bizarre festive goings-on in the playforth household. at some point on xmas eve we receive a red flood warning via the fax, and spend the rest of the night watching the sea engulfing the beach, the road and a dog litter bin, ending up ominously lapping at our garden wall. which is nice. xmas morning: we go out to inspect the damage. large parts of the beach have been redistributed across the town. meanwhile, it seems that another name is to be added to our rodent casualty list, as spike the hamster is inert in his cage. my sister is upset at this poignant death on christmas morning, especially as she realises she has to dispose of the body. but, wait! as mother is putting his cold furry form into a box, he begins to move! my sister says this has happened before and he is obviously a very resilient hamster, but i'm convinced that this is zombie spike. the night of the living dead hamster. either that or he's a ghost come to wreak revenge on behalf of all his rodent kin who perished at our hapless hands in the past. whichever, i'm going nowhere near him until he is pronounced properly dead by a vet. (almost as scary as the hamster dance song. almost.) we get over the trauma by watching my new gregory's girl video. i eat chocolate euros and am happy. in the evening a minor row erupts because my sister doesn't think that 'ad' is a valid scrabble word, but several jd and cokes later and she can't even add up how much 'ad' would score, so the crisis passes. plus we are listening to tigermilk, my new *legal* copy, which is pronounced by the older generation to be quite pleasant, and generally creates an atmosphere of peace and good will. unfortunately short-lived, as my blissful gene kelly fix is ruined by philistine sister declaring that 'singing in the rain' is, and i quote, 'the most boring film in the world, there's no story, look, they've just been dancing around like twats for 20 minutes'. then we all get far too drunk and cry in front of 'the royle family'. more flood warnings. thunder. lightning. i begin to fear divine retribution for neglecting all those wee animals over the years, never mind the ghost of christmas pets in the shape of zombie spkie downstairs. fall asleep in front of 'the italian job'. and that's it for another year... now i enter the dark night of the soul between xmas and new year, trying to watch everything i taped, impatient to get out of flooded sussex and up to glasgow which has an even more special appeal now than it did when it was just the home of belle and sebby... <wistful sigh> so, fingers crossed that sinister will survive into the year 2000. thank you honey. thank you everyone. happy new year. and be nice to your hamster, you just never know when it's going to turn on you... extra helpings of maudlin love, archel xxxxxxxxxxx ps: the official deadline for submissions to the first edition of 'buzzwords' (due to appear on a website near you at the end of january) is FRIDAY JANUARY 14TH. probably. ******** Rachel Playforth archel@iname.com +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead 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.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+