre, in fact, that it's almost sacrilegious when any of the hundreds of films that have followed deviate too far from its basic tenets.

Just in case you are currently saving up all your loose change and stockpiling liver in a bin bag in order to make your own zombie film, Night of the Living Keith, here are what I consider to be its most fundamental teachings.

1. Undead ratio is important

The fact of the matter is, no matter how many of your friends you can get to dress up like Zandra Rhodes, zombies don't carry a story. For that you need your un-undead characters. Night of the Living Dead gets this key area right. Whilst the entire premise of the body of the film is that the protagonists are stuck in a house completely surrounded by zombies, it is within the house that we stay. It creates an atmosphere incomparable to those zombie films which are just a non-stop slew of zombie action. Those films thrive on terror, sudden acts of unexpected horror. Suspense is a lot more sophisticated. Whilst it relies on terror, it adds to it and makes it mean something. So consider that before you start pouring corn syrup on your mum's church slacks.

2. Pace yourselves

Suspense is the key to a good horror film. So take your time. There's no need to kill off all of your cast immediately because we all know that they will be eventually. So let's get to find out about some of the hopes and dreams that will be quashed as a result first. The other pacing note is, and I can't stress this enough, zombies should never run. Slow, grinding, inevitability and the building of layers of claustrophobia and hysteria is the key to a successful zombie film, not a load of people legging it about with their chin off.

3. Social commentary is always welcome

The zombie films of George A. Romero are notable for the wider points about society and social problems that they make, in amongst the Hell's Angels being eaten. Sometimes these were even done accidentally: the pioneering casting decision to make the leading protagonist in Night of the Living Dead black was taken for strictly meritocratic reasons: Duane Jones gave the best audition for the part. But ever since it has been looked upon by commentators and critics as one of the best film exploration of the civil rights struggle in 1960s America. Zombie zombie zombie teeth jugular blood spurt murder zombie films are all very well and good for a brief frightener, but they are unlikely to stay with you. And it's the ones that stay with you that will help you remember all of the handy survival hints that could come in so handy one day.

4. Punch hysterical women in the face

It's the only way they'll learn.

5. Children are little shits and will be the death of you

True dat.

Watching horror with a dog

This week I have begun a two-and-a-half week stint looking after my girlfriend's dog. This dog is a dog and therefore he is quite difficult to explain things to, or to reason with. As a result, he has been somewhat clingy. He is currently sitting on my leg. When he isn't he dogs my footsteps. Probably because, as I have mentioned previously, he is a dog.

The problem is, it's making my life rather difficult as a number of my best laid plans have had to be abandoned. All I have to show for the last two days is a blog post about Jack the Ripper films which only 42 people have so far read and a cold. Also, my leg smells a bit like dog. Today, then, I thought I'd make a virtue of this situation and at least get another post out of it. This will represent a 200% increase in my productivity since Wednesday and is a step in the right direction. A dog.

My plan is, I'm going to watch three British horror films from the 1960s and 1970s, which I have never seen before, with the dog and see what happens. I am very aware that it is this kind of hard-hitting journalism that keeps you all coming back.

LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF (1975)

Much like this dog, this film has a good pedigree: directed by Freddie Francis, starring Peter Cushing and written by Anthony Hinds, it's a Hammer Horror Holy Trinity. The plot summary on Wikipedia, too, is irresistible:

"A boy that has been raised by wolves is displayed as a circus freak. Then he grows up, becomes a zookeeper and falls in love with a prostitute. His jealousy brings out his wolf side, changing him into a werewolf so that he can kill her clients."

But this film is a risk. This dog does not take kindly to other furry things. On Wednesday night he spacked out at the sight of a camel on QI. And that was a camel. It is very possibly a portent of worse things to come, much like letting a man raised by wolves be the keeper at your zoo.

