Hello! First up, let me say that this will almost certainly be the last message you receive from me from nme.com. The folks at said music rag, in their “infinite wisdom” have decreed that they can no longer provide a free email service for the likes of you and me and so have decided to terminate all accounts from the end of this month, *sigh*. I, and indeed you, have been warned! So it looks like I’ll have to sign in afresh, with a different email account and appear as a new member of sinister, perversely, for someone who’s been about for donkey’s years. Hello to Philippe Garnier btw, who has returned to the sinister fold after some years of absence. He’s right here in Oxford Town you know….I daresay there are other sinisterines here I don’t know about. Time was when I knew all of the Oxon sinister crowd; allow me my misty eyed reminiscence if you please. My update on my trip to Belgium is well overdue, partly for reasons which will become clear later, but anyway, the first person I met in Brussels was Annie, right after I checked in to my hotel. We went to a very nice restaurant where she had the local delicacy which can best be described as sugar tart and I the more conventional lemon meringue pie. The proprietors of this establishment were doing their level best to ensure that as many people could enjoy it as possible, so the tables were really close to one another and it was pretty well impossible to avoid getting in someone’s way. Later on we made our way through a quaint arcade which had a sculpture of a cow being carried off by a dragon suspended from the ceiling and visited a bar called Morte Subite which means Sudden Death, not the only bar with a rather morbid name in Brussels (there’s also one called the Coffin). I awoke the next morning to discover that the city had been coated in a blanket of snow, which was lovely and augmented the already entrancing spectacle of the Grand Place with its wonderful Gothic buildings. On the Saturday, I met two (twee) sinister people on the steps of the Beurs (stock exchange), these being Olivier (who gets around, just ask Nikos R, but Doesn’t Look Quite As Much Like Stuart As He Used To) and Aton (who hads recently become a teacher - brave man!). We made our way to the Ancien Belgique and saw the Veils and the Fiery Furnaces. I was informed that the Veils featured the son of someone who used to be in XTC. The guitarist looked a little like Andy Partridge and the bassist resembled Colin Moulding, so which was it? It later transpired that Finn, the singer, was the son of Barry Andrews who’d left XTC to form Shriekback. Anyway, the Veils started well but were ultimately uninspiring, unlike the Fiery Furnaces who were rather interesting, especially when they indulged in fairground music doodly keyboards…the keyboard player concerned looking uncannily like someone I used to work with. We had been joined by this stage by Annie and her boyfriend Andy, who is in a band called Wintergreen who have a rather wonderful song called Clockwork Mice which I downloaded. So should you: http://www.iwantwintergreen.com The following day I took a train to Bruges which was very quiet and picturesque and has canals (woo – I have great respect for anywhere with canals). The place was remarkably peaceful with the peace only occasionally punctuated by the clip-clop of hooves from the horse-drawn carriages laid on for the tourists – it made me think about how cacophonous it must have been when *all* traffic took this form. Later on I partook of a beer called Kwak which is served in an hourglass shaped glass in a wooden frame. This fascinated me so I took a pic of it…I might host my photos on the yahoo group corduroy smoke if I get round to it. I have some very sad news to report now. On Sunday evening, my father passed away in hospital. The last few days have been pretty hectic as I’ve been rushing around from hospital to registrar to funeral directors, accompanying my mother and sister. I have also had the difficult task of informing friends and relatives over the phone. Although I saw Dad the day before he died, his health had obviously deteriorated enormously in a very short space of time. He looked very hunched and jaundiced and was utterly unable to communicate with us. The death certificate said pneumonia, prostate cancer and renal failure and I know he was afflicted with at least another three conditions, so if any comfort can be gained form this sorry situation, it’s that he has been freed from unimaginable suffering. So far, I’ve been so frantically rushing around making arrangements and letting people know that I don’t feel that I’ve been able to grieve properly, but the funeral is on Tuesday, so any words of support would be much appreciated. Mark. ______________________________________________________________ For up-to-the-minute music news, reviews and specials visit http://www.nme.com Get free e-mail (anyname@nme.com) now at http://www.nmemail.com The sender of this e-mail is NOT an employee or associate of NME, nme.com or any other IPC magazine. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. 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