Well ... a verry merry after-Christmas to every one. Insert your religious/astronomical festival of choice above. If you don't want to read an almost-completely content-free post, skip the following. If you *do* want to kill some time (or brain cells), read on. CONTENT! Right at the top of my stocking this christmas was the Jeepster christmas compilation CD-thingy, complete with "O Come O Come E......." [check speeling]. Like all B&S songs, this is truly grate; I put it on auto-repeat throughout Christmas day, much to the annoyance of the family. My mother insisted in singing along, which probably means that she liked it --- or, at least, that she remembered the words. In fact, that song .. lovely melody and all ... is completely *cake* because it combines two incredibly cake things: B&S and Christmas! I prefer minor keys, you know. The rest of the CD is also good (hey, I like listening to almost *anything*), but it hardly compares to !B!&!S! I was a *bit* annoyed that the St. Etienne song was one I already have, though. NOT CONTENT! Coming back home for Christmas reminds me of all the things I was going to do when I was younger. When I was a teenager, I was going to be a Famous Writer, and I've been going through all the truly grate books I was going to write. I had *piles* and *piles* of ideas, and I really should take the time to write some of them. I was going to write about a writer who wanted to write a book about love, but ended up killing herself because she had ruined the love-life of someone else years before. Then, I was going to write a book about a group of men who started to make fake crop circles and found that it changed there lives. Finally, I was going to write a book about two little children who at night would creep into the back of their wardrobe and listen to the distant, muffled voices of whatever grownups they could hear. Their house was haunted (well, they *believed* it was), and when it was dark at night it would be taken over by little goblins who moved things around and took over the christmas tree, climbing up and down the tinsel strings. The voices they heard may have been their parents, or may have been their future selves. Since then, i've added little details to this outline to make it more Sinister in tone. Their milk comes from the Tiger Dairy, and every so often they look outside and watch a cat sniff round the postman's van. I should write that book; it would have been cake. INCONTENT! (you can see where this is going, can't you?) cake ("cake") 1 n. Yummy food, usually baked. 2 v. to cover thickly 3 adj. Absolutely wonderful; grate; the best thing ever. [extract from the "Princess Honey Dictionary of Wonderfully Bisotic Words", Sinister University Press.] INCONTINENT! I have had a truly cake christmas that is also heartbreaking. Well, actually, I had a truly cake night out on Christmas Eve that was also heartbreaking. It's a long story, so bear with me, or just go away. A few years ago, now, I was at school. I was a teenager, and I was in love. Incidentally, if *you* are on the list, and *you* recognise *you*rself, then stop reading cos we'll both be embarassed. As I was saying, I was in love with this girl --- along with several other boys I knew --- but she didn't requite any of us, and so we were all lonely. Now, after a few months, I had to go into hospital for a couple of days. I decided it was time Something Had To Be Done, and so the day before I went I wrote her a letter saying just how grate I thought she was; I wrote it in photography class, writing with one hand and developing a reel of negatives with the other. On the way home, I posted it, and the next day I was in hospital to have my teeth pulled, which meant I wouldn't have to face *her* just after she had received this awfully embarassing letter. Anyway, nothing. Then, a few weeks later, *she* replied! *she* didn't want to go out with me. *she* liked me as a friend. *she* understood if i didn't reply to my letter, but *she* would reply if I did, as long as we kept it secret! So, once a week for the next few months, we would write letters to each other, sending them first class, and telling each other our deepest secrets. At least, I told her mine, and I assume that *she* told me *hers*. Nobody at school knew about this, and although we were often talking, with other people, we never gave anything away. Anyway, this was one of the closest friendships I have had, and it went on for about eight or ten months. In the holidays, we would meet up, or I would phone *her*, and at school we would keep it all to ourselves. Then, suddenly, one of our mutual friends introduced her to A Man. After that, she stopped replying. *She* said that *she* didn't want him to find out. *She* said that *she* didn't want him to think that *she* had a close male friend. And that was the end of it. We left school, and *she* moved house, and I've not heard of or from *her* since. That was four or five years ago. Until, however ... on Christmas Eve, I went round to an old friend's for dinner. There were only a few of us, and most had known *her*, and then one of them said that she was supposed to be meeting *her* in the pub later on. We had said, we might go into the town later, and I had been vaguely against, but now I tried to be subtlely *for*. I probably wasn't that subtle, because I was already quite drunk. So anyway, we went into the town, and we couldn't find *her*. Five minutes before my other friends were *definitely* going home, we finally found *her* and her sister in a pub. She was as lovely as ever, and we didn't even have time to talk properly. I said hello, waved goodbye; she saw i was waving, and waved in return. And that was it. I'd been thinking recently about trying to trace her and get back in touch, but I didn't want anybody to know. I might never see *her* again. The only way I could get back in touch would be by asking round all our mutual friends, who would therefore Suspect Something. *she* was, and is, lovely. *she*'s probably not therefore the one for me. Sorry for telling you. This is down for posterity, now. Normal service shall be resumed shortly. Go and eat some cake; you deserve it. Have a merry few-days-after-christmas, everyone. -- Will Salt ICQ ... damn, I've forgotten the number. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+