(Sound: Only background noises. No FX.)

• WIDE AERIAL SHOT: Car park bathed in sunshine from bright blue sky. Pale blue open ’65 Ford wafts towards toll booth, gently comes to halt.
• CLOSEUP, GROUND LEVEL: White-haired single male occupant pays attendant (out of shot). Car moves forward.
• RETURN TO AERIAL & PAN: Drives between rows of similar Detroit Americans. Goes directly to empty slot. Stops. Gent in perfect Worsted-Tex suit gets out.
• CLOSE ON DOOR: Door clicks shut under firm hand.
• OVER SHOULDER: Enters empty phone booth. Searches for a while without bending down. Pulls miniature reel-to-reel tape deck and A4 envelope from under desk.
• CLOSEUP HAND: Presses PLAY and opens envelope, fans b/w photos for camera (PROPS : head/shoulders guerilla leaders)
• CLOSE UP SPINNING TAPE REELS FOR DURATION OF VOICE VOICE (featureless baritone, mid-Atlantic accent): “Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to discover the number of Colonel Fernandez’s Swiss bank account before election day. As usual, should you, or any member of IMF be caught or captured, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in ten seconds. Good luck, Jim…”

An incredible 171 fifty-minute episodes of this television series were made between 1966 and 1972. Quite how it has missed the award of cult status I don’t know, but when I asked around for info on it, the reply was “What? That crap TV series?”. So how could a program which always repeated the same great opening line, followed through with an ingenious and dedicated crew of specialists fighting subversive elements (and always winning out) be, in my opinion, such quality trash?

ACTING – NONE. Perfectly dressed and shaven, driving clean cars (slowly), facial expressions kept to a minimum. Perhaps a hint of a knowing smile on Jim Phelp’s (played by Peter Graves) face the only concession to acting. Leonard Nimoy, as Paris, is perfectly at home here!

UNDERLYING MESSAGES – NONE. It could easily have been used to reinforce the triumph of American ‘values’ and ‘freedom’ over inferior citizens of banana republics and Balkan states. Most of the bad guys stole nuclear secrets, embezzled the funds of some poor third world nation, or rigged elections. Fair game really!

PLOTS – LUDICROUS. I mean, honestly, convincing an enemy agent that he has slept for three years and failed his mission (“Operation Rogosh”), convincing a nuclear scientist that it is now the year 2000 to learn where he hid dome plutonium (“Two Thousand”) or that World War III has started (“The Numbers Game”) do stretch credibility just a little bit. My fave concerns putting a maritime criminal into a submarine mockup and pretending the war is still on (including making him look 30 years younger) and that they are all about to be killed when the sub is depth-charged. One by one the IMF team leave by the torpedo tubes or hatches and walk to a waiting car. The guy cracks!

STARS – William Shatner, Robert Reed (star of “The Brady Bunch”), Roddy McDowall (“Fright Night”) and, of course, Leonard Nimoy (his first major part after “Star Trek”).

TRADEMARKS – Safebreaking, impersonation, electrical wizardry and split second timing. How about breaking in from BEHIND a safe to fit a false back, alerting the guard to open the safe while being watched by a remote camera to record the combination, and, when the General turns up to investigate the apparent theft, ensuring that his superiors arrive simultaneously, the combination is now in his drawer and the contents have returned to the safe. So you can’t catch him embezzling money, but for a frame-up that no court would believe, the IMF never fails! Throw in a perfect vocal impersonator (Rollin’ Hand, played by Martin Landau), rubber masks that instantly transform his face into that of anyone else, an electronics expert, Barney (Greg Morris) and a selection of 60’s beauties (Barbara Bain, Lesley Warren) and you have a Mission Impossible.

MUSIC – The music just has to be my favourite of the TV themes; the tense alarm-like ringing, confident brass and wickedly hooky achromatic melody are combined to perfection (it says here). Do check out the James Taylor Quartet EP “Mission Impossible” for the worst rendition of this (or indeed any) TV theme I have ever heard. Well rehearsed? Get outta here!

All in all then, a fabulous escapist series that somehow managed to pull off the most far-fetched plots, stretch the credibility of the viewer while keeping tongue planted firmly in cheek. Perhaps the fact it was entirely free of car chases, gun battles, helpless blondes and the standard devices of other TV series didn’t help!

