It was my dads birthday last week. Buying presents for people while I am in Sweden can be troublesome. Finding something people might like isn’t the problem, its finding something that wont cost more to post than the gift itself that causes the headaches.

Online shops can provide some of the answers and they have come to my rescue a few times but whatever some people might claim the virtual high street is still no match for the real thing. Well maybe for the shopping experience in the small town were I live, but that’s a different whinge. After online shopping there’s the last resort of a gift voucher option. One that truly winds me up. A gift that says “Well I didn’t really know what to give you, but I didn’t want to just give you cash, so I choose something just like cash but with a lot less options”

Shamefully I have to admit the best I could come up with for my dad this time was the offer of cash and make sure you choose something nice for yourself. I did however manage to pull of with a save with a little extra I made myself. Before you start rolling your eyes, no this wasn’t another pen and desk organiser made out of old toilet rolls in true Blue Peter style, but a quiz cd.

One of my dads interests is games. Admittedly his habit of taking any mainstream board game and then changing all the rules could get a bit irritating at times but it kept him out of mischief. His latest hobby project is recording sections from songs and then having the clip stop just before the part everyone recognises the song and then drives his guest up the wall trying to work out what song it was. The trouble is seeing as he makes the tapes himself he can’t play along, as he already knows all the answers. Admittedly his is probably part of his pleasure in a smug I know something you don’t know way, but I also think he would like to take part some times as well.

With this in mind, and quite possibly the help of an online music-downloading programme I put together a similar quiz cd. Rather than just picking songs at random I decided on including the songs that were number one in the uk charts on each of his birthdays. Unfortunately I don’t think I will get to play the roll of the smug-git-that-knows-all-the-answers with my family as I expect they will use it before we are over again. I do however you lot, the rabble that find your way onto here.

So if you want to play along here are the clips.

1970 to 1974 clips
1975 to 1979 clips
1980 to 1984 clips
1985 to 1989 clips
1990 to 1994 clips
1995 to 1999 clips

Extra credit will be given to those who can work out what my dads birthday is. Good Luck