IN 1991, News Shopper pages were full of killer crackers, a survey claimed romance was dead and a battle for power resulted in hideous crimes of fashion.

Pulling a cracker at Christmas can be life-threatening, especially if your girlfriend finds out.

However, five-year-old Orpington resident Paul Colyer found his Christmas cracker contained a-less-than-festive razor blade on a keyring as its gift.

His family were outraged, but perhaps not as much as The Kray Twins Kids' Toys Company, which saw its festive toy range go south after the bad publicity the story attracted.

Cutthroat business practices were also evident in a shoulderpad war between two female employees at a Bromley recruitment company. It was about power.

The trend for women wearing blazers with shoulderpads had been left behind in the 1980s, but nobody had told Karen and Lesley of TRG Recruitment.

Clint Rampant, who was responsible for paperclips in the TRG office in 1991, said: "It all started when Karen came into the office wearing a jacket with bigger shoulderpads than normal.

"It made her look masculine and authorative. More powerful than Lesley.

"Lesley must have noticed this as the next day she came in wearing even bigger shoulderpads.

"There was a face-off between the two. You could see the rage in their eyes. I was worried they would throw the paperclips at each other, which I had just finished polishing.

"After that it got out of hand. Both of them had shoulders three feet higher than the top of their heads, and all the doors in the building had to be enlarged so they could get into the office."

In September, 1991, News Shopper published a survey about relationships which said women in the south east "think their men-folk are much less romantic than in years gone by".

My uncle was outraged by this survey, saying: "Romance dead? What rubbish! I bought my wife new shoelaces yesterday.

"What more do women want?"