But for Shafting Noah’s Sakes will somebody please consider the artwork?

For sure, you can get a hi-res jpeg image of what the cover might look like in some mystical “physical” realm, you can get the general gist of the thing, but to hold In The Grip Of Official Treason in your hands, to sniff and to feel and to scrutinize with fingers and with eyes every inch of Winston Smith’s astounding artwork, or of Jello Biafra’s pain-stakingly assembled collage… It is a pleasure of rare potency.

It’s a package the likes of which will have you phoning folks for to say “I’ve finished with the lawnmower / dildo / bottle-opener if you wanna come pick it up” just so as you can have it sitting in full-view on the kitchen table, that they might catch sight of it in passing, and you can chuckle to yourself for the rest of the evening at the thought of the jealousy and the awe battling it out in the whites of their eyes.

To the best of my knowledge there’s no real equivalent in the digital realm. To the best of my knowledge no-one sits in their bedroom for sixteen hours salivating over the colours of an mp3.

The artwork is something to be studied and scrutinized for months, years. As is the content of the record. Whilst some references may be dated (Janet Jackson’s tittie!) and some names may have already toppled into the most ill-lit corners of historical obscurantism, the point of it all remains valid, the humour remains razor-sharp and the joy of Jello in your ear-holes for a time remains as ineffable a delight as ever it was.

Thanks folks