I'm still at work and am likely to be here as late as last night, but if I don't get these darn spreadsheets done, Cinderella can't go to the ball. It's the office Christmas party tomorrow night and it's at London Zoo. Quite how I'll manage to tiptoe round heaps of camel dung in my heels is beyond me, but unlimited champagne and the opportunity to see coworkers make fools of themselves is not to be missed. Anyway, we all need a break, don't we? So rather than attempt any Drew-style escapades, I thought I'd write to you lot. A couple of weeks ago, Julie Burchill tried to sound Important and Controversial in the Guardian by writing about grown-ups who profess to like P!O!P! and how they should leave shiny, fluffy music in the territory of teenagers. I tried not to imagine what she'd say to me (if she really cared) if she heard I, at the age of twenty-five, had acquired tickets for Britains top Saturday morning show. That's right, last weekend I went to CD:UK. We arrived at the studios at the ungodly hour of 10am and were shown into a hospitality room where they served us... cups of water. Then, they made us practice dancing to garage hits. Sober. On a Saturday morning. This was meant to warm us up. They also made us practice clapping and whooping and sounding enthusiastic. The bloke standing on the table getting us to dance/clap/whoop/sound enthusiastic then told us what a rubbish show it was going to be. We were about to enjoy performances by Madison Avenue, Oxide & Neutrino, Sugababes and S Club 7. 5ive would not be live. Slash would swear and talk about blow jobs, but his mic would be turned down, so we would miss it. Have you ever tried to dance/clap/whoop/sound enthusiastic when you really, really, really can't stand the music? It's HELL! Especially in a great big shed with only a hundred-odd people inside, swinging cameras threatening to decapitate you and a bunch of scrawny clones in cowboy hats wiggling their arses on stage. We had to dance/clap/whoop/sound enthusiastic to a very forgettable Madison Avenue song THREE times (they've recorded another two versions for future programmes, oh joy, watch out for me next week, folks). S Club 7 might not have grinned at each other quite so happily had they realised they had only half a dozen fans in the room and the rest of us were cheering their choruses because if we didn't, a chap in headphones would sneak up behind us and threaten us with violence. Dear old Important, Controversial Julie Burchill, you got it right for once. P!O!P! may look shiny and fluffy, but underneath it's made of grey old brillo pads. Or something. Thank goodness I didn't go last week. I don't think I could bear to see Kylie looking haggard and lumpy. On to other stuff... We wonder if the person masquerading as Edna Welthorpe considers himself on a literary par with Joe Orton and if he sees himself as a watchdog of public morals, a daft egotist or both :) Beat Goes On was, indeed, the name of a Sonny & Cher song, but I was just joshing when I (not Mark C) said that - it was Sonny Rich who did the version the Gents (I like that name, thank you Mr Miller) covered and I remember the All Seeing I also did it a couple of years ago. Actually, I thought the GW gig was pretty good. I didn't catch a glimpse of Isobel's bum, but I did hear a couple of bum notes. She was both sharp and flat and she knew it because I saw her wince, but I'll forgive her because when they rocked out a bit, they weren't half bad. Shame they didn't do Sister Woman - I think it would have been quite successful. I still got the feeling Bill Wells had been helping Bel with her homework though... I found the BW Trio about as dull as a theme repeated over and over again with very little variation. Oh, hang on, that's exactly what they did. People appear to be crushing on my old email address - does that mean people preferred me as I was six months ago? Should I get my hair cut? Is anybody else going to see Monica Queen at the Notting Hill Arts Club on Saturday? Juicy Lucy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.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 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+