I never cease to be impressed with the quality of virtually all the amateur publications and fanzines that I’ve been sent. I think, to a large extent, it’s to do with the enthusiasm for their subjects that they all show. Hack writers are paid for what they do, and tend not to care as much as people who do it for the fun that get from it – this comes through in a lot of the writing, even if the presentation can be a bit naff! Here’s a selection that I’ve enjoyed most since last time :

BLEEDER’S DIGEST (22 pages A4, 50p) – Large format ‘zine with plenty to read, most of it on the more obscure subjects. However, it’s hard to give any sort of objective review of a ‘zine whose editor liked “Graveyard Shift”! Aaargh…

CREEPING UNKNOWN (28 pages A5, 50p) – One of the leading lights of the horror zine scene, having now reached Issue 9. Report on Black Sunday, lots of reviews, film news and an interview with Clive Barker. Solid stuff, some nifty illos.

DEATH BANE (28 pages A5, 100p) – This is quite an excellent magazine, by far the best on the market. It is of course pure coincidence that the editor lives a mile from me and has threatened dire reprisals in the event of a bad review… Sleazy, lots of bad quailty pics (nice fold-out centre tho’), manic style.

FIEND (6 pages A4, 10p) and SQUIRM (4 pages A4, 5p) – What were you doing when you were 15? No, APART from that! Mark Stevens is editing these two ‘zines, the former about horror films (tsk, tsk – 18 certificates??), the latter literature. The price (or lack) offsets the lack of experience.

GORE GAZETTE (7 pages A5, ???) – Nearly all reviews in this one, with a certain abrasive style that appeals to me. American in origin, which is both good (you get warning of films to watch out for when they come across here) and bad ( too many obscurist Ameri-references).

IMAGINATOR (40 pages A4, 60p) – Probably the best ‘zine in terms of value for money, on the market today. Well printed, with some of the best illustrations I’ve seen, it’s pretty difficult to find other than minor faults.

PRISONERS OF WAR (48 pages A5, 50p) – Not a filmzine, but continues serenely on, having published more issues, and of a better quality than most too. Should be required reading for all ‘zine editors to give them something to aim for.

• BLEEDER’S DIGEST – Paul Higson, 63 Geoffrey St, Chorley, Lancs, PR6 0HF.
• CREEPING UNKNOWN – Nick & Cath, 29 Westland Ave, HUCKNALL, Nottingham NG15 6FN.
• DEATH BANE – Just, 77 Crystal Palace Park Road, LONDON, SE26 6UT.
• FIEND/SQUIRM – Mark Stevens, 141 Montague Rd, BILTON, Rugby, Warwickshire CV22 6LQ.
• GORE GAZETTE – Try Stefan Kwiatkowski, 2A The Mount, Erdington, Birmingham B23 7NG.
• IMAGINATON – Ken Miller, Brands House, Kingshill Road, Four Ashes, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP13 5BB.
• PRISONERS OF WAR – Wallace Nicoll, 48 Broughton Ave, Glasgow, G52 3RU.

Slightly different format this time, as we concentrate on some peculiarly nasty accidents that people have managed to survive and give a special round of applause to the careless people who have proven beyond all shadow of doubt that they are not vampires…

Or maybe the pictures accompanying this article demonstrate that jumbo tooth-picks can damage your health if used incorrectly. The first gentleman shown was in the front passenger seat of a taxi when it pulled out to overtake a trailer carrying tree trunks, some sharpened into stakes. Unfortunately, there was a lorry coming and the taxi driver had to swerve back, straight into the back of the trailer… One of his lungs collapsed, though miraculously the stake had missed all major arteries and organs and had acted like a swab to prevent the bleeding. Three weeks later he was back at work.

Given earlier caustic comments about it, I ought to mention that this story, too, comes from the News of the World. However, the sheer POINTLESSNESS of making it up and faking the piccie encourages me to believe that it was that week’s grain of truth.

No such doubts about the spear-gun in the head picture (a bonus point for each film you can name to use one as an ABOVE sea-level weapon!), which appeared in several papers over Easter. The imbecile was trying to load the gun by pressing on the spear with the end of a can when it went off. He was rushed to hospital with five foot of metal sticking out of his head and a fair bit inside – miraculously, he is expected to make an almost full recovery. Reports that he now enjoys listening to Kylie Minogue have been denied…

Chainsaws. There, that made you sit up. How about “Man Cuts Throat with Chainsaw and Lives”? Forthman Murff, 74, was cutting wood near his home in Mississippi when a large branch fell from a tree and knocked him into a ditch on top of the chainsaw he was using. It severed his windpipe, most of the neck muscles and three major blood vessels, leaving only his spine and carotid artery intact. Astonishingly, he crawled to his truck and drove several miles to a neighbour’s who then took him to the nearest hospital, a further hour away. The blood for the cut veins was pouring into his lungs all the time which meant that every so often, he had to stop, hold his head way over and let the blood run out of his lungs. “I knew I had to get the blood out so I could breathe”, said Murff later. “The Lord left me here for a reason and I can tell you that it wasn’t to chase widow women”.

