Dear all, I had quite an exciting day yesterday, full of little pleasures that I thought some of you might understand. Turns out the people sent by my Landlord to come 'look at the windows' yesterday were actually going to rip them out and replace them, forcing me to not spend the day working and playing the demo of Freelancer as I'd planned. I caught the bus into Hanley and wandered around, bored out of my pretty head, avoiding adolescents herding around the shops like bad citizens, but good consumers. If the two could be swapped by everyone I think the world would be so much better a place. I brought my SLR Camera making me look professional and feeling like Jimmy I took photos of the odd looking gargoyles squeezing out of the wall of the church just above head height. strange this church just over 150 years old was abandoned, it was a beautiful building. the graveyard was a strange, strange place, with unmarked graves and no bodies laid to rest after about 1930, some even had the addresses of where they lived when they died. I read perhaps a hundred epitaphs, but I'm ashamed to say I remember none of them. I read about beloved twins who died at thirty, before their parents and their parents had to bury them, about sisters being buried together and husband and wives dieing, leaving young children. were those children buried in the same graveyard somewhere too? I saw people, places, and streets. Pit fodder and Potters alike, noting left of their neurons and flesh, only the stone of their skeletons and the gravestones. In a book I'm planning I might have the society I'm creating employ people who read and remember the names of the dead, what's the point of a grave if no-one remembers? I hope some bookish Sinister type reads my gravestone when I'm gone, I really should pre-write my epitaph.. I wandered down to the cinema bought a ticket to see X-men 2 then had two and a quarter hours to kill. I spent some in a bar sipping diet cola, missing the caffeine levels you can find in soft drinks in North America and reading my Prospect magazine about the wrongs of the economic models of the same said region. this was all a bit too intellectual for a Saturday, a day I normally spend eating bananas and listening to radio comedy, so I dared to wander the car parks and retail park that the cinema lies on, hating the pedestrian. Behind a Morisson's car wash I found a steep set of stairs into the hill of trees that hugs the retail park and cushions with the dry ski slope and canal I frequently cycle along. Turns out I discovered a secret garden, with bridges and a mile or so of dips and copses ( I so rarely get to use that word, Joy! copses) and celtic looking circles of seats and stones, even a artificially landscaped ravine. and there was no-one there! Just me, pigeons and ravens so I found the tallest part, sat on a hill and watched the clouds, resting my tired eyes, but all too soon it was time to go to the cinemas I started heading back and was hit by a summer shower. Summer showers are so much better than winter ones, changing the colours of distant things, turning the world into one more akin to parallax, the joy of 16 bit games. with the most distant parts looking desaturated. and best of all the tension and frustration in the air which you can feel goes. at one point of my meanderings back I was harassed by a large group of twelve year olds, who immediately commenced questioning my sexuality, being old hat I had a large repertoire of witty responses at my disposal, but by far the best form of defence is to agree. when one tried to offer himself to me to the enjoyment of the rest of the group I told him, " No thanks, I'm not interested. you look too much like a girl." he was laughed at and the situation disarmed. I was glad to see that a mailing by the mailings recently I'm not the only one who fancies people in bookshops, it's so sexy to see people looking at books, thinking about their choices whilst secretly hoping they are looking at your choices too! that they'll say you like that author too? fancy going for a coffee and talking about that? It never happens, but I love imagining it. Take care of yourselves Neil +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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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