Firstly, thanks for all the nice e-mails people sent me in response to my big long post about "The Chalet Lines" the other day, and also for no one sending me nasty e-mails calling me insensitive etc. ***I HATE TELEVISION NEW ZEALAND*** Let me start with a rant. I stayed in especially to watch TOTP yesterday. They play it here, a week late, and I spent all day being really exicted about seeing Belle & Sebastian as a moving image for three minutes. Anyway, along it comes and I sit there practically shivering with excitement. And they don't play "Legal Man". You see (and correct me if I'm wrong ...) I believe BBC progrmas are half an hour long. In New Zealand, we have commercials on every channel, so a half hour show is often cut down to 22 minutes. And of course they wouldn't dream of cutting out S Club 7 or Billie ... so .... out goes the onscure indie band no one here cares about.They did the same thing last year when B&S won the best newcomer award at The Brit awards. Clip ... out it went, and two hours of my telly watching time were completely wasted. Again ... let me plead with you. If ANYONE has any B&S stuff on video, who can copy it for me, I would be so very very grateful. I have a three hour Smioths extravaganza, or some Orange Juice/Go-Betweens live video footage if that would make the deal any sweeter. But please, please please someone ... help me out. ***THE NEW ALBUM*** Really growing to love it. A few people have said it is over produced. I disagree, and the more I listen to it the more I think this is the way B&S have always *wanted* to sound. To these ears the whole album is glorious soul music. One thing I have noticed ... and I don't know if anyone else has thought about it .. is that the piano/keyboard-based songs really remind me of the music in the television specials of "Peanusts" cartoons. That kind of funky honky-tonk piano could really fit into the soundtrack of "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown". Or am I just going crazy? Try listening to the "Legal Man" single now ... isn't it amazing how COMPLETELY DIFFERENT it is to everything on the album? Hope there is a new single soon ... I hate the thought that that might be it for the next two years. ***HOLIDAY*** My girlfriend and I went away for the weekend, because I was going to have a nervous breakdown otherwise. Anyway, while wandering around Rotorua (geothermal area in the middle of New Zealand's North Island, and dodgy tourist trap) she stopped to look in the window of a chemist shop. And looked and looked, her face growing more and more surprised. I went back to see what she was staring at. With an expression of complete shocjk she said "look ..." and pointed to the window display. There in the window of the shop was a gigantic vibrator in bright yellow plastic, shaped like "corn on the cobb". Not all that funny in itself ... I'm not the kinda kid who giggles at this sort of thig. What was so funny was the display itself. As I looked at the window display I saw literally dozens and dozens of strange looking sex toys, culminating in a huge white plastic .44 Magnum with the shaft shaped like a penis. Every single one, however, hafd a little tag obscuring the label, saying something about how they were "body massagers" and where great for "easying away tension" or something equally euphamisitic. You have to understand this was esentially a small town chemist ... these toys were wedged in between hair rollers, foot spas and sports supports. The whole display had a sad, hick-town, slightly neglected look about it .. the packages were faded from the sun, and the handwrittentags were filled with spelling mistakes. I could just imagine my grandmother going in and actually thinking they *were* massagers, and showing me how great it was. (Shudder). A strange, surreal experience. ***B&S DREAM*** My second one. Well, sort of a B&S dream. I dreamt I was at a party and Isobel was DJing. I asked her to play "Consolation Prize" by Orange Juice, and she got really excited because she didn't know many people who liked them. Then the dream kinda digressed (my dreams are never particularly linear) and somehow I ended up on a very small German sub, fighting an army of Nazi's who had been shrunk to quarter size for some reason. And obviously it was all downhill from here. ***OFFENSIVE CONTENT*** Does anyone else get their mails bounced back to them from one particular listee, telling them the e-mail contained "potentially offensive content" or something? Does this REALLY bug you? It sure as hell bugs me. That kid must only get about a quarter of mails, as I know it filters out the work "sex" along with anything even vaguely sweary. I mean, really .... it'ds not like this a porn mailing list. As I write this I am listening to "Station to Station" by David Bowie. One of his best, but neglected albums. I'm having abit of a Bowie revival. He's ace. Thanks also to all the people who mailed me about Hefner. I ordered "The Fidelity Wars" and it is brilliant. I can't stop listening to it. Oh ... the people I've promised mix tapes. I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN. I just have a mammoth backlog to clear. Sorry, but I WILL do it, promise. Well, that's it for me this week ... have a nice week, kids. Now we have a new album to soundrtrack our lives to. Lawrence Mikkelsen http://www.akn.quik.co.nz/mikelsen/aboutme +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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. 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