If you were alive during the 1980’s, you must have heard of them. They were the lone voice from the rear end of the stifled Punk era, both indomitable and incorruptible by the conspiratorial masses of conformist manipulators. He was their driving frontman, navigating their route, unafraid to yell. It’s been quite a few years since the Dead Kennedys disbanded, but lead singer/lyricist/writer Jello Biafra is still the untamed wildman of the US alternative music scene.

The name Biafra first scalded the lips of his fellow San Franciscans back in 1977, when he ran for mayor of that city. The reason? A practical joke, of course – what better reason to run for office?! Among the many novel ideas that constituted his platform were intentions to: legalise squatting in buildings left vacant for tax write-off reasons; create a legal board of bribery; pass a regulation that all downtown business-men wear clown suits from 9 to 5; and insist that police officers run for election every four years, voted in by the people they patrol. All of which provide some early indicators as to his leanings.

And, as the SF mayoral campaign dictates, all candidates get equal air time on TV. So you can imagine how the audience got plenty of chuckles with Jello’s constructive satire. Actually, he came in 4th place, out of ten, giving the supposedly ‘serious’ candidates a much need kick up the ass.

However, 1980 was the year that the Dead Kennedys gave America some vital victuals with their first album, “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”. A classic of socio-political hardcore protein, served up in a suppository of thrash/punk attitude, creating the ideal vehicle for their intravenous venom. Titles like ‘Kill the Poor’, ‘California Uber Alles’, ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ and the infamously-banned-by-the-Beeb, ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’, gave a breath of Amethyl Nitrate to a slowly decaying scene and elevated the Kennedys to the status of mythical icons in the underground halls of glory as well as a place on Reagan’s subversive list! While retaining the attitude of punk, their successive albums transcended the limits imposed, while Biafra’s lyrics introduced wider topics to the arc-light of their ethos and vision. Little escaped the glare.

It was 1983 though, when their ‘Frankenchrist’ album incurred the wrath of the Parents Music Resource Centre – a group of ultra-right wing wives of Washington Senators, banding together to wipe the collective asses of “unclean” music. The controversy was over a poster by H.R.Giger, given away with the record. Commonly known as ‘Penis Landscape’, the prosecutor of the band (for breaching the obscenity laws) described it as “Ten erect penises entering rotting vaginal cavities”.

The trial gained nationwide coverage as it was revealed that the PMRC were choosing a ‘soft’ target to prosecute, as a test case, thus opening the door for multiple prosecutions at their whim. Chief members of the PMRC include Tipper Gore (who, as mentioned in a previous TC, allegedly caught her daughter “doing things” while listening to a Prince song) and Susan Baker, wife of Secretary of State James (she is on record as saying “God really calls me to be his instrument”. Comments welcome). Of course, this much publicised moral crusade did little to harm the reps of the husbands.

It was now that the Dead Kennedys set up the famous ‘No More Censorship’ fund and with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, they won, partly by showing how unconstitutional the censorship campaign was. But, while proving their mettle, the damage had been done. They disbanded, after releasing a swan-song album in ’85, “Bedtime for Democracy”, though a compilation followed, proving that you can’t keep good satire down.

But what was it that made them so effective? The strength lay in their Art (and make no mistake, that’s what it was), commitment and ability. Biafra took phenomena offensive to human rights in general and manifests the cancer for all to see clearly, with his unique rhetoric and style. He ‘assumes’ the blatant face of the offending party, be they censors, corrupt politicians, cheesy musician hacks, religious nuts, dictators, or just callous money grubfucks. He then personifies and lampoons them, showing their true parisitical faces in the process, the antithesis of those who’d rather remain nameless for increased efficiency.

The Kennedy’s may have disbanded, but Biafra’s voice is still with us.

Recently, he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, in the defence of musical freedom, pitted against Mrs. Gore. Events spoke for themselves. He, smartly dressed in a suit, well-spoken and of obvious intelligence, maintained a rational air, as opposed to Tipper’s ranting, maniacal zealot dictator attitude. He was a perfect ambassador, more than a match for her, especially when he revealed on live, prime-time TV that she had just categorically lied to the audience.

