Woke up this morning after a pleasant dream that involved none of you at all, only to find a rather dazed and confused poetry parrot hovering in the vicinity. No wonder, carrying about all that stuff about my beloved Highland homelands. Well I am sending it back on its way, but not before sharing some Stevie Smith sweetness with you all. CONVICTION IV I like to get off with people, I like to lie in their arms I like to be held and lightly kissed, Safe from all alarms. I like to laugh and be happy With a beautiful kiss, I tell you, in all the world There is no bliss like this. So am I meant to send the poetry parrot on to someone else now? I think I'll just set him free and see who wants to catch him as he passes. Is that acceptable do you think? I don't want to send him off somewhere he wouldn't be welcome... I have been sitting biting my tongue (well, fingers actually I have yet to master the art of typing with my tongue) in response to accusations of tweeness and trying to be all sensitive with regard to why I (and others) actually like Belle and Sebastian. Some of you non-newbies may remember that I got a little huffy at the Sensitive Stan rant a wee while ago - I took that as an insult to those of us with social ineptitude when really it was a tongue in cheek pisstake of non-existent (as far as I know) stereotypes. Lots of you wrote to me and said "don't be silly, it's just a joke" and I continued on my merry-ish way. I took little offence at Iain Hamilton's diatribe as it was patently misguided, and would have been funny if he hadn't used it as a parting shot, but then Ciaran jumped in to imply that the list was mostly a bunch of pretentious people with too much time on their hands pretending to be twee and buy records they didn't actually want or like to perpetuate the myth that they were twee and to shag people of similar levels of pretentiousness or to take advantage of the gullibility of the socially inept. Then did exactly what Iain couldn't (or wouldn't), stayed around to enjoy the fallout. (Please note use of the word "imply" above, this is just my opinion and I may be wildly off the mark. If so, please come and talk to me personally unless it's a point that you genuinely feel should be addressed to the list in general). Now it seems to me that Ciaran has got the vast majority of us all wrong. Last week I made what was intended to be a fairly throwaway comment about why I identified with certain Belle and Sebastian lyrics and was touched beyond belief with the response, both on the list and to me personally. I don't believe a single person said any of this in order to get laid. I certainly didn't. I don't fit in to any of these preconceived notions of Belle and Sebastian fans, I listen to records that would be considered way too uncool in places where judgmental folks live and call you names for not playing up to the way you are meant to be. You don't get that here for the most part and I was quite touched by Willy Robertson who felt the need to apologise for having been a Guns'n'Roses fan. This has never been to me the kind of place where I have had to pretend to be anything, or to re-invent my own history to fit in. I don't think I have to fit in really, I have met some inordinately good people and some less good people on this list and can quite honestly say none of them are in any way "typical" Belle and Sebastian fans, other than sharing a quite passionate love for finely-crafted wry Glaswegian folk-pop. This gives me things to talk about to you but does not mean that I expect you all to understand, to agree or even to care. What I don't expect is to be put down for feelings I can do nothing about. Those of you unfortunate enough to have met me at picnics/Bowlie will know that I drink like a fish, swear like a trooper with Tourettes and have an unhealthy obsession with 80 chart music, Sunset Beach and Celtic FC. I have been known to wear non-twee clothes, have a loud and raucous voice, can't talk with any conviction about bands I probably should be expected to like, and have made an arse of myself in front of Struan and chums in too many pubs at too many times. Inside I feel like a shy wee soul, but I'm not a flaming martyr to it :) I have never, to the best of my knowledge, been laid as a direct result of these feelings. I own a fair collection of Sarah records which I never discussed with anyone for seven years before joining Sinister as no-one I knew was in the slightest bit interested making it possibly the most expensive and pointless charade of passive tweeness known to man :) I know there are lots of you out there who aren't unhappy or twee or vulnerable, and that there are some of you who are. Some, like me, are paddling along inbetween the two, and I suspect that's where we mostly are. Pre-Bowlie I never thought for a second that I was the sort of person who would fit in with what was widely conceived to be the legendary London-centric clique and their earnest discussion of the early works of Felt and Talulah Gosh. Then I went, met the people you probably all know and really should love on this list who were without exception, a very nice, pretty diverse and remarkably un-twee bunch of folks with a mutual love of B&S, and realised that not one of them was how I had imagined. And that's the greatest compliment I could pay anyone I met. And I don't see that any of the rest of you are going to be any different from that, whatever floats your boat apart from B&S. Incidentally, Eliot, how does typing in lowercase make you twee? I can only think of about three people off the top of my head who steadfastly refuse to use capitals and I would defend, if not to the death, then to a reasonable amount of mild pain, their right to use whatever typeface or font they desire. Especially as I know a couple of them personally and can vouch for their non-tweeness. As someone who has been rapped gently but firmly on the knuckles by our gorgeous list mummy for speaking out in a confused and misguided manner, I fully back Honey in his administration of this list. If people are offended and are frightened off when people laugh at them for being happy, sweet, shy, socially inept (I consider myself to be all of these at times, mostly the latter two which I can do damn all about and as I explained actually magnifies the admiration I have for Stuart and kind of got me here in the first place) then I want Honey to come along and stand up for us. We are the ones that make this place one of the nicest places I have ever been privileged to call a sort of home, and although I am not naive to think that makes you all the apples of my eye and potential bestest buddies, I think there's enough diversity for everyone to feel comfortable here. If you don't like people different from you then stay away. Just don't castigate them for it, especially not if you at the same time claim "I'm a sucker for outsiders and misfits". Keep smiling, stay yourselves and NEVER let the bastards grind you down. Ailsa xx +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+