Does anybody really listen when I speak, or will I have to say it all again next week?

On Fridays this year, we ask...

( What's in the Box? )

Today in The Box we have:

Shakespears Sister - Hormonally Yours

Well, according to the sticker, I paid 50p for this album. I think it's one of my best charity-shop finds, and I keep intending to buy "a proper copy", by which I mean one on a less-defunct format.

I seem to remember violently disliking Stay - the album's big hit single - when it was in the charts. I have to say, I'm still not that enamoured with it and am not clear why it was a bigger hit than the vastly superior Hello (Turn Your Radio On). Maybe it was the scary gothed-out video.

Anyway, this is actually a genuinely high-quality album in The Box. I think this week's track was a single but I'm too lazy to check. It's a proper jaunty sing-along.

Shakespears Sister - I Don't Care

[Poll #1242352]

You see me through, when I'm lonely and scared

I'm heading to Whitby folk week, and this evening have staged as far as my parents' house in Darlington. Normally, when driving north, my route goes M1->M18->A1 but today I made a special detour.

I stayed on the M1 and went the slightly longer route over Tinsley Viaduct, to wave goodbye to my twin towers. The Tinsley cooling towers, guardian giants of the gateway to the north, and beloved landmarks:



By the time I drive south again they will have been demolished.

It's interesting to note that (according to a spokesman from E.On whom I heard on radio 4) the energy company was keen to take into account the wishes of the local people. So they petitioned those who lived in the area whether the towers should be demolished or preserved. The answers came back almost exactly fifty-fifty.

I'll miss them, though.