If you want more info, write to: Alternative Tentacles Records, 64 Mountgrove Road, London N5 2LT. Send an SAE. Can you afford not to hear his message, in this conspiratorial world? Guaranteed 100% better value than David Icke!

Ten days in California had vaccinated me against most forms of weirdness but virtually the first person in San Francisco we spoke to reminded us just how different a place this was. Steve and I went up to the reception in a perfectly normal, recommended tourist hotel and I asked for a room. Only in San Franciso could the reply possibly be “Will that be a double bed or two singles?”.

Having affirmed our heterosexuality, we discovered the hotel was down near the waterfront, possibly the most schlock-filled area of land I’ve ever seen, culminating in Pier 41, a bizarre mutant offspring of Covent Garden and Carnaby Street with all the fake neo-historical charm of a restaged medieval banquet. Still, they had an NFL shop, where I finally managed to get a Minnesota Vikings shirt – never seen over here because Vikings fans aren’t exactly numerous (like I’ve never met another one!) – so I was happy. Once again, we bumped into that nightmarish creature, sales tax, by which a similarly arbitrary percentage is added to all prices after they’ve been totted up at the check-out. A bit like secret VAT, it provoked much embarrassing fumbling in pockets for additional dollars.

The evening was spent in another “English pub”, though this was actually an Irish one, and was slightly better i.e. the Guinness was treated with the respect it deserves. One major difference between Britain and California drinking houses, that took a while to sink in, is that American bars don’t have any one-armed bandits – gambling being more or less illegal. With no fruit machines or quiz games to distract with the lure of money, we ended up playing darts, while watching baseball on the TV, which was definitely surreal.

It’s always comforting to realise that some things are the same across the world. the Blockbuster Video store is one of these; we popped into one on the way home and were comforted to discover the same, sanitised decor, the same inanely grinning staff, and the same 500-copies-of-Home-Alone-and-nothing-much-else contents.

We only had one full day in San Francisco, and we started off by going to Alcatraz, the notorious “escape-proof” penal establishment. It was actually only a jail for about 30 years, from the mid 30’s to the mid 60’s, but it’s still probably the most famous prison in the world. Some of the stories that have grown up round it are myths – the “Birdman of Alcatraz”, Robert Stroud, never had any birds during his time in Alcatraz – but sometimes the truth is pretty weird. It was the only Federal jail where the inmates had compulsory hot showers. This was to prevent them from getting used to cold water – a necessary prerequisite of any attempt to swim to the mainland.

San Franciso is indeed notably cooler than other parts of California. When we left San Jose, most of our luggage stayed there as we’d be coming back for the flight to LA -having suffered four days of 90 degree heat, I left all my jerseys behind, only to find that in the forty miles between San Jose and San Francisco the temperature drops about 30 degrees. As well as chilly, Frisco’s also hilly, probably even more so than it looks on TV. If you get tired walking round it, you can always lean against it.

We’d noticed in the paper that ‘A Chinese Ghost Story III’ was showing, so decided that might be worth a trip. However, on the way to the cinema, we passed another Chinese theatre – “Hang on”, I said, “that looks like Chow Yun Fat”. It was. Four films and eight hours later, having set a new personal best for amount of fu seen in a day, we staggered home, pausing only to leap in front of cars, fling each other out of windows and fly through the air in defiance of most of the laws of physics.

Despite clinging to every day with the enthusiasm of a drowning man to a liferaft, the final couple of days slid away like a handful of blancmange. We drifted back to Los Angeles and spent the final afternoon on the beach, which was almost deserted – so much for beach culture. Actually, I had been slightly disappointed with the cutie-pie quotient: while there were some stunners, I found teeth, tan & tits tended to tediousness after a while, though San Francisco’s Chinatown had me in a state of almost permanent dribble. I suspect it didn’t help that we managed to totally miss the weekends (two spent travelling, one at Animecon) – we did get to the beach, but it might have been the Gobi Desert for all the life on view, cute or otherwise.