Room now for a brief sweep through some odd stories from the Weekly World News; I think we’ll start off with a few more messy ones:

BARBER SNEEZES – AND SLITS CUSTOMER’S THROAT.

KILLER WHO ATE GIRL GOES FREE

A truly international one this. Japanese student of literature in Paris, shot his Dutch girlfriend after she rejected him. Then he “flayed Renee’s flesh into long, thin strips, stopping from time to time to photo- graph hos horrible handiwork”. This was back in 1981 – he spent three years in a French jail, five more in a Japanese insane asylum, and is now “a changed man”.

HEALTH FOOD NUT EATS SO MUCH FIBER – HIS STOMACH EXPLODES!

“It was an awful sight” according to the policeman who found him. “There was blood and half-digested food splattered all over the room”. Doctors speculated that his intestines somehow became blocked. As he continued to eat high fiber foods, his stomach got bigger and bigger until it popped.

ANIMAL LOVERS OUTRAGED AT HORSE – THAT EATS CATS!

FLY LAYS EGGS IN WOMANS’S THROAT!

A 38-year old woman who accidentally swallowed a floy almost choked to death after it laid eggs in her throat and clogged it with maggots. Dr. Okulov, in a letter to the Soviet journal “Pathology” said he removed the equivalent of a heaped tablespoonful of squirming maggots from the woman’s oesophagus.

SPACE SHUTTLE ATTACKED BY 200-FT. UFO!

“Bug-eyed aliens invaded Discovery and terrified crew” is how this one starts. The WWN gets this story from “a respected London newspaper” with a circulation of 1.3 million (it’s the Daily Star, in case you were wondering), based on a tape of an exchange between Houston and Discovery. An astronaut supposedly says “Houston, we have a fire” – “fire”, it seems, is a code word for a UFO…

ATLANTIS FOUND ON MOON!

Well, makes a change from World War II bombers, Hitler, Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe, I suppose.

WARNING SHOT KILLS 2 PEOPLE

Not, oddly enough, in Peking…

KARATE FANATIC TAKES ON 4 LIONS – AND IS EATEN ALIVE!

“All that remained of the man were his black karate pants and belt, his head, his shoulders, and portions of his arms, one hand and one leg.”

EVIL STEPMOM GIVES TOT BOILING WATER ENEMA

There’s sick and there’s sick; however, this beats the lot. Perhaps she should have given one to the exploding health-freak?

A quick flick through the pages of Screen International’s special Cannes edition reveals several films, in various stages of completion, that might be of interest. Most of the main ones are sequels, following in the current American trend of “It worked last time” (not to be confused with “Let’s catch this passing band-wagon”, last seen going past the prison on the way to the sea bottom). First up, and most promisingly, we have “Highlander 2020” (what happened to numbers 2 to 2019, I hear you cry?). At least it’s directed by Russell Mulcahy and starring Christopher Lambert again; hopefully Queen won’t be available to provide the music. Secondly, and winner of the ‘Better Late than Never’ prize, we have “Scanners II – The New Generation”. David Cronenberg won’t be seen anywhere near this, it does at least have the same producers.

Next up, and most worrying of the lot – what do you reckon is THE successful horror pic, dearly beloved by the fans, yet unsullied by a crap follow-up? Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for “Re-Animator II – The Sequel”. Brian Yuzna moves over from producing to directing this one, and no Jeffrey Coombs either. Another Charles Band-ish sequel is “Trancers II” – Jack Deth returns in this follow up to Kim Newman’s fave B-movie of the 80’s. Whaddya mean, you hadn’t seen “Trancers” till it was on TV? As for ‘Films you hoped never to hear of again’, how about “Graveyard Shift II – The Understudy”. At least that’s one that can’t possibly be any worse than the original.

Nice to see Gerard Kikoine getting another film to direct after “Edge of Sanity” (see elsewhere). This time, it’s Edgar Allen Poe’s “Buried Alive” starring Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasance – hopefully with more Madonna clones being slaughtered. In pre-productiom, we have Stuart Gordon’s version of another Poe story, “The Pit & the Pendulum”, which should include Peter O’Toole and Jeffrey Coombs. Beginning principal photography in the autumn, there’s “Night of the Living Dead”. Yep, that’s right – directed by Tom Savini this time, from a screenplay by George Romero based on the 1968 ‘classic’. Michael Winner has found time, between sponsoring the Guardian Angels, to plan “Bullseye”, written by Leslie Bricusse (he was responsible for “Sherlock Holmes – the Musical”). Stars Roger Moore & Michael Caine, starts filming in October. Going against what I’d heard elsewhere, Peter “Bad Taste” Jackson’s next production isn’t “Brain Dead” at all, but a “scandalous ‘spluppet’ saga” called “Meet the Feebles”.