I needn't have worried, though. The dog had no interest in this film whatsoever. He was more taken by the soluble paracetamol that I was taking for a sinus headache, which some genius had made aniseed flavour in order to send dogs wild with jealous yearning. But I quite liked the film. I liked the magnificently smarmy filthy old head zookeeper (played by Ron Moody) and I particularly enjoyed the innovative WEREWOLF VISION. Otherwise known as sticking a red filter over the camera. I enjoyed, too, Peter Cushing's role as the forensic pathologist. In his determination to look past the easy solutions in order to find the truth, his character put me in mind of my beloved Quincy - if you can imagine that instead of fucking a string of airline stewardesses on a boat in Los Angeles, Quincy hung around 19th Century Parisian knocking shops looking for werewolves.

The werewolf: responsible for more Paris deaths than emphysema and syphilis combined

Where it perhaps fell down is that I suspect it aims at making a commentary on the destructiveness of male sexual jealousy. But it's hard to take things much past face value, having already suspended enough disbelief to buy into the main protagonist being a wolf boy found and displayed by circus Gypsies, eventually becoming urbane and socialised enough to get a job at a Paris zoo, albeit Paris' mankiest, most sordid, Albert Steptoe zoo ever. The overall effect, then, is merely a tale of the damaging effect of lycanthropy on the rumpy-pumpy sector of the free market economy, normally an area of sustained growth.

The dog, meanwhile, just wanted to play with his ball. It was a handy reminder to carry a rubber ball with you at all time, with one eye to being able to fend off any werewolf attacks as and when they occur.

FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972)

At this stage I took the dog for a walk but, not finding any werewolves, it was time for another film. This time, Judy Gleeson plays a woman who gets a job working at a boarding school, only to start to be terrorised by a one-armed man. This film was immediately more up the dog's street and he happily barked along with the opening title sequence, which featured a schoolboy choir singing.

The dog was not particularly interested in this perilous scenario, however. He went to sleep once and then barked at a carpet van.  Maybe it was the effect of the walk. I suggest it's more likely to be the effect of the film, which drags on a bit. When there's a one-armed maniac on the loose, the simple fact of the matter is I want him to be more prevalent in the overall narrative of the film.

Peter Cushing in Fear in the Night: having a variety of problems

Nevertheless, it did have Peter Cushing in it, who couldn't have been unwatchable if he tried. If there were only one reason why I find British horror films of the 1960s and 1970s so compelling (there isn't), it would be because the likelihood of an appearance by Peter Cushing is very high. The dog, seemingly, is less impressed by such things and went off into the kitchen to find something to sniff.

THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968)

Handsome young men everywhere are being sucked dry of their juices by a cryptozoological demon which has overtones of case of The Owlman of Mawnan, only less shit. Peter Cushing is again in attendance, making everyone wonder if perhaps it's more than a coincidence that all this death, terror and mutilation should follow him about. And whilst it may not have captured the imagination of the dog, any film whose opening titles read "Guest star: Roy Hudd" is a force to be reckoned with.

The Blood Beast Terror, hushed up by the mainstream press

The actual explanation for all of these goings on is more straightforward. Etymologist Dr. Mallinger's daughter Claire turns into a blood-sucking weremoth during a full moon and preys on the village males, whilst her father tries to genetically engineer her a mate. As any father would, and does. It's something of a far-fetched premise and I suspect a lot of it was designed merely with one eye on creating set pieces filled with gore and monsters. Although this may be a cynical view. This film could have more to say than The Battleship Potemkin. Which would make this film better than The Battleship Potemkin because The Battleship Potemkin has ZERO weremoths. Most things do. Weremoths don't actually exist. If they did, lightbulb sales would plummet as fast as blackout curtain sales would soar. Weremoths. Ultimately, this film isn't better than The Battleship Potemkin, which I think says it all. The dog didn't like it much, either.

So, as with yesterday, what have we learned? Nothing. Except that werewolves are better than weremoths and Joan Collins is a cow.