Our journey home didn’t start well. We got to the airport in plenty of time and joined the queue to check in, only to find Ilsa, She-Wolf of the Departure Lounge there again, “organising” things. This meant the dumb jerks who turned up half an hour before their flight was due to leave, totally ignoring the two hours before flight check-in rule, got to go to the front of the queue. Now, a 16-hour flight would be sufficient to try the patience of a saint. The patience of a short-tempered, sarcasm-prone Scotsman was therefore no contest, especially after two weeks of nothing to whine about. I really hit my stride when we discovered our flight was cancelled. Even the “T.W.A. tea” jokes got the dust blown off them. However, they shifted us onto another flight to St.Louis (from where our plane was now starting) and even upgraded our seats from “Scummy, penny-pinching cheapo” to “flying on expenses, so who gives a damn” class. The major benefit of this was cuter hostesses.

The rest of the flight back wasn’t bad despite the efforts of a mother and brats in the next row to make it hell. The kids were just about bearable, it was the mother’s fondness for carrying out shouted conversations across the width of the plane that had me dreaming of a world where families on aircraft have a special place. Specifically, hanging just behind the engine, toasting gently like giant marsh-mallows.

Gatwick Airport, 8 am. Customs. My first trip through the red channel. You are permitted to take back a massive £32 of goods from America. I had somewhere over £500. Standing in the queue of people with something to declare, watching the person ahead getting thoroughly searched, I knew I was safe because I didn’t have anything dodgy in my luggage. (Well, not that dodgy – sub-sub-ed)

After getting through the red channel unscathed despite difficulty in signing the credit card slip because my hands were shaking, and a brief pause to sacrifice a couple of virgins to the Goddess-who-protects-from-Customs, it was back to Britain. There was nothing left of the holiday except a dose of jet-lag, which had me waking up at 3 am, and doing some ironing because I couldn’t sleep. It had been exhausting. It had been terminally destructive to my credit card. It had been the least restful holiday I’ve ever had. Yet within days of returning to the UK, I was certain that summer 1992 would see me once again travelling to the place where “bad” means “good”, and good is being about as weird as you can get!

Post-script – Six months on and life has almost returned to normal, save an inability to tolerate the concentrated muck that passes for orange juice here. But I get odd flashbacks, every now and again. Standing in Tower Records, holding a couple of American magazines, I suddenly found myself thinking “Damn! There’ll be 7.5% California state sales tax on top!”. While this may be true in their Los Angeles branch, it doesn’t apply to the one at Piccadilly Circus. But I can only assume the salesgirl had been on holiday too, as she casually added up the American cover prices and said to me, “That’ll be six dollars ninety please”…

I’ve thought for a long time that “action” actresses in particular have had a very raw deal when it comes to recognition of their efforts. There are exceptions – Sigourney Weaver in ‘Alien/s/3’ – but the vast majority never get a mention. So, in answer to the millions of miles of paper used to repeat the same details over and over again about Segal, Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, etc, here is a modest tribute to the fighting fairer sex.

The most obvious, and best, source of films featuring lethal ladies is the Far East where stars such as Yukari Oshima, Michelle & Cynthia Khan, Moon Lee and Michiko Nishiwaki all prove themselves capable of throwing a good punch. However, these are as much martial artistes who can act as the other way round, so let’s concentrate on their American counterparts, on actresses who’ve demonstrated varying levels of skill in combat…

Where else to start but with ‘California Dolls’? This is full of first class female wrestling, as Vicki Frederick and Laurene Landon fight their way from the bottom of the bill to become champions, though to earn some desperately needed money they have to take part in a mud wrestling bout, which becomes a topless match. Considering that Frederick and Landon are first and foremost actresses, the action looks pretty authentic.

This may be the most obvious and best known example, but the genre is much older – it can be considered to have begun with Marlene Dietrich, and her classic brawl with Una Merkel in ‘Destiny’. This is one of, if not the first, real female fight to appear in a major film, and is still thought to be one of the best.

