Seeing as Archel, in her post today, has been speculating wildly about Belle and Sebastian's exotic kinky underwear, I thought I would post this. Press Delete Now, People. It must be hard to be Isobel Campbell. I mean, if you're Isobel Campbell, you have a reputation to maintain. Values to uphold. You have to remain infamously twee - which isn't too hard; you just write lots of lyrics about little cuddly fluffy bunny rabbits and squirrels and beavers all having a cuddly animals' tea party in Kelvingrove Park - but you have maintain that slight sexiness, too. "Hmmmm," Isobel must think to herself, "how can I keep up my twee reputation, but still look so sexy that lonely teenage indie-boys will still keep sending me their jism-soaked stuffed toys?" Have you guessed what she does yet? Yes, that's right. She pulls on a pair of patterned tights. "Aha!" Miss Campbell says, "now all those poor indie-kids won't be able to take their eyes off my legs! And, of course, I *have* to wear a short skirt so I can spread my legs nice and wide. Um, to get them round my cello, of course. All eyes will be on *me* whenever I'm on stage. Stuart will be sorry I'm not in his rubbish little band any more. Bwhahahahahahaha! Ahem." Patterned tights seem to have become awfully popular lately, for some reason. You can't go in a clothes shop without seeing stripy tights, stripy knee-socks, fishnet tights, lacy tights, and all sorts of complex designs. Buying an ordinary plain packet of tights has suddenly become terribly difficult, unless you buy the cheap ones from the newsagent which will probably stain your legs when it rains. Presumably, people just don't want plain tights any more; which is why, of course, that's still what most people are wearing. I have to admit, I do own one pair of patterned tights, with stripes in black, purple and red. I can't actually remember why I bought them, or where or when. Either I was in some sort of trance at the time - hypnotised by the pure stripyness of the hosiery section, no doubt - or they materialised in my sock drawer like Mr Benn's shopkeeper. I only wear them when I'm cold, because they are nice and thick. You can't *have* that many patterns of tights, anyway. Little printed patterns, possibly. Horizontal stripes, although they can look a bit goth. Vertical stripes just wouldn't work. There's not much choice there, is there? Lacy tights presumably have the same problem as fishnets: they can make the soles of your feet rather sore. I've never understood why boys find fishnets sexy; but my form tutor always wore them, and she was an extremely unsexy person. I think my geography teacher must have liked them, though, because they were having a "secret" affair which all of the 2000 people in the school knew about. Maybe I just don't understand the point of patterned tights. I'll have to write a letter to Isobel. xxxxx (times 100), caitlin -- http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/ "When life gives us lemons, we just sit there and sulk about it, in the corner of the room, in a fetal position." - Matthew Henderson, on the Sinister mailing list. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+