I'd say your friend isn't half as clever as you think and the oxymoron is

looking for one oxymoron and a tautology in an ocean of lyrics isn't very easy. So... hints... the oxymoron is on an ep; and the tautology, on an lp. the tautology is in the title song of an lp, in fact...The oxymoron is in a song about a girl who probably appears in more B&S songs than any other. In one song, she has been abused, in another she is kissing men, and finally, she learned alot from putting on a blindfold. The song with

Yeah, the New York picnic was blrrbrll! What fun it was, though, as is customary in posts of this nature, I have to include the obligatory "wish I had been more sociable" bit. But still, the folks I did meet were all shiny and sparkly and nice, and I am sure that all the others were the same--I should have gone around a bit more, rather than confining myself to the exotic Asian fruits section. I have to give a special thanks to the not-noticeably-inebriated Julie for posting such fine phallocentric directions, without which I'd've spent the day wandering the Great Lawn looking for cardie-wearers, not bloody likely with the hot weather we had. And to commend Oon for actually getting up from her deep sleep to come over and very outgoingly introduce herself to our little Asian fruit subgroup, as well as offering some well-heeded advice regarding mixing and lemon vodka and durian/lychees. And while on that topic again I need to apologize for the Durian Debacle. I had really heard great things about it. As it thawed the odor worsened, if that sounds possible to those who were brave enough to try it while still semi-frozen (the durian, not the people). But something exciting happened later: the special bamboo durian spatula I brought just for the occasion took on a smell less like bad onion/jockstrap/rotting flesh over the course of the evening, and presently came to smell like almonds, vanilla, and butterscotch. As well as a faint hint of durian, unfortunately. Still, sorry. I promise not to bring durian to any more picnics, ever. In fact, maybe we should issue a general B&S moratorium on durian. One other thing, NY picnickers: I was instructed by Miss L. Llew to act as her ambassador, proffering her regrets, etc, at not being able to attend (though it is my understanding that she ne regrette rien, really) and I entirely forgot to speak for her, so appalled was I by the ungodly durian stench. Another reason I have for posting now, non-picnic-related, is about the whole tautology thread of last month. I have finally gotten the answers to the riddles, aided at the eleventh hour ("but these go to eleven") by really very specific hints from the friend who originally posed the riddle (who, by the way, is not on the list, but saw in the archives that Nick Dastoor had said: probably 'Summer in winter, winter in springtime' after all.> She was not all that pleased at hearing how half-clever she apparently is--smart enough I guess to coax drosophilae to sprout wings while simultaneously chatting on Jeepy in the laboratory. For those who ever were and/or still are interested in the riddle, here are her clues: the oxymoron is none of these, but it is all about this particular character> Good hints, eh? So soon I'll post her answers, though I imagine that with these clues anyone/everyone who might possibly still give a tinker's cuss about this will have sussed out the answers. Armed with these clues it took me about seven minutes, perfectly stationary, to succeed, as opposed to many hours, covering 436 miles, to fail entirely. By the way, another friend at the picnic, not too familiar with IYFS, thought the tautology might well be "me and the midget don't see eye to eye." I think that that one belongs firmly filed under "lemon-vodka-enhanced entertaining mishearings." Thanks again, NYC picnic organizers/attenders and durian tryers! JD Stephens/schatz __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead 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 +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+