One area that can virtually be relied upon to contain a good catfight is the women-in-prison film – ‘Chained Heat’, ‘The Naked Cage’, ‘Delinquent College Girls’, etc, etc. In ‘Hellhole’, for example, there’s quite a brutal fight between the statuesque Edy Williams (recently seen brawling in ‘Bad Girls From Mars’) and Ann-Elizabeth Chatterton. Now, as it takes place in a room adjoining the showers, you won’t be surprised to hear that Edy is topless, and Ann-Elizabeth starts in bra and pants, though the former goes about two seconds into the bout. Rather than a scratch-and­bite catfight, both actresses swing punches like men – one right cross from Williams sends Chatterton backwards over a table – and the pair briefly team up to deal with a hefty nurse who tries to stop the fight.

Almost as entertaining to watch, though for sheer awfulness, are the more badly staged fights, Take ‘The Wrecking Crew’, one of the Matt Helm spoof series, which had a fight between the late Sharon Tate and Nancy Kwan. It is very obvious that the kicks and punches miss by miles, as are the points where the stuntwoman took over for Tate (though Kwan does appear to do her own action). Just as bad/good for different reasons is the battle in the ‘Men from UNCLE’ film ‘The Spy in the Green Hat’, featuring the lovely Janet Leigh against Letitia Roman, and mostly taking place in a large office on top of a huge round glass table. It starts as a knife fight, though the knives are lost, without actually being used, in the first five seconds. After some rolling around the table top, we see the two girls going round on hands and knees, glaring at each other, while the camera alternately goes down Roman’s (impressive) cleavage and lingers on Leigh’s long legs (shown to full advantage by her hiked up skirt). They finally get to their feet and clasp hands in a show of strength before one breaks the hold and knocks the other out with a right uppercut.

I won’t spoil the film by revealing who wins…

There are a couple of interesting gaps in the field. While Sybil Danning may be the Queen of Action Films, I can’t remember having seen her in a cat-fight. And British films are conspicuous by their absence, though I understand that, a few years ago, there was a comedy, possibly featuring Mike & Bernie Winters (a “comedy” in it’s loosest definition, obviously) – with a lovely leading lady of the time, Anne Aubrey. I’m told there was a “sensational” catfight in a laundry, with numerous other battles going on in the background. Everyone got soaked and a lot of clothing was shed, but can anyone come up with any details? Like the title?

Space is tight, and I haven’t even covered the fighting females of TV, including Joan Collins, Heather Thomas, Heather Locklear and Emma Samms ­maybe next time! But here’s ten more films you may care to keep a (black) eye open for:

• Deathstalker – Introduces the new pub sport of Gratuitous Mud Wrestling. The same footage was reused, equally gratuitously, in Deathstalker 2 & 3.
• Django – Two saloon girls fight in the ‘street’ (above), but since this is no more than the muddy bit between two rows of buildings, it all gets VERY messy.
• Eye of the Cat – An “oldie but goodie”. Gayle Hunnicutt and Jennifer Leak. As this is the swinging sixties, it’s mini-skirt time. Oh, and colour co-ordinated underwear was in vogue.
• Fresno – This American series was a parody of ‘Dallas’/’Dynasty’ and so naturally had to include a parody of the Linda Evans/Joan Collins cat­fights. Teri Garr, Valerie Mahaffey and some platefuls of baked beans…
• The Man Behind the Gun – not to be confused with ‘The Man Behind the Sun’, though that has a cat-fight too (in which the cat loses). This is a 1952 Western pitting Patrice Wymore (better known for musicals) against Lina Romay. Pan, chair and crockery-fu.
• Mugsy’s Girls – A mud wrestling contest provides the opportunity for a series of short fights. Worth noting, for the fact that one of the wrestlers is singer Laura Branigan.
• The Night They Took Miss Beautiful – Victoria Principal versus Sheree North, on a beach. Lots of decent moves, and a surprising lack of stand­ins given the actresses have a combined age of 76!
• Total Recall – If nothing else, probably the biggest budget catfight ever, between Sharon Stone and Rachael Ticotin.
• The Under Achievers – The fabulous Barbara Carrera tangles with Susan Tyrrell in one of the best (and longest) American cat-fights. The actresses play school officials and the battle goes through school corridors, class­rooms, walls and windows, then carries on outside. Played for laughs, but still very rough.

