Christmas Day show highlighting the second and final part of the 2003 Festive Fifty.
Start of show: "Merry Christmas, one and all."
The content of this show has previously been offered as highlights, including the chart rundown only. This is the full show, with inevitable brief gaps where tape flips occur, but these now filled in with the latest share
(JP: 'This is the first time, I think, ever in the history of Radio 1 that I've done a programme on Christmas Day, so to demonstrate, you know, how I feel about the experience, here is a Christmas record.')[1]
(JP: 'In case anybody's thinking of writing to us, emailing us or writing a newspaper piece to the effect that most of the records so far seem to be by cute white kids strumming guitars, this is always the case: and it's not my choice, it's yours.')
(JP: 'This year, it had to be write-in, or there was some kind of system where you could do it on our website, I don't exactly understand how it was done, to be perfectly honest, because I didn't add up all of the votes, but we had to do it that way because we felt that last year there were one or two kind of write-in campaigns, and we were dubious about the end results: but we're reasonably sure that this is a kind of pure Festive Fifty, if such a thing is possible. Not that it makes a a great deal of difference, but you do wonder what would be the point in cheating. I mean, coming top of the Festive Fifty, or coming in it at all, doesn't really guarantee celebrity and stardom and limitless wealth.')
20: Darkness vs SFB, 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love (12")' (white label)
(JP: "While that was on I walked to the other end of the house to try and persuade our grandson Archie, whose first Christmas this is, to come and speak to the nation. But he wasn't having any of it and who can blame him for that.")
17: White Stripes, 'Black Math (2xLP-Elephant)' (XL Recordings) (plays 'Seven Nation Army' for quite a while before he realises his mistake)
(JP: "Well there's always at least one serious cock-up in the course of a Festive Fifty and this is this one. I got my pages all muddled up in fact and that isn't number 17. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. But I've left time for mistakes.") (Wrong Track Moment)
(JP: 'I have to say that one of the great disappointments of the year for me was the fact that a bunch of lawyers in New York stopped me from playing you the LP 'Elephant'.')
(JP: 'About half the people who voted for that thought it was called 'Fred Flintstone'.)
07: Half Man Half Biscuit, 'Tending The Wrong Grave For 23 Years (EP-Saucy Haulage Ballads)' (Probe Plus)
(JP: 'That Nigel is one of our great thinkers.')
(next tape)
06: Mogwai, 'Ratts Of The Capital (CD-Happy Songs For Happy People)' (Matador)
05: Bearsuit, 'Itsuko Got Married (7 inch)' (Bearslut)
04: Undertones, 'Thrill Me (LP-Get What You Need)' (Sanctuary)
03: Mogwai, 'Hunted By A Freak (CD-Happy Songs For Happy People)' (Matador)
(JP: 'Obviously, these Festive Fifties have been going on for a very long time indeed. I can't remember the first one that I did, and there were a few years that got missed out, and there was a time when we used to get prodigious numbers of votes, and I'd spend all of December, or most of December and a lot of November, sitting in front of the fire with great bags full of votes, entering them in a vast ledger, in a very Dickensian manner. But I do know that this has been the closest Festive Fifty of all time, for the records that came number one and number two. In fact, the record that came number two, if it had had one more vote, would have been number one.')
02: Fall, 'Theme From Sparta F.C. (LP-The Real New Fall LP Formerly Country On The Click)' (Action)
(JP: 'Say what you like, but I think that's Mark as good as he's ever been.')
01: Cinerama, 'Don't Touch That Dial (CD single)' (Scopitones)
(JP: 'Thanks to Louise, Hermeet and Mark for making this one of the happiest years I've had, and our thanks as always to you for listening.')