I’m no expert on the music policy of high street shops, but I’m fairly sure someone was disobeying orders when they played Another Rock ’n’ Roll Christmas by Gary Glitter.

Either that or they just had a very early version of the standard issue Now That’s What I Call Christmas album. The Christmas compilation business can be a minefield – all it takes is one disgraced pop star and the whole project comes crashing down.

I’m sure this rare public outing for a Gary Glitter song was just an innocent mistake and one I was almost tempted to point out to the staff, if only for their own safety. Thankfully no one else seemed to notice, or else they kept a dignified silence. It would have only taken a couple of alert News of the World readers for a very ugly scene to develop.

Since Vile Glitter - as I believe we are obliged to call him in newspapers - went from pop star to his latest tabloid tag, "pop paedophile" (surely a contradiction in terms), you never hear his songs on the radio.

This - and the fact it’s rubbish - is probably the reason Another Rock ’n’ Roll Christmas didn’t feature in the list of most played Christmas songs which has just been revealed.

Number one was Last Christmas by Wham!, closely followed by the original Band Aid song and the music snob’s choice, Fairytale of New York by The Pogues. Sadly, there was no showing for the often-overlooked Band Aid 2, featuring Bros and Sonia.

The most surprising inclusion in the list was perhaps Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Bruce Springsteen. This is a terrible song, with Springsteen growling the words in such a way to make the arrival of Santa sound like a serious threat.

Frankly, I’m amazed the top spot wasn’t taken by Stop the Cavalry by Jona Lewie, which came in at number six.

Every December, Stop the Cavalry seems to follow me around like the National Anthem follows the Queen. I do quite like the song but by the 20th play of the year, I start to wish that the cavalry would put Jona to the sword so he’d stop wishing he was home for Christmas.