Jim McLennan begged me for months to write something for TC, and being a kind-hearted soul, I finally agreed to help out by doing the fanzine reviews, thereby making him the object of hatred for every ‘zine editor in the world. By the way, anyone interested in financing a film I have planned can get in touch with me via Jim at the editorial address. Basic plot involves lingerie models crashing in the jungle and being captured by lesbian Nazis…

Number four of Fantasynopsis sees an increase in size from **Jim??? [er, um, more than it was last time – Ed] and now boasts full colour front and back covers. This issue sees an interview with Dario Argento (yawn!) but makes up for this with a great interview with David McGillviray (who wrote some of Pete Walker’s best films), it’s usual mix of reviews and a colour poster of the ‘House of Whipcord’ video sleeve. Dark Star, now in it’s 5th year, caters for the SF fan – issue 8 covers the cult that’s built up round the ‘Princess Bride’, the making of ‘Hardware’, and also includes a three page peek at what’s coming soon in the world of fantasy films. With a glossy two-colour cover, editor Rob Dyer has produced a good read.

Andrew Featherstone, editor of Blood and Black Lace, has worried me ever since I saw him proudly tell the viewers of a C4 documentary that repeated viewing of Fulci’s ‘The New York Ripper’, hadn’t affected him at all. No surprise – you can kick a rock for ever and a day, but it won’t bleed… The ‘zine has had a facelift since No.1 and includes interviews with Dario Argento (Aaargh!) and Mariano ‘Caruncula’ Biano, and reviews ranging from ‘La Setta’ to ‘Spider Labyrinth’. Very nicely laid out, but for my money incredibly overpriced; word reaches me that Andrew now lives in America, so don’t hold your breath for the next issue. A fanzine packed with short story fiction and nothing else isn’t my cup of tea but Dementia 13 never fails to impress. Now up to issue 7 [in the millennia between giving Lino the ‘zines and getting this article, issue 8 appeared – Pam is broadening the ‘zine to include some non-fiction pieces – Ed], every issue has at least one or two good stories. Read ‘Rim’, and you’ll nail the toilet lid shut and start crapping into a bucket. It’s thick to boot, so very good value for money.

The first issue of Mentally Penetrated by an Acid Enema claws it’s way out of the mire, and while not up to the production standards of Samhain (so??), it’s full on interesting ‘bits’, from the start of a regular blaxsploitation review section and a real life murder page through to a review of ‘Munster, Go Home’. Great fun, though they could lose the cartoon strips. Max Della Mora’s excellent Gorezilla is always superb value for money with in-depth features and reviews. In past issues, Max has covered Italian horror comics, being a zabbadoing (I don’t know!) and anime – oh, and the occasional Godzilla mention. If you can find the first issue, it had a great interview with Joe D’Amato (or failing that buy the next Cold Sweat, which has an even better interview) [Oi! Any more of that and you’re history!].

Midnight in Hell is mostly made up of short stories, with the occasional interview. No.7 talks with Robert Rankin and also has an article by one Jim McLennan on, surprise, surprise, anime! [Now, that’s the sort of plug I can handle…] Overall, the stories are very entertaining, and I always enjoy seeing a fanzine with a cover that makes it embarrassing to read on the bus! Ah-so, Orient Express has some really nice articles but boasts some of the worst pictures ever drawn, I mean, have you seen the front cover? Pictures aside, issue two has articles on Jackie Chan, Godzilla and the Five Star Stories anime series, plus a letters page which contains a letter by one Jim McLennan [I think my shoes are quite clean enough now, Lino… – Ed]. Strange Adventures 34 (that’s 34!) really is a great read. Along with the usual reviews, it has a well-drawn comic strip (I hope the Orient Express crew are paying attention!) and a profile of Luc Besson. Tony Lee is to be commended for producing a great fanzine at a ridiculously cheap price. Buy one or else!

