well, i'm back from the grim north, where as friday's post suggested, i did indeed get drunk with the york sinister massive (ysm), plus some non-sinister people who probably thought we should be sectioned. in fact, before i even left for campus one of my hosts asked me how i knew the people i was meeting. the silence after i replied 'well, i don't actually know them, as such, technically', spoke volumes. anyway, as Reporting Back goes this will be sketchy, because i find as i sit down to type that i can remember very little (apart from asm's middle name which i will probably never forget - oh, it's not 'studmuffin' by the way). guinness was drunk. sinister gossip was exchanged. i listened to the official ysm band through a computer. we tried to get onto #sinister and failed. i hiccuped. there was that strap-on incident. i have a feeling that the meaning of life was discussed in a kitchen, though i couldn't swear to it. i do recall that everyone was simply lovely, and not twee as fuck at all. apart from chris, who was, though in the best possible way :) the rest of my weekend was marked by a) more drinking, b) enormous amounts of food, all of it consumed as a hangover cure, and c) guitars. there were four guitars in the house where i was staying, and none of them lay idle for more than 10 minutes at a time. luckily three out of the four were played very well. i also visited my married friends which was terrifying. i mean, i know i'm already co-habiting, but compared to their domestic bliss i look like bridget jones. it was like there wasn't a single chink in the armour of the marriage where their single selves still poked through. so, i left their flat while i could still breathe and went off to get drunk again. on sunday i went across to leeds for the afternoon and ended up in a cafe where the proprietor, a large italian lady, felt it her duty to start belting out 'o sole mio' and 'amore' as soon as a customer appeared. she also only spoke in italian, despite understanding english perfectly, so no-one could tell if she was asking if you wanted milk or telling you that the special spaghetti was off the menu. it was quite bizarre, and i was relieved to come out and see borders and marks and spencer rather than the leaning tower of pisa. although then i saw stuart murdoch which freaked me out again. of course, it wasn't actually him, but it was only the fact that he was accompanied by a group of what i suppose could be described as 'neds' that convinced me it wasn't. i finally got home yesterday and remembered that in 5 days i'll be welcoming yet more sinisterines into my lair, i mean my lovely home town of brighton. yay! the plan as far as it goes is to meet at brighton station at 2.30, or whenever the sinister london-brighton express arrives (?). i propose that we then retire for a while to the george pub at the bottom end of trafalgar street (sharp left and downhill under the road bridge outside the station). so that's where we should be if you arrive later/not at the station. lost souls can ring me on 07944 074873. i'll say all this again on friday, because let's face it, the rest of this post has 'delete me' written all over it. see you soon! luv archel xxx ****************** Visit www.buzzwords.ndo.co.uk for the best new writing on the web. Email submissions to buzzwords@bigfoot.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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+