Jenowl's post turned my thoughts (as Jenowl's posts normally do) to Ribena, and I have been meaning to tell you all aboutmy friend's recent staggering anouncement that he has been leading a secret life. By day he is Ben, but by night he is.... RIBENA MAN, seaching out Vitamin C deficiency and thirsty indie kids wherever they may be. Ben/Ribena Man says the clue to his secret identity is in his ordinary name: RiBENa. In which case, my secret identity should be Cake Woman, or maybe just a cake. Actually I've eaten so much stodge over Christmas that my secret identity as a cake is not so secret at all. I look like a big stodgey cake on legs. I digress. So, Ben felt able to reveal his identity to us on New Year's Eve. We were squished in the pub, drinking non-vitamin C-full drinks, so Ribena Man swooped. I gazed at him in awe. My eyes started their path at his feet - black boots, black and purple stripey tights ('pantyhose' to our American friends. God, I love that word. Pantyhose panythose pantyhose), black pants ('underwear' to our American cousins) over the tights and OH MY GOD! a sqeezy bottle of ribena attached right in the centre of his pants. On his crotch! Jeepers. Then an ammunition belt, complete with cartons of ribena attached to it for rapid deployment. A tight purple T-shirt, bearing the legend 'Ribena Man', complete with zig zags of purple lightning. Around his manly shoulders, a purple cape was draped. And, the final touch, a black mask over his eyes like Batman and Robin wear. He was the super hero of our dreams. So there you have it, Ribena deprived Sinister kids, just wish hard enough, shout loud enough, and Ben will leave his ordinary job on some thin pretence, jump into the nearest phone box, twizzle around a bit and emerge as RIBENA MAN to rescue you! In other news.... nothing much has happened. New Year, Ribena Man aside, was a bit rubbish. Not enough people I knew, not enough snogs. I think dancing to Sisters of Mercy (Temple of Love remix type thing) so hard I nearly puked was quite fun, I suppose. Andrew WK would be very proud of me. I frighteningly regressed by about 8 years on Saturday night, whilst sitting next to a pile of sick in a night club (not my sick, I hasten to add). I became 14 and sulked harder than I've ever sulked before. I made frequent trips to and from the bar ("oops, mind the vomit!"), muttering "fuckwits, bastards, music's shite, everyone's ignoring me, I hate you all" repeat to fade. I decided that perhaps I should go out to different places, sometimes with different people. Familiarity breeds contempt. And sulking, by the looks of it. I have recieved good things in the post recently. First, from Paul Field, Brandt Fundak, then more recently Melmoz (thanks for the cd!), then hand made one-off original badges from Will Salt and Dimitra and most recently, this morning, books from Lliterary Llew. Huge thanks, hugs, kisses, etc to all of you. Laura, I hope you realise this means I am forced to kidnap you, drive you to the Mexican border and marry you. Neither of us have any choice in the matter, I'm afraid. I don't actually like this drippy Belle and Sebastian band. I like Scottish bands, yes, but Del Amitri and Texas are more my bag. I only joined this odd mailing list to get free stuff. And what do you know - it worked! Whatever happened to the Poetry Parrot? Love Madeleine xxx _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+