The good news is that the Excalibur warehouse no longer exists, and the BNP has been reduced to selling a much reduced stock, from a box number in Leicestershire if I recall correctly. Somewhere in the Midlands at any rate. However, the rest of the organisation will follow Excalibur by exploding/imploding/disappearing up its own agenda before much longer.

Amongst other things, they no longer seem to be selling any folk CDs, although you can still find gollywogs, British Bulldog badges and the 2010 BNP manifesto on their bargain basement tat page.

The bad news is that, among the few books they are are still selling is Steve Roud's The English Year; presumably in the mistaken belief that it is something about Englishness.

I emailed Steve and told him. Naturally he was appalled but felt that nothing he could do would persuade Penguin to stop selling their wares to organisations like the BNP.

However, as he pointed out, the book actually contains quite a lot about the calendar customs of the various immigrant groups who have come to make Britain their home. Doubtless, the BNP would have realised that if they'd bothered to thumb through the book before ordering it.

But if you think that was dumb, get a load of the blurb, as it appears on their website:-

"This enthralling statement will take you, month-by-month, day-by-day, through all the festivities of English life. From national celebrations such as New Year's Eve to regional customs such as the Padstow Hobby Horse procession, cheese rolling in Gloucestershire and Easter Monday bottle kicking in Leeds, it explains how they originated, what they mean and when they occur."

This enthralling account is lifted almost word for word from the publisher's blurb, but here's the undeliberate mistake. The Penguin correctly identifies the location of the bottle kicking as Hallaton in Leicestershire, but in the Excalibur version, Hallaton becomes Leeds. That, my friends, is just the latest in the long running saga of the BNP getting absolutely everything wrong. I still wake up laughing at the thought of the 20 million leaflets they printed with the wrong phone number on.

So Craig, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a royalty cheque from the BNP. If they've remembered to pay up, and thats a bif "if", they probably sent it to the Beatles by mistake.

Personally, if I ever received a cheque from the BNP I'd wipe my arse on it and send it back.