What a tumultuous couple of months for our country: in roughly ascending order of importance, Thatcher lost her job, Arsenal got docked two points and TC caught up most of the slippage we’d lost over the past year. Things won’t be the same without Mrs.T, it has to be said (they’ll be a bloody sight better!) – the last time we had any other PM, I’d just turned 13 and politics was the adult equivalent of football, you supported a party in much the same way you did a football team (ask my sister, who still remembers me scrawling ‘SNP’ over her possessions when I was ten or so!). Meanwhile, the Football Association redefined justice to mean making the punishment hit those who are least guilty – the fans, who have fought less off the pitch than the players have on it. Still, it’s a funny old game, innit Saint?

So, about two months after last time, TC8. This assumes everything goes to plan – there is a very precise schedule which means I hand it into the printer and then head off home for two weeks, leaving Per to collect and stuff them into the envelopes I’ll have left behind (you’ll probably see the finished issue before I do!). If there’s any slippage (which is possible – I’m writing this on Saturday 15th December, it’s due to go into the printers on Monday and there are lots of pages I haven’t even seen yet!), things start to get hideously complex. Having four weeks fewer than normal means less time to check spellings, etc so apologies for any typos. Similarly, apologies to all the people who’ve written recently, you’ll get replies once I’ve worked through the huge backlog of movies awaiting my attention. The bag I’m taking home is crammed full of tapes, and that’s discounting all the films on TV over Xmas – highlights for me are C4’s Chinese Ghost season, Jean de Florette/Manon des Source and Daughters of Darkness. I’m taking two weeks off to rest, recuperate and lie slumped in front of the TV eating brandy butter with a spoon. Which is, after all, what the festive season is all about, isn’t it? [16/12/90: Steve’s comics piece has appeared – something of a relief! However, it’s not quite correct to claim there have been no Kinski comics as I’ve got a German photo-comic adaption of ‘Tess’ – such is the lot of the obscurist obsessive…]

No festival reviews this time, and there probably won’t be any in future. Endless repetitions of “We arrived at X and joined the queue…” were getting tedious to write and probably to read. Also, I wouldn’t waste any room on ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ or ‘Never Cry Devil’ in the normal run of things, so I don’t see why I should do just because they were seen as part of a marathon session. The best & most interesting films will still be reported in Film Blitz, so you can work out which fest’s best, and other odd happenings may get reported, but the days of four-page articles are gone.

The Revco concert cancelled from earlier this year (see TC7’s editorial) has been re-arranged for January 4th so a report on it will appear in TC9. My sense of self-preservation is telling me to stand at the back in case they try and drive livestock into the audience again. I think I’ll listen. TC9 should be ready about the end of March or the beginning of April and promises to kick-ass in a number of as yet uncertain ways, but you’ll see what I mean when it appears. About the only thing I can predict is that it will contain a piece on the ten greatest shower scenes in cinema history, apart from the obvious one!

TC7 was available in Forbidden Planet, London and Cardiff, Psychotronic Videos, London and Artware of Germany. Apologies to D.F.Lewis for breaking the habit of TC’s lifetime and not having one of his stories in this issue: next time, Des! Thanks to Spencer “T-shirts” Hickman, Paul “Sexy Dozen” Higson, Damien “No FP, no comment” Drake, Paul “Chained Heat” Mallinson, Anthony “The Face” Cawood, Steve “Zombie ’90” Aquilino, S.C.Dacy (our not-so-secret agent!), Stefan “JCFC” Kwiatkowski, George “Legend” Houston and the highly animated Dave Bevan!