Hello. Me. You don't have to read this if you'd rather not. It's that picnic report time again. Have you head of a man called William McGonagall? I was sure he'd been mentioned on the list before, but I searched and found no trace of him. I think that's how you spelled his name. He was a nineteenth-century Dundee man who was convinced that he was a truly great poet, and spent lots and lots of money publishing his truly awful poetry. I should really go to the library and look up some genuine McGonagall quotes but instead I'm just going to make some of my own up. It's easier, and it means I can mention B&S. Saturday was a grey horrible rainy day all over the country, but a few of us still bothered to empty our bank accounts and come to Dundee. Well, we were expecting Dundee to be grey and horrible anyway, so we were quite pleased to find that it was only the same as anywhere else. It wasn't as bad as Aberdeen, even. Picnic Mummy Rachel Sunset met the other three of us (yes, that's all) at the railway station and showed us the delights of Dundee's supermarkets before taking us back to her house. I'm sure Llew will have heard of William McG. I'm not sure about Chu, though. There, that's the obligatory mentions over and done with. We're still annoyed that Chu couldn't be bothered to come to the picnic. He (McGonagall, not Ken) would probably have said something like this: On a day in the year two thousand and one To fair Dundee came a great happy throng Except that really not many people came Bacause of the prices of tickets on the train. Pastiche McGonagall is much easier than pastiche Nostradamus, I'm telling you. They bought food and drink at Tesco's, the shop Whilst worrying their picnic would be a great flop They travelled to Rachel's through rain and through fog And got licked, bit and jumped on by a small furry dog. /me giggles. This is fun. OK, not for *you*, maybe. Some of these rhymes are actually too good to be McGonagall, I think. He's that bad. He'd probably rhyme "dog" with "dog". Rachel has a lovely house, with varnished bare floorboards and a very cute dog rushing about and licking everyone she meets. I felt guilty, because it's much nicer than mine. It's a little house, a lodge at the entrance-gate to a big school, so we were just the right size picnic to fit round her living room. We didn't talk very much when we were sober, but as we drank more we talked more. I'll have to remember that trick. I've met quite a few listees in the past week, actually. A few days ago, I was sat at home of an evening and there was a knock on the door. A boy wearing lots of corduroy was stood there, and somehow I just knew that it was someone from the list. Well, I had been vaguely expecting him, but I thought he was going to phone me. He brought me a bottle of wine, the loevly chap. I'm glad I realised who he was. We journeyed for miles to the city of Glasgow A fair city through which the broad Clyde does flow To hear voices, singing, like an angelic choir At a gig which someone had seen on a flyer. (W. McG really does re-use cliches like "fair city" in every verse of a poem, or introduces irrelevant geographical stuff for the sake of a rhyme) At the picnic, we phoned as many people as we could think of and said "why aren't you here?" They gave silly excuses like "I've got no money, "I'm on the wrong continent," or "I've lost my puppy." I gossiped to Kirsten about the boy she sent a crush vote to, and to Dimitra about the boy she hasn't sent a crush vote to yet. After a while, we had finished eating and drinking and Danny told us he had seen a "Stevie Reverb" gig advertised in Glasgow for that night. So we all went off and caught the train again. This whole mixtape competition thing seems to be getting serious now. I'll have to get in touch with the Will Team and sort out what we're doing. Watch this space, people. <-------- space In Glasgow we met more people: Rich, Sweetie and Sarah. We went off to the gig, which was lovely and nice and had at least five members of B&S on the stage at some points. We all loved it, and Rachel seemed especially excited for some reason. Stevie asked for requests from the audience, and a listee persuaded him to sing Wonderwall, once he had remembered what the first line was. Other covers requested (and played) included Maggie May, In My Life, and the theme from Cheers. I can't remember the names of any of his own songs that he played, obviously. <------ more interesting space Stevie stood singing, with fey-looking moves And noone dared get up to go to the loo Beanz, Bob and Richard looked terribly mellow And Mick Cooke, as usual, was a right classy fellow. Afterwards, we all wandered off, of course. Sweetie had to leave early to get her bus home, but apparently didn't leave early enough. Rich was rather drunk, disappeared, so Sarah thought she'd better go and look for him. Danny had to get a taxi back to Ned Country, and me and Rachel fell asleep on a sofa. She told me about some of the nice dreams she had in the past, but only dreamed worried dreams about the lovely Bellepuppy, hoping she was OK. We returned to our homes that are spread far and wide Rachel Picnic Mummy with feelings of pride Lyns falling asleep, for better or worse And me with a penchant for terrible verse. OK. That's *really* enough McGonagall for one day. xx gneissy -- http://www.btinternet.com/~wpsalt/ ICQ 66321009 +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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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