I'm coming toward ya, like Lucretia Borgia It's not my birthday and my girlfriend hasn't left me and I don't have a vinyl copy of Tigermilk in the post, so instead I've been thinking about the pulchritudinous Clare Grogan in Gregory's Girl. More specifically, her beret. The Frenchman in Stockholm raised the vexed issue of cool - what is it, who has it, how can I get some - but a thornier question still is how to fly in the face of all accepted notions of style, and yet still come out with some semblance of cool. The beret is a fascinating case in point: Clare Grogan = cool / Frank Spencer = not cool Che Guevara = cool / Norman Wisdom = not cool Jean-Paul Sartre = cool / Max-out-of-Rushmore = not cool What we learn from these equations is that cool has tended to be the preserve of early eighties Scottish singers, Latin America revolutionaries and Parisian philosophers, and very rarely of clumsy little speccy fellas. Tony Hancock in The Rebel is obviously the exception that proves the rule. I wonder if Stuart Murdoch would look cool in a beret? HMMMMMMM. He should wear one when he addresses the comrades at the Revolutionary Socialist gang-wankathon this evening. Hey! It's Bonfire Night tonight,and it's pissing down. What a surprise. If you're not going to burn the papists in Lewes, or watch Tim Hopkins run round with a flaming barrel of tar on his back in Exeter why not sample some jingle-jangle strumming from Bromide and The Foxgloves at London's Poetry Cafe? For details, email me at poetryplace2@easynet.co.uk Have a good weekend Stevie Troussé PS: Mr Miller, I'll get back to you on Monday, if that's ok? +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+