Another Case of Van Blank

The new duty-free rules are too good to miss, so Arthur, Ray and Dave load a van and head for Calais, planning to fill the club's shelves with cheap booze. Ray and Dave are sent off to the hypermarket to do the actual shopping, which leaves Arthur free to negotiate, which is where every plan of his goes to die. It is a sound plan until the van is broken into and the drink vanishes.

Arthur then bumps into Henry, an old mate, who offers a solution at a warehouse. It is only when the police arrive that Arthur realises the warehouse was never Henry's, and the gang's escape leaves him alone to face the music. He spends a night in the cells while Henry is run to ground, and the trio finally get back to Dover. But the Customs officer takes one look at a suspiciously empty van and decides the Daleys must be smuggling drugs. They crossed the Channel for alcohol and came home with nothing to show for it, which is the whole problem.

William Ivory and Leon Griffiths wrote it, with Ken Hannam directing. George Cole, Gary Webster and Glynn Edwards are the trio, David Simeon plays Henry and Mylène Demongeot is Madeleine. Olivier Pierre, Peter Cleall, John Leeson, Stephen Oxley and Nicholas Mead fill out the ports and the paperwork.

The smuggling accusation is pure paranoia on the Customs man's part, which makes it the one charge in the episode that is actually unfair. Arthur's business instincts survive the trip, just about, and so does the empty van, which is more than can be said for the booze. Somewhere in Dover, a club is running on the memory of a drink. The trip has produced a criminal record, an empty van and a story, which is roughly the standard haul.