1988

Top Selling Singles

1. Kylie Minogue – I Should Be So Lucky
2. Yazz & The Plastic Population – The Only Way Is Up
3. Glenn Medeiros – Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You
4. Tiffany – I Think We’re Alone Now
5. Wet Wet Wet / Billy Bragg With Cara Tivey – With A Little Help From My Friends / She’s Leaving Home
6. Phil Collins – Groovy Kind Of Love
7. Belinda Carlisle – Heaven Is A Place On Earth
8. Salt-N-Pepa – Push It / Tramp
9. The Hollies – He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother
10. Robin Beck – First Time

Kylie has 5 of the 40 best selling singles for 1988 (Including one with Jason Donovan)

Christmas No.1: Cliff Richard Mistletoe and Wine

Top Selling Albums

1. Kylie Minogue – Kylie
2. Cliff Richard – Private Collection: 1979–1988
3. Michael Jackson – Bad
4. Bros – Push
5. Now 13 Various Artists
6. Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman
7. Terence Trent D’Arby – Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby
8. Fleetwood Mac – Tango in the Night
9. U2 – Rattle and Hum

At the Box Office

1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
2. A Fish Called Wanda
3. Crocodile Dundee II
4. Three Men and a Baby
5. Fatal Attraction
6. Coming to America
7. Good Morning Vietnam
8. Buster
9. Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach
10. Beetlejuice

Cost of Living

Average house price	£65,000
Average salary	£12,400
Average car price	£12,207
Petrol	£1.72/Gallon
Pint of beer	98p
Packet of 20 Cigarettes	£1.48
Pint of milk	25p

In the News

• Actor Rowan Atkinson launches the new Comic Relief charity appeal -it goes on to raise £15 million for charity
• The Ford Escort was Britain’s best-selling car for the sixth year running
• Halifax Building Society reveals that year-on-year house prices rose by 16.9%. Average house price now £60,000
• The Bank of England £1 note ceases to be legal tender
• Plans are unveiled for Europe’s tallest skyscraper to be built at Canary Wharf. The office complex will cost around £3,000,000,000 (3 Billion) to build, and is set to open in 1992 (I know someone that worked there!)
• Golfer Sandy Lyle becomes the first British winner of the US Masters
• The first group of sixteen-year-olds sit General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations, replacing both the O-level and CSE
• Three gay rights activists invade the BBC television studios during the six o’clock bulletin of the BBC News
• The Church of England announces that it will allow the ordination of female priests from 1992
• Piper Alpha disaster; the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea explodes and results in the death of 167 workers
• Paul Gascoigne, 21-year-old midfielder, becomes the first £2 Million footballer signed by a British club when he leaves Newcastle United and joins Tottenham Hotspur
• As Pope John Paul II addresses the European Parliament, Ian Paisley heckles and denounces him as the Antichrist.
• Health Minister Edwina Currie provokes outrage by stating that most of Britain’s egg production is infected with the salmonella bacteria, causing an immediate nationwide decrease in egg sales (she resigns 2 weeks later)
• Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over the town of Lockerbie, killing a total of 270 people – 11 on the ground and all 259 who were on board.
• Diggers of the foundations of the new Art Gallery at the Guildhall in the City of London accidentally discover the remains of a Roman amphitheatre, now on public display
• Hello! magazine launched in the UK
• Roald Dahl’s children’s novel Matilda is published
• McChicken is launched

On the Telly

• The first episode of the game show Fifteen to One airs on Channel 4. The show’s first winner is Gareth McMullan, a teacher from Northern Ireland
• British television premiere of the James Bond film Octopussy on ITV.
• The inaugural Red Nose Day sees Comic Relief air its first A Night of Comic Relief fundraiser on BBC1
• Debut of the stunt-based game show You Bet! presented by Bruce Forsyth
• Motormouth launches as new Saturday morning children’s programme
• The original series of Crossroads airs for the last time. It returns in 2001 before being axed again in 2003.
• Canadian singer Celine Dion wins the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest for Switzerland with the French language song “Ne partez pas sans moi” (“Don’t Leave Without Me”).
• Anita Dobson makes her last appearance in EastEnders, when her character, Angie Watts departs for a new life in Spain.
• Presenter Frank Bough leaves the BBC after a News of the World exposé of his private life
• Australian series The Flying Doctors makes its British television debut on BBC 1
• Television presenters Mike Smith and Sarah Greene are seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Gloucestershire
• This Morning makes its debut. It is presented by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan
• The Oprah Winfrey Show makes its British television debut on Channel 4.
• Play School is broadcast for the final time – had been running since 1964
• BBC1 airs Episode 523 of Neighbours, featuring the wedding of Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell (played by Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue), which is watched by 20 million viewers
• Singer Neneh Cherry performs her single “Buffalo Stance” on Top of the Pops while seven months pregnant, something that goes on to cause a furore in the media

Top Selling Christmas Toys

• Furby
• Tickle Me Elmo

Gadgets

• Bread Machine
• HP Deskjet
• Casio Calculator watch (was about £40)

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