BLAKES SEVEN INCHES

Oh, for a world where Blakes 7 is popular enough to warrant its theme tune appearing on not one seven inch single but TWO. Especially if one is a disco version. The mind boggles, then pops and fizzles out, never to work properly again.

This is the original, as written by Australian composer Dudley Simpson. It loses a bit of vitality by being considerably longer than the on air version, but then who would buy a slab of vinyl featuring a piece of music that was only about thirty seconds long? Apart from us, that is. 

This is the disco version by Federation. To be searingly honest, it's actually hugely boring once the initial novelty dissipates but we don't care about that; the fact that this artefact even exists is good enough for us. 

As an added bonus, here's yet another version, this time from the majestic Geoff Love. We love Love. This track appeared on his 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Other Galactic Disco Themes' album, which is seminal stuff and should be in every collection of music BY LAW.

HORRIBLE DISCO

Disco was a hungry, omnivorous beast, chewing on the bones of every musical genre and cultural artifact it could get. It very quickly slung its gob around horror, and the result was a number of strange, generally terrible hybrid tracks that usually featured maniacal laughter and added the prefix ‘Disco’, ‘Soul’ ‘Funky’ or ‘Sexy’ to the names of established horror icons. The Japanese, those compulsive seekers of novelty, lapped this crazy shit up - as do we, of course.

Please note, these are from Unmann-Wittering's ACTUAL record collection. How sad is that? 

ABDOMINAL INTIMACY

It's someone's birthday, apparently, so we are all expected to eat our own body weight in crystallised fruits and watch a two part 'Countryfile' special. 

Happily, we are able to present an alternative - archive footage of the 1974 Christmas 'Top Of The Pops' featuring a performance of the best selling record of that year, 'Rub My Tummy' by the astonishing Zenda Jacks. 

If you recall, this is the show which culminated in Dave Lee Travis being arrested live on camera, frogmarched out of the studio and then summarily executed by machine gun in the Blue Peter Garden. Happy days.

Merry whatnot to you all, and here's to a very happy, safe and contented whatever the hell next year is.