Horrorshow doesn’t pretend it wants to be the next Shock Express (bozo!), it’s just a six-page photocopied work of love, with some great ad mats, a book review and a review of ‘Confessions of a Pop Performer’. Nice and simple – just like me! I’ve only just discovered Mkultra, and I wish I’d caught up with it from issue one. Intelligently written, interesting, occasionally rambling in some of it’s articles, Mkultra has a very good future for itself. But don’t listen to me, order one and find out for yourself. Volume two, issue one has a four-page pulling apart of Romero’s “Dead” trilogy and an interview with Dario Argento (oh well, all for one…). Killer Kung-Fu Enema Nurses on Crack contains articles on the editor’s hassles (to put it mildly) with New Zealand Customs, and also has features about censorship and the all-important Killer Kung-Fu guide. Frightening reading, I thought the Kiwis were pretty laid back, but the horrible truth is that censorship reaches even ‘Bad Taste’ land. What the bloody hell Jim gave me Reefer Madness for, I’ll never know. 1,001 uses for a ‘pipe’, a double page spread consisting of badly drawn pictures of pipes, repros of comic strips to do with the evil weed, etc, etc – and they’re now up to issue six!! The whole idea makes me shudder…

Now, I think (along with 9/10 of the British male population, including Jim McLennan) that Traci Lords is pretty damned attractive. Steve Rag, editor, creator and writer of Nora K, thinks about nothing else, or so you would imagine by reading his ‘zine. Now up to his sixth issue, Steve takes us by the hand (not the sticky one) and leads us through the streets of Traci… (blimey, that Ralph McTell is good, isn’t he?) Everything you always wanted to know about Traci and more is explored in NK, including reviews of her films old and new. Even if you only buy it for the pictures, you have a bargain on your hands. However, I was very disappointed by the fact that it had no Dario Argento interview and, strangely, no letter from Jim McLennan [that’s your last warning, mate! – Ed]

The last word in fanzines, definitely the best fanzine in the whole world Creeping Unknown goes from strength to strength. It’s just received an Oscar for Best Fanzine and is being made into a mini-series by CBS in the States. The cherries on the top of the cake that is Creeping Unknown are the great, witty articles written by Lino – boy, can he write. I urge you all to steal money and buy a copy of Creeping Unknown…

…That’s it, game over! I wouldn’t have minded if there’d actually been an issue of CU to review!! Lucky I stopped him before he mentioned Film Extremes 2 that was at the Scala on May 31st] Apologies to those Lino hasn’t mentioned (maybe they should be grateful!): Invasion of the Sad, Man-Eating Mushrooms, Scareaphanalia and especially Magazines of the Movies, (a very impressive “Factsheet Five” type publication dealing with all manner of cinema-zines) are all worth getting. And there’s just space (if there isn’t, I’ll hack some chunks from Lino’s bit) to mention Mike Landers, who can get a whole lot of ‘Akira’ stuff, from T-shirts to cels, and the Film Extremes Video Collection, authorised dealers of some impressive Hong Kong films. SAE to both for details.

• Blood and Black Lace (£3) Box 1689, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts, CM23 5BW.
• Dark Star (£1.50) 64 Arthur Street,Gravesend, Kent, DA11 0PR.
• Dementia 13 (£1.75) Pam Creais,17 Pinewood Ave, Sidcup, Kent, DA15 8BB.
• Fantasynopsis (£2.50) 1 Bascraft Way,Godmanchester, Huntingdon,Cambs,PE18 8EG.
• Film Extremes, Box 409, London SE18 3DW
• Gorezilla ($5) Max Della Mora,Piazza Tripoli 7, 20146 Milano, Italy.
• Invasion… (£1.25?) PO Box 7, Upminster, Essex, RM14 2RH.
• Horrorshow (SAE) Damage Control, 163 Bromyard Rd,Sparkhill, Birmingham, B11 3AY.
• Killer Kung-Fu… (£1, + postage?) Peter Hassall, PO Box 27432, Upper Willis Street, Wellington, New Zealand
• Mike Landers, 6 White Colne, Grove, Lancashire, BB8 9SG.
• Magazines of the Movies (£3) Ray Stewart, 45 Killybawn Rd, Saintfield, Ballyhinch, Co.Down, B24 7JP.
• Mentally… (price unseen) 4 James Street, Abertillery, Gwent, NP3 1AA.
• Midnight in Hell (£1.20) G. Houston, The Cottage, Smithy Brae, Kilmalcolm, PA13 4EN
• Mkultra (£1.50) Moved since last time, but I can’t find the new address & the ed’s phone is out of order…
• Nora K (£1) Steve Rag, 118 High Street, Eastleigh, Hants, S05 5LR.
• Orient Express (£1.50) c/o Astounding Comics, 74 High St, Newport, Isle of Wight.
• Scareaphanalia ($1) Michael Gingold, PO Box 489, Murray Hill Station, New York, NY 10156-0489, USA.
• Strange Adventures (£1.20) Tony Lee,13 Hazely Close, Arreton, Isle of Wight,PO30 3AJ.
• Yutte Stensgaard (£2?) Tim Greaves, 118 High Street, Eastleigh, Hants, S05 5LR.

