…to get to the top (a roller, half a million copies sold of a fabulous remix of your single ‘I’m only a poor little sparrow’ done by Fatboy Slim, who, incidentally was probably in his nappies when this was really made, a gig at the TV studios and five grand)….whether or not you can stay there is an entirely different matter!

Even though on balance today has been one of my better ones of late, I still ended up the day feeling decidedly disgruntled. You know, people saying one thing and meaning another, things taking twice as long as they should, software not working properly, etc etc….

Then I had a moment of sheer joy. My little sis rang, wanting me to contribute some cash to something she was bidding for on ebay and wanted to be able to justify said bid to her hubby by telling him I’d contributed as a birthday gift….which isn’t for two months but never mind! After we’ve been doing lots of ebay trading in recent weeks selling our belongings to pay for our house move, I asked what she was buying and if I could have a few weeks grace in stumping up the money, to which she generously agreed.

She was bidding on a pristine one of these – the celebrated (well in our circles anyway) Chartbuster. A board game that was promoted by Tony Blackburn when he actually had a bit of ‘cred’ – well, actually probably only to eleven year olds as I was at the time I was given this amazing game for Christmas by my folks.

Now you can forget Monopoly, Triv et al – this game is the ultimate board game and this particular copy of it has been played so often (as you can see from the scratched up state of the board) by all of my friends as I’ve ‘grown up’, each new batch loving the game’s cut and thrust every bit as much as the legions of other fans that our family has more-or-less single-handedly generated for it.

At one point, because it had been unavailable for many years, Shazbop took it to work and photocopied it many times so all of our other friends could have copies – I believe Simon Cohen (ex-Roman Holliday) still has a copy that he plays to this day.

The game is incredibly simple but equally incredibly exciting – you are a budding rock star (heaven) and you have to play gigs, at first in complete dumps (The Flowerpot Club), then work your way up the ladder, playing bigger venues and eventually getting the money together to make a record. Once you’ve made your record, you’re in the big time if it sells…but not all of them do of course, just like real life! You then move up the charts and if you make it to No 1 you can win the game by selling half a million copies of the record before it drops down the charts. The game’s equivalent of ‘chance’ has things like having to pay a £10 fine for being drunk and disorderly – hee hee.

We used to play with the Nortons, then later with Palmer-Walmer (who decided one day that the record titles that you could choose from were dull so we spent a happy afternoon making up new ones….the ‘sparrow’ was one of his, later still, it became a firm favourite with the Famous Five and Roman Holliday – all of us absolutely loving the thrill of the chase and the pop star glory…..that was before our friends in RH went on to some real pop star glory of course.

Jan is bidding on it on ebay today and I hope she wins it because then she might stop mithering me about giving up my precious copy. (NOT a chance Jan, however much I love you!) BUT – thanks for the memory and for today’s inspiration!!!!!

Last year, it was 'breakfast at Jeanne's'