Let’s start off with the letter I was most pleased to receive in the past three months.

Hampshire County Council, Winchester – “I note your intention to issue proceedings in the Small Claims Court… I am prepared on this occasion, without any admission of liability, to meet your claim.”

Finally. Last September, I hit a pothole on my way home from work and since then have been trying to get the Council to pay for the wrecked back wheel my bike sustained. Five months, half a dozen letters and some advice from a solicitor (Scottish, and therefore possibly wrong) later, I tell them I’m going to sue. They cave in. Sigh. Put away the “Jagged Edge” video, Jim, and get on with the real letters. Still not got the money, though that was six weeks back!

The general tone of them was complimentary:

• Alun Fairburn, Ammanford – “A very good read indeed.”
• Simon Wood, Blewbury – “Excellent stuff!! A vast improvement upon most fanzines”

This comes as no surprise. If I get a fanzine I dislike, I don’t write and explain why, I just don’t bother getting it again. Thus we can assume that, for example, Gengiz Mehmet and Michael Corney didn’t like it – poor Gengiz thought it was a football fanzine, for reasons too complex to go into here, but entirely unconnected with the Forres v Alloa back cover!

Getting down to specific bits, very few pieces got nothing but a bad response; most bits were liked by SOMEBODY. There were a few ‘differences of opinion :

• AF – “I particularly enjoyed the ‘Nightmares in a Damaged Brain’ piece.”
• Tommy Campbell, Glasgow – “…boring & confused.”

Generally received with favour was ‘The Incredibly Bad Film Show’…

• TC – “Excellent, and should be expanded on.”
• AF – “Looks like being a very interesting series.”

…and ‘It Must Be True’, alias ‘Beats Reality, Doesn’t It?’

• TC – “…should be kept…”
• David Oliver, Whitley Bay – “…very funny…

Not so popular was ‘Classic Splatter’ :

• AF – “…has already been done to death.”
• TC – “‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is a bit too obvious.”

Your wish is my command. It’s gone, replaced by ‘Borderline Cinema’, which will cover splatter, sex and other taboo subjects.

Mixing the text with pictures was NOT a success :

• Glyn Williams, Derby – “Overprinting the ‘Hellbound’ and ‘Trash Pop’ articles was dumb.”
• TC – “…parts of ‘Hellbound and ‘Trash Pop’ were made almost illegible.”

Controversy corner stirred up, as hoped, some response :

• GW – “Your argument about leaving things to the experts plays straight into the hands of those who argue that experts should decide what the rest of us should watch.”
• Rob Ingram, Farnborough – “When you elect a government, you’re choosing more than an economic policy – there are also moral questions such as who gets social security and how much they get.”

The major chunk on Nastassja was received with a mixture of interest and pleas for bits on other actresses :

• GW – “I look forward to the next part.”
• TC – “The NK feature was quite good, although I would think that actresses like Dyanne Thorne [The Ilsa movies] or Linnea Quigley would be more suitable.”
• DO – “…Linnea Quigley, Barbara Crampton or even Sybil Danning.”

I suppose to be fair, we ought to do an article on Richard Gere or some such actor (As Glyn Williams put it, “What IS the male equvalent of a bimbo?”). However, I couldn’t hack sitting through all his films and Sybil Danning has done far too many (at least 49!), therefore in preparation, a piece on Linnea. The films we can think of that she’s been in are: The Black Room, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Return of the Living Dead, Savage Streets, Night of the Demon, Creepozoids, The Imp, Deadly Friend, Dr Alien and Silent Night, Deadly Night. Anyone out there know of any more?

Finally, Some people liked and some people didn’t like my tastes in music :

• SW – “I liked your top 10 records list, as I’ve got 5 of them!”
• TC – “Was disappointed at what a conservative taste you have in music”
• Paul Smith, Alva – “..listening to rubbish like Tiffany, or even wearing jumpers with sheep on and singing as if something was being shoved up your arse.”

My problem is that I like light, fluffy pop a bit more than groups whose sleeves feature a Jesus lookalike shooting up with a syringe of fetid blood {Hi Steve!! Hi Per!!} – I’m pessimistic enough as it is…

Tiffany impaled on a spike, that seems like a good place to stop. Keep the letters coming. We reserve the right to edit, quote selectively, distort and otherwise act just like a real newspaper…