you know, i try to be a good listee and save up scintillating comments until i have a proper, substantial post, but it takes a long time to build up a sufficiently interesting narrative, and i do worry that people might forget who i am in the meantime. like so many of us here (don't deny it) i am a vain vain person and i like the sound of my own voice (well, the look of my own words...) some people just seem to live in a world of ready-made amusing anecdotes (kirsten, ken chu) whereas i can go for literally days without anything happening. at all. or maybe it's just the way you tell 'em. but i have yet to find a way of making 'i got up, i carried some bookshelves, i ate chocolate, i made a salad' sound quirky. i shook hands with the german ambassador yesterday, which you'd think would form the basis of an anecdote really. but you know, that was it. he came to visit the university, i shook his hand (mine was very cold, as always, and he looked a bit pained), he left. and not a ferrero rocher in sight. the other thing that happened at work was me joining the pension plan (omigod). you have to specify a recipient of a lump sum if you die 'in service' - sounds like the army. also since i have never stayed in any job for longer than a year, i'm not sure that i'll accrue enough contributions for my bereaved ones to even buy a wreath. on thursday i went to the only thing that passes for an indie night in brighton any more. the unsalubrious atmosphere was forgotten as, as if by magic, the opening chords of 'she's losing it' greeted my entrance. how we danced. also got 'legal man', although only after an unfortunate episode involving rage against the machine. the strokes and the white stripes were heavily represented, obviously (and the verdict on the latter from my friend george was 'they sound like early beatles'. hm.) have been watching lots of slightly strange films lately, involving amongst other things superintelligent ex-lab rats (the secret of nimh) and dead david nivens (a matter of life and death). and did you know that the original animated lord of the rings film is out on dvd tomorrow? yay! speaking of films, i recently read this summary of Storytelling: "Storytelling is comprised of two separate stories set against the sadly comical terrain of college and high school, past and present. Following the paths of its young hopeful/ troubled characters, it explores issues of sex, race, celebrity and exploitation." replace the word 'Storytelling' with the word 'Sinister' and 'two' with '1500'... and voila. us in a nutshell. (although as austin powers might say, us in a nutshell would be more like 'help! we're in a nutshell.') <content> i hope that amongst the crazy seasonal covers at the QM Union they do fairy tale of new york. that would be great. and maybe last christmas by george michael as well. right that's IT. better go and live some more so i've got something to write about next time... luv archel xxx *************************************** archel@iname.com For the best in new writing on the web, visit www.buzzwords.org.uk Contact us on buzzwords@bigfoot.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 +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+