The 2ndth Pan Book of Horror Stories (1973)

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While many of Pan's horror collections dealt with typical horror fare – the supernatural, the black arts, and murder – The 2ndth Pan Book of Horror Stories, published in Scarfolk in 1973, collected stories about the most fearful abomination in all of creation: mankind.

Mankind was the only organism to top both the government's list of greatest threats and its list of most endangered species and it's very likely there was a correlation.

Scarfolk Council was particularly keen to emphasise the potential rarity, thus value, of humans. It had bred thousands of useless people in a secret eugenics experiment, which had run out of funds, and needed to sell off the surplus to recoup some of its losses.

Unfortunately, the council flooded the market. By 1975, a small group of nondescript humans could be picked up for as little as £25 and as the decade drew to a close charity shops were full of them. Eventually, a landfill site was opened and the council gave all the unwanted people the bus fare that would take them to their final resting place.

1970s Games (Various)

These old games were found in a cupboard in the council office basement (click to enlarge).

The goal of 'Pollute' (1975) was to earn as much money as possible for your multinational corporation while contaminating the world's oceans. Extra points could be scored by inadvertently bringing about a genetically corrupted, mutant starfish which threatens to destroy mankind, then offering the monopolised solution at a vastly inflated price. Subsequent versions of the game included 'Super Pollute: Poison the Skies' and 'Pollute Deluxe: The Countryside is a Twat'.

Winner of the Queen's Award for Arrogance, 'Mister Smug' (1978) was an edutainment game which taught politicians and big business leaders how to emotionally and legally distance themselves from the catastrophic outcomes of uninformed decisions which affect millions of innocent people and ruin lives. Bankers and other sociopaths were banned from playing the game in competition because they always won, even when they had officially lost.

'Land Mine' (1970). Very little is known about this game because few players survived, though it appears that the military funded the game's production so that it could test the latest in concealed weapons technology and observe its explosive effects on a civilian population.


For more games see 'Discovering Scarfolk' by Ebury Press: Top Tramps (p.85); Junior Taxidermy Kit (p.86); and Singlemulty (p.105), and others.

"Spoil Your Kids Rotten" Public Information (1979)

In July 1973, accused murderer Karen Skrayp walked free when the forensic evidence against her was found to be inconclusive. Skrayp had been arrested when her alleged victim's hairs were found stuck to her sharpened dentures. Though the hairs clearly belonged to the victim, forensic tests demonstrated that they shared most of their genetic make-up with polyethylene bottles used for carbonated drinks such as 7-UP, E-Cola and Fizzy Gravy. A murder conviction could not be brought against Skrayp who got off with a fine for the lesser crime of littering.

The case highlighted a serious environmental problem. Due to the abundance of food preservatives and plastics entering the food chain, people were slowly turning into potentially indestructible 'living dolls'. Indeed, several exhumations showed that cadavers were not decomposing. Human decay rates were slowing to that of discarded bubble wrap or a Wombles lunch box.

Scarfolk Council was the first to suggest that church graveyards and crematoria be converted into mass human recycling centres. It proposed that recently deceased relatives be placed into pork-coloured dustbins to be collected bi-monthly for recycling. Human remains would be rendered into drinking straws, lifelike plastic models of children for barren couples, and religious figurines for the intellectually barren. One man, Jack Powers, became so famous for the particularly high plastic content in his body that when he died he was made into his own series of eponymous action figures.

A council booklet published in 1979 (see below) proposed that parents treat their children as early as possible so that by the time they are grown up they are already partially putrefied.