I blame Brown for most of the ills of this country, but this time I am afraid he is relatively innocent. It used to be bad back in the mid 80's with posties knocking you up at 7 am to collect £1.06 in customs duty etc. In the post 9/11 world the customs bods have all been fixated with terrorism and drugs so for several years it was pretty quiet, and records generally sailed through unless Oliver Normal was on duty and spotted your records. In recent times customs have "staffed up", and reverted to their old ways - the main difference is the records are much more expensive, and therefore the duty is much higher.