Good afternoon mortals- er, that is fellow listees. My name is Peter. I am an Angel of the Lord, and I live in Heaven. Of which, the less said the better. I am appealing to you for help, information, about a lady I'm told you all admire. Her name? Ms. Isobel Campbell. Perhaps I should explain - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm a very busy man, a very busy man. I have a job, you know. I work for Afterlife Services Plc. I'm an Exterior-Preservation Assistant. I am NOT a security guard. I keep out the riff-raff, the living, and the Minions of Satan. We don't get time to stop. You never know when a demon will attempt to storm the gates. Granted, its been 1500 years since I saw such a creature, but that only means we're due for another visit soon. You can't shut your eyes for a second, and do I get any help? Do I buggery. Find me an assistant, I ask the Big Guy, I need a holiday, but he just laughs, and tells me that I am fulfilling a role which is mine for the rest of Eternity. Easy for him to laugh, he just sits on his arse all day, rolling spliffs with Bob Marley and ogling Marilyn Monroe. I don't take breaks. We don't get time. They come at all hours of the day and night. Of course, since Privatisation in the late 1680s we let them all in. As long as they're dead. Sometimes we're not sure, and the Chief says let 'em in anyway. We had Barbara Cartland in and out several times before she came to stay for good. If you ask me, the place was better without her. Comes up to us, starts complaining about the colour of the sheets - "a lady never sleeps on white sheets. it implies she is hiding something". Over a bloody year later and the stupid mare doesn't realise that the whole POINT of Heaven is that you don't have to hide ANYTHING.. I've already said too much. I'm like this, when I get started. I'm so pushed for time that I don't get chance for hesitation, thinking before speaking. Leave that to the guys that look after the Trappists. Saint Mmm and Saint Nnnn. They used to have proper names, but they haven't spoken for so long that everybody forgot them. You can tell it pisses them off, but that's half the joy of calling them such names. So, yeah, what was I telling you... oh yeah. One day, a kid comes up. Always the worst, the kids, pushing their way in, giving you cheek, no respect for authority. He asks me "what do angels dream of?". Well, I guess you lot think you know the answer...fields of nectar, cavorting with cherubs, beautiful sunrises... well you're WRONG. The truth is, we don't dream about anything at all. Dreams are for the imperfect. And you all seem to love them. We are Officials of God. As such, we embody perfection and need dream of nothing. It gets fucking boring. Anyway, I take a holiday one day. I come down to Earth for the first time in, like 1000 years (there was some talk of a second coming around 1000 time, but we couldn't get the staff to cover the desks upstairs, and, really, the folks around at that time were pretty unhygenic. We didn't want a bunch of smelly peasants clogging up our marble halls. Those days, we could be more selective. We got more RESPECT, you know what I mean. Not like now, when we just don't have time to think.) So, I'm taking this holiday, in a smelly town in England. I go and visit this guy, because he's promised me a few things, and he delivers on some, but reneges on some others, like people do, always letting you down, and he shows me this picture. I don't know why he shows me it, I'm quite happy looking at other things, but he says I have to see it. And, curse me, I look at it. And its a picture of this woman. Who's that, I ask. "oh, its Isobel Campbell" he says "she's beautiful" he says "you should go to Scotland and fall in love with her" Well, I'm not keen. I've got things to do - "I've got things to do", I tell him, but he doesn't listen, and he tells me I have to go and look for her... and, as I travel North, I find myself thinking about this woman, thinking about her face, thinking about her frown, and the way her lips turn down at the edges. And I can't get her out of my head. I'm thinking, thinking, thinking about her, and I can't get her out of my head, and I'm thinking I should go back to Heaven, I don't have time for this...those queues will be mounting up, but I tell myself, Pete, old boy, you've got to go, you've got to find this woman or you'll have the rest of eternity to regret it. And I'm watching the tracks speed past, and I close my eyes, and, for the first time in two thousand years, I can see something other than spiralling shifting fucking eternity. I can see her face. It hangs before me, it haunts me, terrifying in its simplicity. And now, I've woken up. And I've got off the train where the conductor told me - he said "get off the train, or buy a ticket, or I'll have you arrested" and I'm in some place called Arbasomethingorother, and I'm looking for the woman who, I reckon, I love. Cos, if this aint love, why does it feel so good? So, I'm in Scotland, I'm in Love, and I'm lost. And I've not got much time before I get back to the Old Place. Otherwise, I'm in for Eternal Torture in Hell, or whatever the punishment for turning up late is these days. The last guy to do it hasn't been seen around for some time. I reckon they put him in the Ambrosia Stew, but I've got no proof, and you don't go around making accusations in that sort of place, know what I mean? So, I stop the first person I see. We're outside this bus station, I'm standing there, and people are looking at me like I'm some sort of freak, like they've never seen a guy in a robe and sandals before so I shout at them, I say "what's the matter, what you looking at? Never seen a guy in a robe and sandals before?" and they shout back something about it being January, and it being a shame that I haven't got a coat. I finally find this guy that'll talk to me, and I ask him, I say "where's Isobel Campbell?", but he just looks at me weird. You know what he says? He says "the kingdom of God is upon us. Repent thy sin, or suffer in Hell" I say "I don't have any fucking sins, I'm an angel" I tell him that, I tell him "I'm a fucking angel" and he starts shouting at me and quoting the fucking BIBLE. I say "don't give me that shit. I've had that for the past two-thousand years, and right now I could do with a break. Either help me, or fuck off". So he shakes his head, mutters something about the blindness of those who will not see, and walks off. And I want to tell him I can see everything, I can see how he's going to die, but I've been away from The Old Place too long, and I'm losing my Temporal Omnipotence (what's the fucking good of temporal omnipotence anyway, I always ask. Doesn't mean I've got less to do. Give temporal omnipotence to the likes of David and Jonathan - sitting around sucking cock all day long, I haven't got need of it, I don't want to know I'm ALWAYS going to be busy) Yeah, and I'm losing my temporal omnipotence, and I can't see what's going to happen, and I don't know what I'm going to do now. I need to find her. I do, I need to find her soon. And I'm sitting here, in this library, and I've had to pay two POUNDS just for an hour on this thing, I had to steal it from this woman in the lobby, and the librarian is watching me, she's watching me, and she's counting how long I sit here, and I'm thinking fuck off, I could turn you into a warthog if I wanted, but then I remember that I can't do that any more, not till I go back, and I'm not ready to go back. And my time is nearly up, and I don't know what to do, and I need to find her. Isobel Campbell. How do I find her? What do I do WHEN I find her? What do I say to her? Will she be impressed that I'm an angel, or should I lie and say I'm, like, something really glamorous, like a whore or a hustler? What do I wear? Where do I meet her? Am I suffering for a sin? Is this my sin? Is love the first sign of imperfection? I haven't got time to think about such things. I'm a very busy man Help me, Peter (Saint) (of Heaven) Oh, you can just reply to me here. My money shouldn't run out for at least another fifteen or twen +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+