It may be 1992, but as yet there seems little sign that Customs and Excise have slackened in any way from their vital job of maintaining our high moral standards – obviously far more important than stopping the tons of drugs imported every year. If you are sent anything larger than a packet of cigarettes from abroad, there’s a decent chance these brave guardians of our morality will have examined it.
Now, TC naturally does not condone anyone breaching the law, even accidentally, and we’re sure you’d want to do everything in your power to help Customs and Excise. So here’s some tips everyone should follow to reduce the risk of importing anything illegal.

1. Basically, if you’re doubtful, do everything in your power to attract Customs’ attention to your package so they, with their superior wisdom, can decide what to do. Be careful not to disguise the nature of the contents. Anyone looking for video tapes will be expecting packages of a certain size and density and if, like me, you’re a terrible butterfingers, by the time you’ve securely packed a tape in newspaper and Sellotape, it’s possible to end up with a package that looks nothing more like a squashed Toblerone than a video-cassette, and which might slip past Customs.
2. On the other hand, Customs officials are basically like you and I, so it’s not unreasonable to assume some of them may well be interested in, say, comic art. Now, you don’t want anyone who’s been corrupted by filth like “Hellblazer” to examine a package of comics, as they may prove capable of putting them into their correct context and might not even consider them obscene. This would never do, so be sure not to label the contents of your packages in any way likely to attract the interest of a fellow-fan.
3. You can buy, on the semi-open market, aerosol cans of spray which make ordinary envelopes go transparent. Since Customs probably use these, be sure not to send goods in padded bags or wrapped inside other things, as this could make things more difficult for them.
4. When ordering items from abroad, remember to use your own name. If you have just moved house, there’ll probably be lots of mail for the previous occupant lying around and their name can easily slip into your subsconscious, only to emerge when you’re filling in an order form. If this did happen, and the package was seized, when Customs turn up on your doorstep, you might, in all innocence, utterly deny all knowledge, and express shock and amazement at the old occupant being involved in whatever-it-is.
5. An even worse mistake would be to put in the wrong address, especially if you then accidentally went to the Post Office and filled in a request to have your mail forwarded from this wrong address. The potential problems here are too horrible to contemplate: should Customs alert the police, they’d go round to the wrong address! Imagine the embarrassment you’d feel when you see your neighbours getting raided…
6. It might be tempting to get things sent to your work address as this helps reduce the chance of some bastard nicking the goods in transit (few thieves will have much interest in “holiday brochures”, “computer manuals” or “stationery catalogues”). However, printed matter from abroad arriving at the offices of a multi-national company is not likely to be noticed by Customs, so it’s really much safer to only use your home address.
7. Ideally, you should very rarely receive packages from abroad. Customs officers are only human, and if friends and contacts overseas frequently send you packets of entirely legitimate material, the inspecting officers will eventually get bored with reading Swedish TV magazines, Dutch sportswear catalogues and Japanese video-recorder instruction manuals and pass your mail over with barely a glance, which might mean that some impoundable material (ordered in complete innocence, of course) would get through.

While these suggestions will unfortunately not make certain that Customs are able to preserve the sanctity of the British Isles, it should allow them to concentrate their energies on the crucial task of trying to keep Britain out of the 20th century, and the 20th century out of Britain…