LONDON -- Screaming Lord Sutch is gone, but now along comes Lord Buckethead of the planet Woops to challenge the political career of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Buckethead is a candidate for Parliament in Britain's June 11 general election. So are people who want to send all magistrates to jail, supply free bread daily to everyone or shove a gooey dessert down a television talk show host's underwear.
In all, 2,324 'fringe' candidates have each coughed up 500 pounds, the equivalent of $815, to seek election to the House of Commons - or in some cases, to make life as miserable as possible for those who take the whole business seriously.
In an attempt to discourage the 'whacko' element, Parliament two years ago raised the required deposit for a candidate from 150 pounds to 500 pounds. It hasn't made much difference.
Buckethead, who says he is an alien from a planet named Woops and who showed up at the registration office wearing what looked like a black garbage can over his head, is after big game. He is running against Thatcher herself, in her north London Finchley constituency, as the candidate of the Gremloids Party.
If elected -- and if he isn't disqualified because he is from Woops and not Britain -- His Lordship pledges to replace Britain's nuclear weapons with 'Inter-Galactic Starfighters' and flatten the Midlands city of Birmingham to make way for an interstellar star base.
While fighting off the Buckethead threat, Thatcher is at least spared the challenge of Screaming Lord Sutch, who has run in 12 elections since 1963, most of them as the candidate of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.
This time, Sutch's campaign to supplant Thatcher was finished before it got started. One of his required 10 sponsors was ruled ineligible, and the musician left the registration office downcast, muttering, 'I'll be back.'
But Thatcher and Buckethead still must confront Michelle St. Vincent, the Gold Party's candidate who flatly refuses to disclose her platform.
'We are not stupid, like Lord Buckethead,' she says.
Down in Havant, on England's south coast, Gerald Fuller is running under the banner of the Creek Road Fresh Bread Party, on a platform pledging daily supplies of free bread for everyone. A loaf of bread costs about 55 pence, or 90 cents, these days, so he could pick up the duck-feeders' vote.
In nearby Portsmouth, there is Ronald Hughes of the 657 Party, named after the number of a train infamous for carrying soccer hooligans. His main political plank calls for prison sentences for all magistrates, with whom he apparently is distressed because of some sort of brouhaha aboard Train No. 657.
In the Windsor and Maidenhead constituency west of London, a sometime comedienne named Pamela Stephenson is the candidate of the Blancmange Throwers Party. Blancmange is a gelatinous, rather unappetizing dessert.
It seems Stephenson is miffed because she was banned from appearing on a BBC-TV talk show hosted by Terry Wogan and has vowed to shove a bowl of the goo down the front of Wogan's jockey shorts.
Elsewhere around the country, there are the candidates of the Official Fidgeyitous Party, the Only Official Best Party, the Right of the Falkland Islanders to Elect an MP to Parliament Party, and on and on.
If a candidate fails to win at least 5 percent of the vote, his deposit is forfeited, which means government coffers are likely to be enriched by more than $1.78 million sometime late on the evening of June 11.
