High Weirdness by Mail

Best excuse of 1990:

Daniel Cox – “I have been on location in Cuba as technical advisor for the snuff movie ‘Kinkarver’ or as it is known by its UK release title ‘The Kinski Lookalike Murders’ and please do not suspect me of exaggeration. [ Who, me? I did meet Dennis Neilsen at a party, prior to his arrest of course…(expect he had other things on his mind at that time, such as “did I turn the oven offr…the party did take place and is not a figment of my imagination”.

Neilsen used to work for the Manpower Services Commission in Denmark St, just opposite the old Forbidden Planet shop – probably all those nasty books warped his mind. Speaking of warped minds, here’s

Andy Waller – “TC appears to be cleaning up it’s act. judging by the latest edition -it’s becoming far too clean, decent and bloody responsible! It’s rapidly losing it’s crude unrefined personality, it’s borderline origins – TC come home! Screw discretion, commercialism, honour and decency – bring on the sleaze!”

Certainly a problem I’m aware of -the only difficulty is that my life lately has been too clean. decent and bloody responsible! TC reflects this and is thus distressingly sleaze-free – all suggestions and offers of 14-year old nymphomaniacs, large amounts of money and heaps of pharmaceuticals would be welcome.

Which is an easy link to Handy Household Hints. “You have to be careful not to make ergot (lysergic acid) as well as psilocybe”, warns Claire Blarney. That would be a disaster, wouldn’t it? David Thomson asks “Could you please tell me where to avoid getting hold of any psilocybe mycelium? Just to be sure.” – so far, I’ve luckily avoided that pitfall myself. Poor Richard Owen has a problem in the offing – “A friend is very grateful to you for HHH n. He recently spent a lot of time researching at the library in Swansea University but to no avail – unfortunately, I’m the one who’ll have to look after him”.

Mark Stevens – “Please put me on the letters page, I’ve seen Robert de Niro’s left testicle”.

No bother at all, Mark. Next.

Paul Mallinson – “Boo! No mention in the letters page!…Maybe next time. Jim?!”.

Maybe, maybe not. Oh, alright then – go ahead!

EM – “On the whole, I enjoyed the Splatterfest – not because of the films (although ‘Rabid Grannies’ was marvellous), mainly because of the atmosphere and getting the chance to meet all the people I’ve been writing to… Well said on ‘The Comic’…Sure, it was well out of place at the event but all the shouting did was to deny us the chance of seeing their other film on offer which could have been much better”. Every festival has it’s dick-heads – Splatterfest just had more than most it seems.

The Sybil Denning piece was enjoyed/appreciated, tho’ maybe those that didn’t just kept quiet rather than risk the wrath of SD. who naturally pops round to collect her copy in person… Several people spotted that ‘Your Sister is a Werewolf’ is an alternate title for ‘The Howling II’ and Tony Lee adds “you forgot her guest appearance as a prison bitch, beating up Heather Thomas in TV’s ‘The Fall Guy! (No I’m not kidding)”. Not forgot, Tony just haven’t seen – I’m sure it’s pretty unforgettable!

Simon Wood – “TC5 was jolly interesting, with my only gripe being the fact that you got my name wrong in the letters page. Simon Owen? Who he?” [Guilty. m’lud – probably something to do with him residing at Owen Court. I expect.] Tell Stuart Adamson of R.A.D. (letters, TC5) there is another band who would dispute the ‘fastest band on earth’ tag. The Anal C*nts started out by putting out a single (7″) which contains 88 songs and their latest 7″ single has a total of over 5.000 (!!!!) songs on it!!!”.

More one-upmanship comes from Paul Higson –

“I sat alone in a cinema studio for the last day of a two week run of ‘Videodrome’. The usherette didn’t bother coming down with the tray, she just called out ‘Do you want any ices?” from the door”.

The only way we can take this further is to find someone working at a cinema who knows of a showing when no-one turned up!

Several readers kindly told me about Pop Will Eat Itself and their unofficial World Cup Single. ‘Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina’. I was very disappointed they wimped out and failed to include Ms. Staller when they were on ‘Top of the Pops’ as they claimed they wanted – even the video had a fake Cicciolina and about two stills of her. Far better to watch The Late Show’, which had a piece on an Italian art exhibition where one of the exhibits was a double life-size sculpture of her and the artist making love, surrounded by photos of them. This is Art, so it was alright to show the sort of things the BBFC would frown on… Glyn Williams speculates on the possibilities:

“One can only hope that Maggie. by the next election, is in such desperate straits that she will feel it is necessary to stand on the back of a lorry lifting her skirt and opening her blouse to gain attention”.

Not sure ‘hope’ is the word I’d use, Glyn – it will be interesting to see if Glenda Jackson. a lady not averse to removing her clothes for Ken Russell. tries something similar. When I write 80% of a paragraph, I know it’s time to stop! All letters are read avidly and you will get a reply, though given the time spent watching the World Cup. it might take a while to clear the backlog…