David put his two cents in: << I think the thing that we are, for which we can't ever seem to agree on a word, is a valuable and positive thing. The exaggerated or affected version of this thing is called 'twee', and that's perhaps how some of us are seen and labelled from the outside.. >> I think David is very wise. I don't know what I'm going to do with those two cents in Wales, though. Probably try stuffing them in vending machines to see if they give me crisps. I wish that they would. I haven't had any money to spend all weekend, so have been re-using teabags and living on tins. Well, I tried living on tins but I kept falling off. Last night I was so bored at being in on a Bank Holiday Sunday that me and my housemate set up a bar in the living room to pretend we were in the pub. It would have been fun except I was thrown out for flicking coins on the bar. People keep giving me free food so I don't waste away. Yesterday someone gave me a cake and a mango. I'm not sure what to do with the mango. I think I'll put it on the sideboard and look at it. It scares me. We don't have mangos in Kidderminster, you see. During our 'pub' conversation we were reading Cosmopolitan. Apparently my "Sex Animal" is a dolphin. Not quite sure what I'm supposed to hold on to, but okay, whatever they say. I told my friend about how I know someone who writes articles for Take A Break Magazine, you know, the one that has stories like "My husband shot my dog and had him made into shoes but I still love him". Apparently, this friend of mine has sent in a story on how she overcame her fear of crocodiles, but, because she'd made it all up and didn't have any photos of herself with a crocodile, she sent in one of my sister instead. Needless to say my sister wasn't to pleased. I've decided that writing for Take A Break sounds like a good idea. I would write about how I am a bigamist with four wives, who i see on a four-week cycle under the pretence of a job working in submarines. Coincidentally, these four wives are best friends and are constantly telling each other how great their husbands (me) are, and how it's such a shame that the others can't meet him, because whenever i'm 'off the submarine' all they want to do is have me to themselves for hot and steamy nights of bonking. So I'm married to these women because I figure that it is my duty to make women happy, but the one woman I truly love, a barmaid called Glenda, is actually having it off with the vicar's wife! Oh, how shall I ever be truly happy? I reckon I could get a few quid for that one. The funny thing about this debate on 'twee' is that it's been happening on Sinister, off and on, for the last squillion years. It's an eternal mystery of the universe. I reckon we'll be arguing about it for years and years only to come to the conclusion that 'twee' is good and bad *at the same time* and, anyway, lets all just love one another, I'm having a party on Tuesday and I've booked a naked lady to jump out of a cake. Something like that. If you type in 'twee' into the Sinister Archive, you get this: http://www.missprint.org/cgi-bin/anylistsearch.cgi?query=twee&list=sinister&smode=Phrase I had a look through some of the posts that appeared, and decided I liked this comment from Nick Dastoor the best: << Are you happy for Belle & Sebastian to be pigeonholed as 'twee'? You see I think that's pretty faint praise. I'd say that an example of a song that is 'excessively sentimental' (Collins Dictionary) is something like 'Tomorrow' from 'Annie'. Is this the kind of music you see as B&S's musical antecedent? >> Of course, that comment was written in 1924, when we were all wearing knickerbockers and worrying about the corrupting effect of mass importation of 'bananas' from the Indies, but I think it's still relevant today. It's not that i'm offended by being seen as twee because in fact i am hard, or anything like that. I just think it is an inaccurate label, applied when all people really mean is they appreciate love, animals, biscuits, books, things that are scorned a little by your average gym instructor. I was once in a bookshop and a stranger called my coat twee. "No", I said, "It's not twee, it's tweed". Aww, I used to love that coat. I lost it on a train to Swansea and never saw it again. xx Robin xx [ by express delivery : http://www.superatomic.co.uk/blog ] _________________________________________________________________ Stay in touch with absent friends - get MSN Messenger http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+