Finally, there are always a couple of strange titles to be found – the best ones I could see were “Mutant [sic] on the Bounty” and “Revenge of the Radioactive Reporter”, though on past performance (“Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama” becoming “The Imp”), who knows what titles they’ll be playing under by the time they reach our shores!

The night was an excitement vacuum.

I pulled up the collar on my trenchcoat to exclude a greater part of the winter chill. Also because it looked real mean in the shop window across the street. So there I was, sucking the end of this pen, which would have been OK had I been the first person to do so. It was the kind of pen that runs out when you’re writing important cheques for impressive people and it’s previous owner was clearly the kind who leaves two million personalized Biros as a legacy. But then, who cares? You leave your mark, where is not important…

Anyway, I was still there, in the neon glitter and the Mazda glare, washed up above the city’s tidal restlessness and questions were forming themselves in my mind. Kinda irritating questions. The kind that grab your foot when you kick them. Questions like why most people trade their dreams in for security. Why nothing makes sense when you look at it hard enough. And why I couldn’t get the cling wrap off Travellers Fare sandwiches in under a minute.

Ghandi, when asked about Western civilization, replied that it would be a good idea. Nice turn of phrase, but this close to the ground it was alive and kicking, you could hear it breathe, and read it’s droppings. It had a heartbeat too, the kinda slowed down sound you hear on Hammer horror film soundtracks as Dracula creeps up on the girl. Or at least, the cameraman does.

I rifled through the absurdly large number of pockets in my trenchcoat, seemingly designed so that whatever you leaned against or sat on coincided with some lumpy object secreted beneath, looking for a pen to chew, when I realised that really big inside pocket was designed for a Filofax. Somehow, I figured that the average private investigator would rather walk around with his trousers rolled up than carry a personal organiser.

I reckoned that the more you classified, pigeon holed, timetabled and generally scheduled your life, the less you lived it, the more of a passenger you became in your own existence and the less likely you were to actually spot any patterns, any outline to the big picture. That would, I guess, be a nice theory if the obverse were true, but it would be like saying that because BR trains always seem to be late it would be a good idea to turn up late to catch them.

Thankfully, I was rescued from that train of thought by the girl in the short leather skirt I had been tracking walk down the street to her car. Her body reminded me of the Porsche 911, whose curves seemed to be a triumph of form over function. Not exactly Nietzche, but exactly nice. She was hotter than leather underwear, more provocative than Cadbury’s and it wasn’t difficult to see why. Hobbling was sexy.

But which car was hers? It was not the BMW, that much was certain. After a decade and a half of relentless marketing, a BMW gives off very safe aromas. It’s drivers inhabit a world of ski holidays and dry cleaners. The pleats and folds perfectly complement the executive suit.

She got into the BMW. Good name for a band that, Blue Mercedes, smooth and sensual, the dolphin of the automotive zoo. All I needed to know was how dolphins give birth underwater or for that matter why all the lightbulbs I replaced said “Woolworths” on them. As she drove off in a car that holds the line like a yuppie with a straw up his nose and sticks to the road like eggs on a supermarket shelf, I was left with an itch I couldn’t scratch. I may have more flaws than the Empire State, but something was telling lies, and I didn’t mean the hands on my Timex.

But what I couldn’t see was how images differed from reality. If instant coffee sex, spring-fresh (what?) fabric softener and pension plans were real then there was no distinction, and it won’t be long before cars are sold in supermarkets next to microwave ovens, probably with modular interiors by brand names like Benetton, Next, Levi’s. Reality was no better, as that guy who paid a prostitute to stand naked on the other side of the room while he threw cellophane wrapped kippers at her would surely agree. Something round here smelt mighty fishy.

If the battle for our minds was being fought in the videodrome, where the spectator is inside the arena, then who was fighting the contest and whose side was trash on?

Perhaps trash set out to peddle an aesthetic, a notion that the colourful, the cheery flux of symbolism (guns, stars & stripes, peroxide) represented a victory over the grey, the product marketing world where you are what you drive because you drive what you are. Trouble was, that the high impact multi-sensory overload / multi media infiltration ended up functioning blankly, without recourse to discourse, no statement of intent and no hairs in the bath. I reckoned what I needed was a drink. I also reckoned that a nation of kids consuming other people’s technicolour imaginations was one hell of a timebomb.

The girl in the leather skirt, now I had time for her. A friend of mine said once that she wanted the kind of guy who looks like he has just got out of prison, and has a lot of catching up to do. I replied that I wanted the kind of girl that would get you IN prison.

The guy who approached with a puzzled expression on his face was looking for something too. He was looking for his car.