Jack the Ripper's identity revealed

Who was Jack the Ripper? History has made him (N.B. for the sake of ease, common sense and overwhelming statistical probability, I will be referring to the perpetrator of the 1888 Whitechapel murders as a male throughout, although I am in full agreement with all feminists that women can be psychotic prostitute-killing maniacs too) into a monster, but the simple fact is that he was made of skin and bone and regularly visited by the all-too-human desire to eviscerate whores like everyone else. He had a face, he had hopes and dreams, he had at least one knee and maybe more. Putting a name to that man eluded the police at the time. It was only in the 20th Century and the birth of the silver screen that the greatest mystery in the annals of crime could begin to be solved.

Five Jack the Rippers, yesterday

Because the Jack the Ripper case has spawned countless film adaptations, almost all of them helpfully providing us with a definitive answer as to his identity. For some reason, so-called "serious" historians have ignored this vital resource, but I am not a "serious" historian so I do not. We all know that films can teach us a great deal. Forrest Gump, for example, taught me a lot about the nature of the self, of anger and whether or not Tom Hanks is a bag of shite.

Today, I look at some of these crucial pieces of evidence in order to be able to exclusively reveal to you, my long-suffering readers, the name of the most notorious murderer of them all.

THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG (1927)
MAN IN THE ATTIC (1953)

The Lodger (1927): "Good evening, madam, may I please use your shitter?"

Most Jack the Ripper films are based around a handful of stories. The most common of these is The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes. This story was itself inspired by a number of urban legends that circulated around the time of the Whitechapel murders regarding the unusual and unsanitary habits of the tenants of any number of paranoid, curtain-twitching, nosey old moo east-end landladies.

Jack the Ripper's Bedroom by W.R. Sickert,
a striking confession of guilt made by an
innocent party

One of them, the Finsbury Street lodger, was identified as G. Wenworth Bell Smith, a knock-kneed Canadian gent with an unfortunate habit of turning up after murders had taken place with blood on his shirt. Another, the Batty Street lodger, is suspected of being the deeply eccentric American quack doctor, determined pickler of wombs and red hot Ripper-suspect Francis Tumblety. A third was a veterinary student in Mornington Crescent, whose landlady told the next occupant of the room - the impressionist painter Walter Sickert - was definitely the culprit. It inspired the Ripper-obsessed Sickert to paint Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, which itself later helped the dazzlingly misguided American crime novelist Patricia Cornwell to finger Sickert as Jack the Ripper in the early part of this century.

These two films are both based on Lowndes' rendering of this tale, although the two have different endings. Lowndes' lodger is a idiosyncratic young gentleman of peculiar habits who keeps rather odd hours, largely thanks to his "research", and who has no great love of the paintings of young women on the walls of his room.

The Lodger is a silent film made by Alfred Hitchcock which is now justifiably considered the first true example of Hitchcockian cinema. Alas, the first feature-length telling of a story based on Jack the Ripper does not reveal the killer's identity: the titular lodger (played by the actual real-life Ivor Novello) in fact being the brother of The Avenger's first victim, his absences from the house at the time of the murders explained by the fact he is out walking the streets trying to capture the culprit. Man in the Attic, however, is much more forthcoming with the truth, THE TRUTH. Here, the titular Man in the Attic's (played, in an unlikely twist, by Western stalwart Jack Palance on horseback with a six-shooter) absences at suspicious times and the fact he frequently burns his clothing in the kitchen sink are explained by his job as a medical researcher and also all those prostitutes and showgirls that he is killing. Jack the Ripper was Jack Palance. We should have guessed, the clue was that they had the same name: Jack.

A STUDY IN TERROR (1966)
MURDER BY DECREE (1979)
FROM HELL (2001)

The second-most popular avenue for Jack the Ripper fiction is the avenging aristocrat story. Here, a libertine member of a family of high social standing - usually, but not always, royalty - will have married a prostitute, presumably with a view to getting a discount. The crazed defenders of the family name will then carry out a series of retributive ritualised murders in order to protect their legacy. Masonic plots are common here, as are top hats.

