Punk record is a load of

legal trouble
By Nicholas de Jongh
Thursday 10 November 1977
guardian.co.uk

The manager of a record shop in Nottingham who

Search displayed in his window the new best-selling LP record
   by the Sex Pistols, which displays on its sleeve the title
Enter year "Never mind the Bollocks, here's the Sex Pistols" has
   been charged with offences under the 1889 Indecent
Advertisement Act.

Managers of record shops in Notting Hill and Marble

Arch, London, have been charged with contravening the
Indecent Advertisement section of the 1824 Vagrancy
Act, for displaying the sleeve.

Another record shop, Small Wonder records in

Walthamstow, East London, has had a visit from the
police and has covered up the offending word.

Both the managers charged in London are at shops owned

by Virgin Records, the company which produces the Sex
Pistols' recordings. The two men, Mr David Martin and
Mr Johnnie Fewings, refused to take down the record
displays after being warned by police, according to a
record company spokesman.

Mr Al Clarke, press officer for Virgin Records said: "The

LP was released 11 days ago. It brought in £250,000
before it was even released, and went straight to number
one in the charts." Melody Maker, the musical paper, had
covered up the word "bollocks" in an advertisement, and
two national newspapers had printed the word as a series
of asterisks. Mr John Mortimer, QC, was to represent the
company in all three cases. Mr Clarke said "We have
agreed under protest to take down the display in
Nottingham, but elsewhere we will keep up the displays."

The Independent Television Companies' Association

(ITCA) and the Association of Independent Radio
Contractors (AIRC), the trade associations which
examine advertising for commercial television and radio
have banned advertisements for the record. A spokesman
said: "We considered the record itself was unsuitable for
advertising on family media like television and radio."

The BBC said last night that it had banned none of the
tracks on the record, but a spokesman for Capital Radio
said that it had been advised by the Independent
Broadcasting Authority not to play four of the tracks -
Bodies, New York, Seventeen, and Submission. The IBA
said later that the ultimate decision was for individual
companies.

Capital also said that it had banned one track, Holidays in

the Sun, because it felt that a comparison likening holiday
camps to Belsen would cause offense. ITCA and AIRC
said that they would have banned any reference to
"bollocks" in a broadcast advertisement.

The word "bollocks" appears in the supplement to the

complete Oxford English Dictionary, where its meaning
is defined as testicles. The dictionary says that the first
recorded use of the word was in 1744 in the School of
Venus by D. Thomas, who wrote: "You can now without
blushing call prick, stones, bollocks, c-t, arse (sic), and
the like names."

However, a detailed Shakespearean knowledge may be

needed to appreciate the full implications of the record's
title. For in Henry V, Act Two, Scene Two, loud-
mouthed, thuggish Pistol says:

"I do retort the solus in thy bowels. For I can take, and
Pistol's cock is up, and flashing fire will follow."