Work this afternoon has been accompanies by the playlist for Paul Cornell’s forthcoming novel, Chalk. It is mostly classical 80s pop — things like Human League, Culture Club, Duran Duran and of course Let’s Dance era Bowie. However, there are a few older songs in it too. I have a couple of tunes I’d like to highlight.

First up, Tracey Ullman’s cover of Kirsty MacColl’s “They Don’t Know”. I love just about everything that MacColl wrote. This one was a huge hit.

I have two things to say about this. The first is that I was never a Bay City Rollers fan. The other is that I used to own a pair of pink slippers exactly like the ones that Tracey wears in the video.

Here’s the other one. This isn’t the video used in Paul’s playlist but it is more appropriate. White Horses was one of my favorite TV shows as a kid and I particularly loved this song. As I said to Kevin in email just now, I was such a girl, it is a wonder no one noticed.

There was Follyfoot too, of course. Mind you, what I really wanted was Comet, not a Lipizzaner. And Streaky to go with him.