At times we questioned you, our readers', ability to read. When we opened the sixteenth letter that morning asking how to connect an Amiga to the same Amiga, for example, or after receiving YET ANOTHER ineptly-traced Street Fighter 2 character (brought up on the streets of Detroit, natch) for AP46's "Be" In Shadow Fighter competition.

The compo, involving designing a new character for the Beat-'em-up of Champions, contained the explicit caveat,

We're not Blue Peter, and we're not about to award expensive electronic equipment to crayon-and- poster-paint scrawls on tatty bits of paper with the justification, "Ah isn't it sweet, and he's only four."

Consequently, the passionate response to the Inevitable Frankly, This Is Crap award for Forcondon ("Forcondon was a Formula One racer when he got mutated and was made very angry," accompanied by a picture of a big face) was not predicted.

A fax sleeked in from the parents of entrant "James" explaining that they were so horrified by the award they had concealed the issue from him for fear of scarring him mentally for life. (Possibly he's not seen it to this day.) They were decent, God-fearing people, the fax continued, and their many influential contacts would certainly see to it that we never worked again. We'd be hearing from their solicitor.

The fax, blown up to A3 size, provided a brightening frontispiece for the AMIGA POWER Memorial Fridge, enlivening the day of anyone reaching in for a bottle of squash or an ice-lolly.

"James" - ask yourself this - if your parents destroyed an issue of AP to prevent your seeing the comical drubbing you richly deserved for brazenly disobeying the compo rules, WHAT ELSE HAVE THEY WITHHELD FROM YOU? Obviously you haven't the faintest idea.

Not exactly a satisfactory ending, but then Tales Of The Unexpected was rubbish as well.