Well, last night was a surprise and a half - how easy it is to forget that Belle and Sebastian have fans who aren't us, and manage to remain blissfully happy (ignorant?) without a soupcon of electronic stimulation every morning at 11.25 am (for some reason)... Yes, the 200 Troubled Teenagers bash was, somehow, a huge success, with a good deal more than 200 not-quite-teenagers-any-more packing out the place. The music was almost entirely fantastic, especially once I was lubricated enough to shimmy (I had feared that my bip-bopping days were over, but I even outlasted my legendary party animal girlfriend :)), especially Isobel's absolutely fantastic new single which R!O!C!K!s with a lot more vim than anything our increasingly media-savvy chums in the band have done. And yes, David, it does sound like French Disko, which is a darn good thing (oh yes - a big kiss to the DJ who played the unsurpassable Lo Boob Oscillator last night - I think I wet myself with joy - and a big grin at the girl in the cloakroom who saw my Looper t-shirt and gave me files of freebies :) ). One thing that was obvious, though, is that with B&S actually having fans these days, it's going to be more and more difficult for us listerines to meet each other when we're out on the razzle. Hopefully this is going to change somewhat when the picnic season is upon us again - for 60 people to have ventured out to the first London picnic last June was something quite astonishing, and it's up to all of us to make sure we beat that this year :) But otherwise, the need for identification (if you *want* to be identified, natch) is getting more pressing, especially with Fopstock almost upon us...surely Sinister button badges would be pretty easy to do cheaply, discreet enough to not compromise your individual style (ahem), and a nice little thing to have in any case. If there are enough people interested, I'd be happy to try and sort something out myself, though distribution something that would need to be worked on...mail me privately with suggestions if you like. One more thing before I stop rambling - Vicky, Tim H, Pam, Steady Mike and myself started off last night in a groovy pub in New Cross called the Montague Arms (zebras behind the bar and all that), and it got infinitely more groovy when the regular entertainment kicked off - an old blind bloke who plays the keyboards with an almost contemptuous flair. Make no mistake, this guy is a fucking genius - there was a coachload of Dutch tourists by the stage bit, and as soon as he realised where they were from he launched into "Tulips from Amsterdam", which went down a storm (although obviously they weren't singing the right words, being foreign and all that :)). He also knew what Pam had for tea, which was a bit weird, but my god, if you ever want a wedding singer, this is the man for the job. Superb. Now you know why I don't post very often any more... Auguri e baci, Mark xxx *more film fun, chums - any suggestions? +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+