A Study in Terror is the film which finally gets Sherlock Holmes on the case. It was about time, too. It is also my favourite film adaptation of the Jack the Ripper case, for a number of excellent reasons. Firstly, it's got Jack the Ripper AND Sherlock Holmes in it which frankly should be enough on its own. But it keeps on giving: secondly it is shot in magnificently lush British horror film of the 1960s style, all gaudy technicolour, period costume, high-camp acting and gleefully nasty make-up and special effects. Thirdly, it is perhaps the Jack the Ripper film which keeps closest to the actual facts of the case.

The greatest loss yet to Western culture

But fourthly and most importantly, it features Barbara Windsor as Annie Chapman, the second canonical (but third in this particular incidence) victim of The Rip. This is a monumental piece of casting, principally as it comes heavy with ideas of the greatest film never made, Carry On Ripping.

The cast list of Carry On Ripping would have been as follows:

JACK THE RIPPER: Sid James
SIR CHARLES WARREN: Kenneth Williams
INSPECTOR ABBERLINE: Jim Dale
CHIEF INSPECTOR LITTLECHILD: Kenneth Connor
GEORGE LUSK: Peter Butterworth
POLLY NICHOLS: Angela Douglas
ANNIE CHAPMAN: Hattie Jacques
ELIZABETH STRIDE: Fenella Fielding
CATHERINE EDDOWES: Joan Sims
MARY KELLY: Barbara Windsor
DOCTOR BAGSTER-PHILLIPS: Charles Hawtrey
QUEEN VICTORIA: Bernard Bresslaw

It's best that you don't think about this too hard, I find: the poignancy of the fact that it will never be almost too much to bear.

In A Study in Terror, Jack the Ripper is finally revealed to be Lord Carfax, the avenging younger brother of an aristocratic family. He decided to eliminate prostitutes one at a time until the his offending sister-in-law finally felt his wrath. But, after Carfax's demise, Holmes reveals that no public good would be served by the revelation of his identity. If all of this still isn't selling the film to you, just take a look at the poster. BIFF! BANG! AIEEE! Are any three other words in the English language more evocative of the Autumn of Terror?

From Hell, based on the graphic novel written by Alan Moore, focuses on the traditional royal plot: the son of the Prince of Wales catches syph off of a manky old brass - as well as marrying her in secret and fathering a child - so the Queen's private physician Sir William Gull sets out to dispatch all the witnesses according to Masonic rites. This is probably the glossiest and most Hollywood of all the Ripper-based films, starring Johnny Depp as the skagged-up-to-the-gills Inspector George Abberline and Heather Graham (or Ivver Gruyumm, as she would have pronounced it in the film) as his love interest Mary Kelly. A prostitute. Do these people never learn?

From Hell reveals Jack the Ripper to be the Tony Award-winning actor Sir Ian Holm. This seems fundamentally more unlikely than John Fraser's Lord Carfax. Perhaps it even explains why Mr. Fraser has never been made a knight of the realm.

The Venn diagram of these two films meets in Murder by Decree, a 1979 film where the royal/Masonic plot is investigated by Holmes and Watson. The film itself lacks the excitement of the other two, but the cast is arguably far superior. Holmes and Watson are played by Christopher Plummer and James "James Mason" Mason, with John Gielgud, Donald Sutherland and Genevieve Bujold also featuring. The Holmesian role of Police Inspector Lestrade is essayed in both films by Frank Finlay. Two films, thirteen years apart, one set of facial expressions.

HANDS OF THE RIPPER (1971)
JACK THE RIPPER (1976)
TIME AFTER TIME (1979)

Thankfully, there is still room in the Jack the Ripper film canon for another type of storyline: batshit crazy crazy shit. This is perhaps the most exciting and compelling area of them all. They deviate from the traditional scripts and explanations to explore more dark, illogical and shit crazy bats areas of the case and of the human psyche.

