Dear Sinister, Last nights rain prompted a hundred lonely poets in a hundred lonely garrets to tap out the rain buffeted and lashed against the window on their laptops, and then delete it too trite, and though the rain seemed so fitting, so apt for last night, they felt it such an overused device, a cliché something that had been overplayed by Hollywood and cheap novelists for decades. And that was half the problem time, in all its guises was conspiring against them, for how could they compete with the generations of literature, with the words that had come before them? They wanted to create a new classicism; with all the baroque splendour of those cracked, leather bound tomes, of faded velvet and smoky-slick pavements, the streetlights reflected in the rain, but all that seemed so distant, seemed to belong to other people. Whats the point in nicotine stained net curtains if you can afford new ones? Whats the point in playing the warped vinyl when the CD sounds better, when laptops are more convenient than scratchy fountain pen? The poets wondered if their second hand suits and squalid bed sits really made them poets at all, or at least how often they slipped into playing he part of suffering artist, sneaking looks in mirrors as they passed, setting their gaze wistfully out of rain streaked windows, minds blank, laptops humming. How much of life becomes this filmic affectation, they ponder, how much do we live in the third person singular? And then they write because its raining, at night, when one should be writing and then read it all back, sigh and shut the laptop down without saving. _____________________________________________________________________ Doing work experience, at some particularly grotty local newspaper (The Express and Star, serving West Bromwich mainly), a couple of years ago, taught me a lot I think, less about journalism than I would have liked but a lot about office politics and stuff like that, and this I found much more interesting and entertaining than the drab, bland stories that went into the paper. I was even allowed to write a couple of such bland stories myself; and I learned that local journalism is much less about literary flair or creativity, but more with adapting whatever facts you have into the uniform style of the paper, which happened to be featureless dull-mongering. Im sure all journalism isnt like this, but not where I was. Not on a vaguely conservative local rag anyway. I dont think the staff really took to me either, there were two other boys doing work experience that same week, one of them was the nephew of one of the reporters, and the other was a tall, ebullient sycophant who the staff all took to immediately. I was silently but speedily labelled as the sullen boy who tried to put jokes in his articles and didnt look you in the eyes when you spoke to him. I was taken to the youth coroners court, which was as grim as it sounds. I hated it, but as I say, I did learn a lot, something about myself as well, which I thought was important. One of the things I was told to do when I arrived on the first day was to answer the phone if it rang and say Hello, reporters fair enough you might think, and I was told how to transfer the calls to the other phones, since I probably wouldnt be able to answer any of the inquiries put to me. Im not very good on phones at the best of times really, and the system for transferring calls didnt really function properly when I did it it did when others tried it, but not for me. I swear that phone bore some irrational grudge against me; I just couldnt work it properly at all. I came to dread its ring, because I couldnt help whoever was calling, and I couldnt put them into contact with someone who could it was a lose/lose situation what I tended to do was answer, listen to the callers question and say something along the lines of: Im not really sure about that one Ill put you through to someone who should be able to help and then Id desperately try to key in the transfer call code which would inevitably fail, and the caller would be cut off. Im not sure how the phone system worked exactly, but it seemed as though whenever a call was made to reporters it would be sent through to a random phone so the person I had just cut off would, assuming an innocent glitch in the line, ring again and be connected to someone who actually worked for the paper, and could answer their query. That was my system for five long days. On the Friday, the last day of work experience, the hated phone rang, and after wishing spontaneous combustion on it and giving it my most evil of stares (which, to be fair, isnt that evil), I picked it up, answering: Hello, reporters with as much of an air of casual familiarity as I could muster the bloke on the other end must have swallowed this routine, because without pausing he launched into this spiel about who he was and that he had a story which might be newsworthy and he gave me a quick summary of the story and then asked: So do you think this has a chance of getting into the paper? There was a pause. I didnt know what to do; I couldnt just say, Im not sure Ill put you through to someone who should be able to help no. I was in too deep, saying that would have made me sound completely inept, hed just told me all the facts and after my confident hello and the fact that Id just let him talk for more than a minute without interrupting all conspired to mean that transferring the call would have bordered on rude really. And besides, I knew the story was newsworthy anyway, even a cursory glance over some of the crap I had seen written during the week told