Amy, You asked about the Spanish tomato festival. It's called the Tomatina and is held in Bunol near Valencia sometime in August. I've never been but it looks a lot safer than that business in Pamplona. I'm learning Spanish at the moment at an evening class in London. If I ever find out what the Spanish is for laundrette, I'll let you know. There, my first post. Not that hard really, was it? Ian ps - to Sophie from St Kilda. I know you're feeling frustrated, like you're stuck at the edge of the world and that there are so many many things to be ashamed of...but really, it's the same up here too. We have an outrage to match every one of yours and an out of sight out of mind policy to rival the forgetting you talk about. All I know is: as much as you wish you were in London or Manchester or Glasgow or wherever, I wish with every fibre of my being that I was in St Kilda. I spent six days in Melbourne a month back on holiday and loved it so much. Loved getting the tram to the Sodastream show in Richmond and having to leave early in the pouring rain and the electric storm to get the last tram back. Loved wandering down towards Luna Park and stumbling upon people filming Secret Life Of Us (the business type guy who went out with the blonde girl was with the new girlfriend and a pram - I was ridiculously excited). Loved Flinders Street station, under the clocks, wondering if I should know my Liberty Belle better and that there was a lyrical reference I was missing. Loved Brunswick Street, with all of its faults and vanities. Loved the four seasons, loved the city, loved it all. Which, as my girlfriend so rightly points out, was just us having a holiday romance with a place and a time. But it still doesn't mean that I don't feel physically sick (homesick almost) typing these words. How can you feel homesick for a place you spent six days in? It doesn't make sense. About a week after coming home, after spending a further nine days in Sydney and feeling utterly upside down at the first glance of the Opera House, we went to the Warhol Exhibition at Tate Modern. I was surprised at how much I was affected by some of Andy's works, but the real high point of the night was sitting in a pub opposite St Pauls waiting for our friends to come out of the exhibition. When we were in Sydney, Adrienne said about the Opera House: "Look, people probably go jogging past that every day and don't give it a second glance." And here we were killing time opposite one of the most gorgeous parts of London, floodlit just for us. The Spanish for opposite is "enfrente". I remember this by thinking about Frente, who did that cover of "Bizarre Love Triangle" and then extending it. Not such a lonely world after all. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+