Ho, Sinister, I have been repeating the words "spiders and cabbages" to myself for the last few minutes while muh computer, which is currently occupied in the ultra-important task of downloading B&S Peel tracks, brings up the Yahoo Compose Message screen. I am here to talk to you about spiders and cabbages, though a few weeks ago I also kept repeating the word "spiders" to myself, only to forget at the last moment what I was going to post about. Maybe the discomfiting effects of heroin, I don't know. So, cabbages. They were mentioned in the last digest by someone, whose name I can't remember even though I only read it a few minutes ago. Ruth? Maybe, apologies if not. This mystery person reminded me of my interview for Big School, at the age of 13. This involved lunch with the headmaster, a dapper, learned little man who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary. Ahem. All I could talk about was cabbages. In one of those terrible moments when you find yourself making a ridiculous statement ("yes, I love gardening too!"), and then find the unwelcome tangent stretching out before you like an increasingly wobbly tightrope, I deceided to tell him all about the cabbages I was growing. Small and tight, they were, but healthy and sure to be delicious! Even me at 13 knew what a fool I was making of myself. Sigh. Onto spiders, which may be no more interesting but which is at least a little more up to date. For a couple of weeks before I went on holiday, I noticed a smallish spider sitting, unmoving, on my lamp shade above my bed. I was worried about it getting hungry, until I noticed it was sitting over a clutch of eggs. When I got back from holidays yesterday, I found the poor spider, crunched up and lifeless, on my duvet. Excitedly, I scrutinised the lamp, and found SEVEN tiny spiders attached to it! A couple of them got a bit frisky, and started abseiling like the cutest little marines, so I moved them into a shady corner to start their spidery lives. But the other five are still there. At this point, I am wondering if the urban legend about how many spiders the average human eats in a lifetime is actually true, and whether I might end up managing it in a one-night orgy of arachnid-munching... (which idly reminded me that Italian for peanut is "arachido", which is frankly nicer to munch, but you could easily get the two confused) Woo! Just listened to "Desperation made a Fool out of Me" from the Peel session. I wish I was called Richard - the whole band singing a song for me and me alone! If I was called Richard, which I'm not. Sigh. My holiday did inspire me to write lots more in my blog, though. Um, I haven't yet, but I'm starting tonight, then keeping aside various hilarious anecdotes to get me through the next few barren months. So if you want to have a look, please visit http://www.joannou.net/biondino and leave me lots of comments, then add it to your favourites. Please? Finally, much love to the delightful Oon, who I was lucky enough to see all too briefly on her recent trip. Ancient ex-Sinister people - take inspiration from her posts and come back yoursrelves, you gnarled buggers! Alright then, Mark xxx __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+