me that. The gist was that this guy was the music teacher at some struggling, what Alistair Campbell would have called bog standard comprehensive in West Bromwich; but instead of being the usual tale of poor funding and woe, the schools orchestra had actually just won a national music competition (admittedly a very low key one, but that isnt the point), and the prize entailed a trip to play in a larger competition in Brazil somewhere. Brilliant. This is the stuff that local newspapers lap up; they love it a classic 'rags to riches' story, sort of. The failing comp gaining something approximating glory this would probably be worthy of a full page spread, perhaps the paper could send a photographer over to take snapshots of the grinning ensemble in front of the crumbling façade of the ramshackle school buildings, a true triumph of ambition over adversity working class heroes. Fantastic. This all swept across my mind in that pause. Hello ? he said Sorry I said Yes, I definitely think thats newsworthy could you give me a few more details? Now I may not be a particularly effective or committed reporter, but if theres one thing I am good at, its bullshit because you see, I had no real intention of writing up this blokes story. This wasnt out of cruelty, or any particular malice towards him, in fact I quite admired his sincerity and enthusiasm but it just wasnt possible. As I say, it was too late to transfer the call to someone else, it was also the last day on a work experience placement that I had hated from the start, and being the last half of the last day I probably wouldnt have had time to type up such an article anyway. Plus I dont think media coverage of this type of thing really glorifies the success of the schools at all, if anything it cheapens it. There was no way I was ever going to write his article, and as such, no way it would ever make the paper. With this in mind I listened attentively to the man as he rattled on about how they had won, what they had played and so on, and I played my part excellently though with massive pangs of guilt, asking questions where appropriate, even asking him to repeat or spell difficult things, so that it appeared as though I was making notes. By the end I felt quite awful, but it was much too late to do anything. I had no notes to work from, and I couldnt very well ask him to repeat the whole thing, we must have been on the phone for a good fifteen minutes it was a good job none of the staff paid me any heed otherwise I could have been in big trouble. Then at the end he again asked: So do you think thisll make the paper then? and I replied, guilt stricken: Well yeah, I definitely think so Ill write the story up, but obviously its not up to me if it goes in or not so I cant guarantee anything, but I cant see why it wouldnt. all the time playing the part of the slick reporter that the innocent guy on the other end of the phone thought I was, and hating myself for it. We thanked each other and hung up. I looked over at the clock, there was about three quarters of an hour left of my work experience not enough time to write up such a long story and get it checked by one of the staff (which I had to do before sending it) and everything I told myself. It just wouldnt be possible. Three quarters of an hour later I said some rather indifferent goodbyes to the reporters, and to the two other work experience boys, and went off to catch the metro back into town. Im still quite wary of phones to this day, and I do often wonder what happened to the teacher and his orchestra, maybe he phoned up the paper again a couple of days later, or a different paper even, and got his story. My get out clause probably removed any chances of him harbouring me ill will, because when he saw that the story wasnt in the paper, he would almost certainly have blamed the editors for not including it, rather than the reporter (who incidentally he neglected to ask the name of, and wasnt offered it). I certainly think that incident revealed a part of my character that I usually keep concealed, my capacity to spoil things that other people value to lie callously and keep a straight face while doing it, all to save myself embarrassment, for convenience. _____________________________________________________________________ Sinister is becoming a kind of tawdry autobiography for me at the moment. This isnt necessarily a good thing, but writing things like that down is cathartic I think. Ive told people that story before, and mostly they just laugh and it is funny, in a way, but very sad too. Anyway, on a more Belle and Sebastian related note, I neglected to either tape or listen to the live broadcast thingy a week or so ago (Im behind I know, but Ive been without internet over the weekend), so if anyone would be kind enough to do me a copy of the recording Id be much obliged email me off list if youd like to do that. Ill send you something lovely in return if you like you can suggest a theme and Ill make you a mixtape on said theme so if you wanted, for example, the theme of large animals Id probably have stuff like Japancakes Elephants, something by T-Rex, maybe The Flaming Lips This Here Giraffe, stuff like that. See? Ive really thought this through. Also, I just bought tickets for the London show I think Ill allow myself an exclamation mark for that. Yay! Cheers - Kieran p.s. Jesse, if youre reading this, I havent spoken to you in ages, so if you want to, feel free to email. Id mail you, but I dont think I have your address. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. 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