WARNING: no content found below. If you want content, skip. I bet a goodly proportion of you are too bothered about what you'll be doing at the weekend to even be *reading* this, though. Oooh, I've been having a bad week. This is just to get it off my chest, really. I've been having a bad week because I was called up as a juror in the High Court. For several days, I've been dressing up all posh in a suit -- well, my only suit -- to go up to court (it's only just along the street, really) and sit around doing nothing. They never actually got as far as wanting a jury, even, so my time was wasted. Each morning 30 of us would sit around in the courtroom, or outside the courtroom, or in the courtroom cafe, waiting for the wheels of justice to grind on, and just before lunch the judge would call us all in and explain that the case still wasn't ready for trial today. For some reason, all the seats in Scottish courtrooms are designed to be as uncomfortable as possible -- except the judges', of course. I assume this is meant to keep you awake. I was expecting that Parliament House -- which is where the Supreme Courts sit -- would be posh and shiny everywhere inside, but none of the fittings looked like they'd been replaced since 1952. This is one reason why I'm glad that I didn't have to sit on the jury in the end. The other reason i didn't want to sit, is that it was a *nasty* case. This little, white-haired old man, who sat outside the courtroom waiting with all the rest of us, was on trial for lots of charges of "Lewd and Libidinous Behaviour", which sounds like a night out on the piss, but in real language translates to incestous and occasionally paedophilic sexual abuse. I did *not* want to have to spend weeks hearing all about how this man spent 15 years interfering with his family. I didn't want to have to say "he did it" or, on the other hand, "you're lying" to his [alleged] victims. When we were waiting this morning, he was sat next to me, and I couldn't help wondering: are you lying? daren't you own up? why would people claim you did *that* if you didn't? I'm glad I won't get to know the answers. Still, now that's all over, and I get to go away on holiday for a bit. I shall entrust myself to the Great North-Eastern Railway and go and visit the parents for a bit. Getting all my meals cooked and cups of tea in bed should take my mind off of things for a bit ;-) I would say "are there any listees living in Grimsby who would like to meet up?" if i wasn't sure that there won't be any. Oh, except that Ms. Deller who was writing a dissertation about B+S fans or something. And I bet she'll be somewhere less boring instead. I bet there aren't even any listees living in Grimsby, Canada. And I don't even know what that place is like. I couldn't help wondering what a Sinister courtroom drama would turn out like. Who would be the judge, for one thing? Sinister, the police drama might work a bit better, though. All those New Yorkers for the gritty urban bits. Amy Jackson and John Maxwell could do a few scenic Highlands scenes in the Hamish McBeth style. I'm sure plenty of Londoners could do a few The Bill-style lines of dialogue -- "You're going DAAAAAAHHHHHHN, you SLAAAAAAAAAGGGG!!" And I've never met him, but I'm reliably informed that Ally Cook is scary enough to be Taggart. Princess Honey, of course, would be the damsel-in-distress who has to be saved-in-the-nick-of time every episode. We could keep tying her to railway lines, or something -- although for that, handlebar moustaches are of course *compulsary* for the villains. More scary things: I was out shopping in a bookshop today. I was looking through the Biography section, and this mad old homeless-type person was looking at all the pictures of people on the covers and trying to argue and shout at them. I was scared -- I always am scared of the mad alcoholic old men that you often see on the streets round here -- and had to hide in the Photography section until he went away. Mad alcoholic old men have an annoying habit of singling *me* out for abuse as i walk past them in the street. I can never understand how they can afford to buy so much Special Brew. Especially enough to make them try to talk to the pictures on the covers of books. Gah, I'm sorry for rambling on. See, you knew it wouldn't be worth reading this. xxx will -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+