It's Mother's Day today in Britain... generally a time of washing more dishes than normal and uprooted flora, fancily packaged cocoa bean derivatives and thick paper, folded in half, with pictorial references to afforementioned blooms on one side and inky squiggles intimating loving respect for one's *mater* and eternal gratitude for washing dishes every other day of the year etc. etc. on the other. It occurs to me that Honey is our list mommy. So happy Honeyday! Mwah! Mwah! Perhaps some Glaswegians can help me out, here. In particular, those who frequent the Cumbernauld Road in the vicinity of Stepps (not the S-Club 7'ooohh TINA you are so gorgeous' rivals btw Miss Cyberglam) . Somewhere along it are traffic lights (as is roads' wont). Going northeast, looking to one's left is a house. In the front bay window of this house used to stand Paddington Bear. If it wasn't the real Paddington it sure looked like him. [further reading #1 http://www.paddingtonbear.co.uk/ ] Anyways, this bear stood looking out at the traffic every day, year in, year out. In the winter he wore the standard duffel coat and in the what we wistfully aspire to being the summer months, something more seasonally appropriate. Probably a sou'wester. Sometime in the mid 1990's, a fancy new road was built: straight like a racetrack with big, empty lanes and an absurdly low speed limit, but I digress. Evidently, around this time, said bear was no longer to be seen looking out at the traffic. Perhaps he got bored when all the commuter action left for the big road with the low speed limit: drivers, no longer stuck at the traffic lights; no longer there to smile or wave at him. There were letters to the paper about it. I'm sure I remember there were letters to the paper about it. Does anyone know what happened? Has anyone, perchance, come across a slightly furry personage wearing a hat and smelling faintly of marmalade? Dreams For a small person (or probably because of it), I have an absurdly large ego. Which might explain yesterday morning's dream. Its denoument involved me ripping the superstructure off the hull of a scale model luxury yacht and hurling it at the feet of Tom Cruise, no less; me yelling 'What the h*** do you call this sh**e?'. At the time, Mr.Cruise is the director, co-producer and star of the latest Bond movie, I am the set designer and we are both standing on the upper lawn of my parents' back garden. The route of the problem, see, is that I've come up with this idea for a fight scene on the etched-glass roof of a yacht which has an *entirely glass superstructure* and a pool below which divides the main deck clean in two and continues out the front like a cross between a large fishtank and a bowsprit (I have drawn sketches of it, btw). However, behind my back, Tom has been browbeaten into opting for a conventional yacht by the fat, cigar-smoking, illiterate bully of a man who is the principal co-producer. I rant, rage, rant at Mr.Cruise screaming words like 'integrity' 'critical visual idea(l)' and 'Fellini' at which point Tom turns into a talking sunflower, but without the stalk. And the sunflower is violet, not yellow, but it does have his face surrounded by petals. He says his hands are tied. I threaten to walk off the set. I'm so angry I wake up. I spend the next half hour curled up in my pyjamas on the floor with a sketchpad, a biro, and a blue highlighter pen for the watery bits. Sorted. If any of you *do* wish to hire a yacht, try this ref: http://www.cnconnect.com/cgi-bin/load.cgi?lnk=http://www.cnconnect.com/chart... One of them comes complete with resident violinist, which would be nice at breakfast time somewhere in the Med. A little Pagannini with one's cornflakes and orange juice. Running to catch the bus that is the midnight hour I think 'erk!' content: ah, soundtracks... lurvely. My big brother took me to see 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' at the Curzon Mayfair, which is a nice cinema. We were both in London at the time, so it seemed a feasible thing to do, as indeed it was. A good time was had. Mr.Solondz is clearly a remarkable fellow. The dreamy boy/girl theme of that movie, shot in lovely colours... I see why he chose both Belle and Sebastian to provide the soundtrack for his new excursion. Good Good. There's a movie called *Gallivant* by Andrew Kotting that some of you might like. It's a road-trip movie around the coast of Britain featuring the director, his granny, and his daughter, who has something called Jouberts Syndrome, which means she can only communicate using her own kind of sign language. Kinda kooky kotting, you might say. Out on video (British Film Institute). gold medal: you had the good sense to skip this post silver medal: you managed to scroll all the way to here bronze medal: you read my post. I love you. You're right up there with my mother. x Gordon +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+