well, it's sunday afternoon and the last of the sinister troops have departed, leaving me to gather my thoughts and nurse the remains of my hangover with cranberry juice and belle and sebastian softly on the stereo. before i go into proper reporting back, let it be known that i had a BLOODY WONDERFUL time. sinister just makes my life better and better (and i don't care if that makes me a bedroom saddo). anyway... i met the sinister express on saturday afternoon, on which were travelling: mark 'waterbaby' casarotto, ben 'captain sensible' apps, mark '2nd time around' hester, lucy 'hungover' alder, becky 'girl racer' wright, james 'flat cap' danson hatcher and cay 'neds no middle name' cola cube. meanwhile, the slightly less crowded sinister express from portsmouth had already delivered 'handsome' robster. i led everyone swiftly to the pub, where we monopolised the covered garden and were soon joined by peter 'waving' carter, ken 'cutiepie' chu and liz 'classy bird' daplyn. there was drink, there was writing in sugar, there was bafflement over the exotic vegetarian menu (this is brighton after all, dahling.) speaking of which... we left the pub and went to the off-licence (trying to keep the time between alcoholic beverages to a minumum) and at that point a certain stacey 'aw shit' shackford phoned to announce the arrival of her, paul and maddie 'beach babe' mcneil. our company now complete, we did the obvious and sat shivering on the beach, drinking wine out of the plastic flutes so thoughtfully provided by liz. there was a beautiful sunset, and we enjoyed the surroundings like adults by playing chicken with the incoming tide (of which more later....) when the arses really did begin to freeze we left for the bright lights of the pier, and - guess what - the DDR machine. cay, lucy and becky all made energetic attempts, but no-one could touch the master (though ken later confided that he actually has nightmares about not being able to 'perform'). elsewhere, mark c (mark h had to leave around this point) managed to win a rubber after spending a mere 3 pounds. we then proceeded to the dodgems, and had a brief but exhilerating sinister-only battle in which becky and i demonstrated particularly stylish/dangerous driving skills, i thought. most of us were now feeling the effects of alcohol, but a small crazy faction still felt the need to go on a very fast ride and squeal entertainingly like they were in a tourist board film. oh, and an even smaller faction braved the temptingly titled 'pork on chips'. by this time we were ready to sit down, so naturally we went to another pub. i can't remember much of what happened then, apart from getting a lovely present from stacey and maddie (who are incidentally both TOP LASSES). though we sadly lost them (not literally) to the last train home, along with cay and rob. finally the remaining party animals came back to my flat, and we made a brief, badly spelt appearance on #sinister before relapsing into a drunken orgy/playstation session/quiet appreciation of some nice music (delete as believable). although tempted to continue the 4 in a bed romp i started with mark, lucy and becky, i eventually lurched off to my own room, leaving a total of 8 prone bodies in varying degrees of comfort on my living room floor. miraculously they were all still alive and able to move this morning, although mark had acquired a suspicious back injury... we walked down to the sea again to the only 24 hour greasy spoon big enough to hold all of us, and ate various permutations of cholesterol. refreshed, we then hit the beach and wandered down to a calm, innocent-looking sea for another game of chicken. and then, the Best Bit Of The Whole Weekend, and i just have to use upper case for this: WHILE RUNNING FROM A BIG WAVE MARK CASAROTTO FELL FLAT ON HIS FACE IN THE SEA! it was quite possibly the funniest thing i've ever seen, ever. and we laughed all the way to h&m where mark bought some dry trousers, to office where he bought dry shoes, and to marks and spencer where he bought dry socks. i'm actually still laughing, and at one point i thought ken was going to be in real danger of choking. (don't try this at home kids, falling in the sea carries a real danger of drowning or pneumonia and should only be attempted by trained professionals, although if you want to give your friends a laugh, then go ahead.) (there was then a bizarre incident in marks & spencers where an unknown force compelled ken, ben, james AND peter to all buy hats. ken: soft and woolly, ben: floppy and corduroy, james: an oddly perfect flat cap, peter: indescribable. there is photographic evidence, however.) once mark was dry and the rest of us had stopped pissing ourselves, we went cd shopping, had coffee, and discussed mark's extremely disturbing dreams and my mythical vibrator. that's about it really. i waved them off like a fond mother, and came home to shake n vac the carpet... i'm sure there will be other posts to fill in the gaps and emphasise all the embarrassing things i said/did, so i'll sign off now, but not before inviting everyone to the next picnic (in summer this time). see you then! luv archel xxx ps. WHILE RUNNING FROM A BIG WAVE MARK CASAROTTO FELL FLAT ON HIS FACE IN THE SEA! *************************************** Rachel Playforth buzzwords@bigfoot.com Visit www.buzzwords.ndo.co.uk for the best new writing on the web. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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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