Johannes der Rippenhausen

Jack the Ripper is a German-Swiss film of 1976 where a general practitioner, haunted by his mother's vaginal indiscretions when he was a child, makes amends by killing prostitutes. There is considerable sexual content to this film, Doctor Orloff (played by Klaus Kinski who, by virtue of being the leading man in a film called Jack the Ripper, is Jack the Ripper) usually choosing to undress and hump the tits off (literally, in one case) his quarry before dispatching them to the beyond. For the purposes of body disposal, the criminal uses the botanical gardens and river, an unusual choice and one that proves to be his downfall when it turns out that his knackers are allergic to root powder.

But it is the attendant cast of characters which really give this film the edge in the preposterousness stakes: an old blind man with a sense of smell that would put a bloodhound to shame, a griping old fishwife and a mercenary fisherman with a big hooter (played by the splendidly-named Herbert Fux) being the standouts amongst them.

Hands of the Ripper, meanwhile, is Hammer Studios foray into the subject and it takes a typically daft, camp and wonderful approach as the Ripper's daughter, Angharad Rees, sets about her father's old beat with gusto having witnessed him murder her mother as a child. With Rees getting all wide-eyed and murdery every time she is kissed, can Freudian psychoanalysis save London in time? It's not quite as magnificent a premise as the title promises - Hammer, after all, have frequently thought nothing of having actual disembodied hands roam around the place to really mess up someone's day - but it's not half bad. It is particularly blessed to have Eric Porter cast as the psychiatrist, Porter being a man who distinguishes any batshit crazy film with a certain pointy-bearded, bulging-eyed gravitas. A selection of immaculate period sets, bright orange-red baked bean juice blood, gristly special effects, seances and dazzling overacting across the board make for eighty minutes of superior entertainment.

The hands of the Hands of the Ripper's hands, ripping

As an extra twist, the Ripper's daughter - a deeply traumatised young woman - has ended up as a prostitute herself, which makes her deep-seated psychological loathing of whores fraught with complications, but none that can't be solved by impailing Dora Bryan to a door with a fire poker. Her possession by the spirit of her father provides her with great strength, although whether or not her hands take on the other physical properties of man hands - hair, anchor tattoos, etc - is not directly addressed aside from a brief glimpse of some Ripping stigmata, also present on her father's hand on the fateful night and which look not dissimilar to spilt ketchup.

It's a film that, arguably like psychoanalysis itself, offers more questions than answers. Could Jack the Ripper himself have been under psychic possession when he committed his crimes? Could Jack the Ripper have been in Poldark? Like so much in this mysterious case, we may never know. The fun, as always, is in the speculation.

Meanwhile, in 1979's Time After Time, Jack the Ripper has used a time machine to transport himself to modern-day San Francisco. The time machine was the must-have gadget for Victorian gentlemen. It is also a continuation of the ongoing theme in film representations of Jack the Ripper: that the killer was upper crust, or at the very least a man of means. Means sufficient to acquire himself a time machine, at least. Everyone back then had one, to such an extent that it was a wonder there were any men in Victorian Britain at all. However, as a result, it's not all plain sailing for the Ripper, who has H.G.Wells hot on his heels. It's one of those marvellous things: a completely preposterous idea, done well. In many ways, it's what cinema should be about. Cinema should certainly have Jack the Ripper in the future, as frequently as possible. The only problem is their casting - David Warner as Jack the Ripper feels strangely off. I'm willing to suspect Ivor Novello or point the finger at Angharad Rees, but David Warner? I'm still reeling from his decapitation in The Omen and there's only so much that time travel can do.

David Warner in Time After Time - not fooling anyone

So, in conclusion, what have we learned? Nothing. Nothing at all. But it's probably safe to leave your wife with David Warner.