(i *****H8***** that crazy transmogrification of inverted commas - i've heard it happens to men a lot but, well, that was my first time. honest. here's how it should have looked folx) Afterwards we stood outside, sorting things out, weighing them up etc, it was late, the music on the system had been fun, I think Id enjoyed it more than the others or in a different way perhaps. Typically I couldnt concentrate on the conversation, instead turning my thoughts to the late night mobile greasy spoon cart parked just outside, a scrap of a queue bustling round it drunkenly food nobody needed, that theyd regret whenever. We had torn posters down from the walls, Ive done it myself, things saved, and they never check your bag here, in or out. And the plight of the man with such unsociable hours, out in the muggy heat of his portable kitchen, out in the dead cold of the early hours began to bother me, that he could only catch the tail end of peoples fun, all those snatches of conversations, ours included, must be a world apart to him, a world he might make a living out of, but isnt a part of. I wondered how you could romanticise this, if it was possible, Roddy Doyle came close, but then I suppose his books always do. I thought a picture might suffice, but I didnt have my camera with me, perhaps next time. I glance back to hear someone ask me a question; I nod in reply, a yes. Then we part ways, half this and half that. I walk home very slowly and in near complete silence with K and M, who are staying over, K is in a bad mood, but thankfully not with me. When I wake up the next morning theyve both left and gone without a trace. Jay organised the Sinister Valentines Exchange and though I am unaware of what inner machinations were taking place, it all went swimmingly from my end, despite the long address. A big thank you to Jay for all that. Recently Ive taken to (no matter how I phrase this its going to sound weird, however liberally I employ scare quotes, so Im just going to go for it) borrowing peoples disks that get left in computer rooms around the university its becoming a habit, and not a very pleasant one at that. It started quite innocently, as these things so often do, with my accidentally shoving a disk which had been left in the drive of the computer I was working into my bag on a couple of weeks ago. Arriving at home to find the rogue floppy I, out of pure curiosity and I suppose the hazy notion that I might be able to discover the identity of the owner and return the disk to them, put it into my computer here and had a look. Now you might be expecting me to have found some almighty revelation or piece of blackmail-worthy salaciousness. But no. What I did find was a CV, an application form to work on the tills at Morrisons (and you wouldnt believe the questions you have to answer to land one of those oh so desirable positions, they want to know your shoe size and everything!) and a couple of charts and tables for, I presume, some Chemistry experiment which meant nothing to me really. The overly intrusive questions from the people at Morrisons aside you might be thinking there was nothing of interest there at all except you wouldnt because, well, you arent stupid (thats not my official line on Sinister by the way, just for the purposes of this), and Ive already told you that it *was* of interest. Quite why is more difficult to tally without seeming creepy or, worse still, sinister (ahem). But I suppose it stems from ideas about public and private, about how the way people write differs from how they communicate verbally, how people want themselves to be perceived, what exam grades and former employments tell us about a person, what an essay tells us about a person, and so on, Im really not doing it justice here, I suppose I have to include the illicit thrill of intrusion, of being a voyeur too, that does it. And in this chemistry students list of menial jobs versus really quite impressive exam grades (including an A* at art for GCSE) versus her predictably MOR list of interests (the novels of Terry Pratchett and swimming) was a kind of insight that you cant really get anywhere else, anonymous and incomplete, more the bland negative table space than actual pieces, just a glimpse or a snatch of overheard conversation a bit like the people swishing past my friend and I at the train station that I found fascinating and he found dull. The next morning I put the disk back more or less where found it, hopefully she hadnt gone back for it before that Ive put all of them back so far, its only fair, they might be in need of the information, or just not inclined to retype it all, or it might be their only disk, or whatever. But since then I have found a clutch of disks left lying around all over the place (youd be surprised how many people are so neglectful), and have read all sorts of bits and pieces, a girls geography essay containing the most unenthusiastic call to arms to save the planet that Ive ever come across, a Muse discography copied from some fansite, various graphs and charts which, with no frame of reference, I have no hope of decoding. Sometimes without names, or even indications of personalities a set of unmarked, unannotated graphs lumped together with a photo of Angkor Wat at sunset. I think I want people to surprise me, but then Im glad when they dont, or when they only do a bit, in a non-threatening way. I cant help it I was shocked when I heard Eminem swear, so used was I to hearing the cut versions on the radio that when I downloaded that Kid 606 song where he speeds up the vocal on Purple Pills it honestly threw me ditto when I heard the uncut versions of those much loved singles also on the download. God bless the interweb. I was thinking, perhaps in an attempt to reign-in this vaguely worrying use of my time I might invest in some cheap disks and then leave them lying around with, I dont know, something elaborate but ridiculous, theatrical but non-threatening on them and stick an email address on too and see if I get any replies. Disk art. Something like that. Im going to give this a rest now before I start sounding like the guy from Teeth n Smiles who went around with a severed finger in his pocket in order to seem interesting. Bloody medical students. Today was, I think, the best day of the year so far. Weatherwise that is. I went out for a long walk, taking routes I dont normally bother with. It was nice. I wont bore you with the details, except one. The route that I chose took me through some of the more well to do areas of Sheffield, replete with big gaunt houses set away from the pavement, big, lush gardens and so forth. So there I was wandering through there thinking how pleasant it all was, not a soul about or anything, not even cars, when across the road I spot a boy, who cant have been older than fifteen I dont think, perhaps not quite as young as he looked (but whoever is in this day and age? Oh ho ho ho!) given that he was sporting what I can only describe as the most massivest mohican haircut I have ever seen. Even two superlatives dont do its biggest-ness justice. Huge it was. And dyed every conceivable colour except, perhaps, yellow. He was attired in classic punxor chic (er, whatever that is) I wanted to take a photo, but I thought it might seem entirely rude, and as he passed I noticed that he had Crass who I quite like, written in tipp-ex on the back of his studded leather jacket, along with a slew of other bands Im not so familiar with. I thought briefly about shouting Fight war, not wars! after him, but that passed quickly enough. What does it mean to rebel like that anymore? To be different. Duffle coats dont even mark you out as an indiekid anymore do they? Everyones got one. How out of place did that kid seem amongst the Sunday afternoon birdsong and posh houses? How out of place indeed. Perhaps that wasnt what he wanted anyway. I bet he doesnt even like Avril Lavigne. In other news, how homo-erotic is Moby-Dick? They left that bit out of The Pagemaster didnt they? Im still reeling. Also Ive been reading John Cage and am planning on writing my next post with the aid of the I Ching. Well, again I'd like to write more on this one too, but I'm sure you wouldn't and plus they've kicked off with Van Morrison next door or across the way, loud enough so I can't tell, so I'm off to do something else. And there are disk drives that need checking. Mind Out, - Kieran _________________________________________________________________ Overloaded with spam? With MSN 8, you can filter it out http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&pgmarket=en-gb&XAPID=32&DI=1059 +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the 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. 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