POST OF THE WEEK Parishioner Val Jennings: Hearing The Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More" this evening on the wireless, I suddenly found myself remembering that the album whence it comes, "Now And Then", originally ended side one with Karen C informing us that they would be back on side two once they'd paid a visit "to the bathroom". This got me thinking to other examples of the celebration of "The End Of Side One", now sadly denied us in this age of CDs and downloads. So far I've come up with Michael Nesmith's "First National Rag" on the "Magnetic South" LP. Here he tells us "Well we're gonna take a short intermission my friends, but we'll be back, right after you turn the record over!" Can the parish think of any other examples of this lost art?

THE VICAR'S BRAIN TEASER OF THE WEEK Nominated by parishioner Carl Saville: What does Roxy Music's Virginia Plain have in common with Up The Junction by Squeeze?

THE MIDDLE AIN'T Parishioner Brian McCluskey Can I nominate the truly horrible middle eight from Wings, almost a classic if it weren't for the blooming middle eight, Live and Let Die? The quiet piano opening filled with intrigue slowly building up to a fantastic orchestral arrangement that builds and builds up to ... a crap cod reggae middle eight which nearly kills the whole damn song. Shocking stuff indeed. And am I alone in hating and despising that ridiculous "mama mia figaro!" nonsense in Bohemian Rhapsody? Quite possibly, I suspect, but I don't care, it's still rubbish...I always spend that whole bit waiting for the solo...

Parishioner Nick Reed: Which instantly brought to mind the frustration of a student DJ rocking the house with new wave classics, thinking that Squeeze's Cool For Cats was a sure-fire floor-filler. Which of course it was, until a bizarre halting tempo-changing tune-free meander of a middle eight left the public stranded like jellyfish after high tide, ambling off the dancefloor for a quick cider and black before Oliver's Army and its splendid middle eight lured them back. Cool For Cats is possibly uniquely annoying because the playout is the finest example of Jools Holland's occasionally beguiling art (apart from The The's Uncertain Smile) and would have made a perfect bridge. Fools! Honourable mention to The Boo Radleys and Wake Up, Boo!, although the silly middle eight completely unrelated to the rest of the song is at least mitigated here by being short enough to (usually) prevent people voting with their feet.

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