My sweets: I managed to buy the new single the other day, and I’ve been listening to it as well. When I first heard Jonathan David, I thought it was complete rubbish, and now I absolutely adore it. When I first heard I’m Waking Up To Us, I felt sort of indifferent to it, and now I quite like it in a vague sort of way that doesn’t really seem to matter, somehow. It’s a tidy unit: the B-sides are both worthy, and I like dogs as much as the next chap. Even if the next chap is someone who has a rather particular fondness reserved especially for dogs. It’ll almost certainly be the soundtrack to a few things that happen over the next little while, but it hasn’t impacted on me in quite the same way as some other things I’ve heard this year. Hearing some of the earlier records was like getting fitted with a new pair of spectacles. Some things became clearer, and other things went all fuzzy. I’ve been looking through them for some time now, so I suppose I shouldn’t grizzle that the new record seems more like a matching jaunty hat than a new prescription. Yikes, I’m writing to Sinister about Belle and Sebastian, aren’t I? I feel all dirty. Let’s move on. Love and Christmas. There seems to be a fair bit of both about at the moment, so I’ll just briefly have my say. Because I can. Love is a curious thing, and means different things to different people. There’s been a lot said on the list about it lately, and I agree with all of it unreservedly. For me, love happens in the summer, and I’ve certainly been enjoying it much more since it’s involved people I’m not directly related to. There’s a lot of anticipation, and wondering “what am I going to GET?”, but inevitably you just end up mopping the grease off your face and dozing in front of the telly, wondering whether you’ve seen this Bond film before, or whether it’s just a lot like that other one you saw that other time. I pulled a cracker last year, but on the inside, there was just a bad joke and a general feeling of bloated disappointment. I think I had Christmas once, but it’s hard to be sure. I’d like to have one again at some stage, but I’ll be far more careful who I spend it with. I like the gifts and everything, but when it’s over, there’s just a great big drunken mess left to deal with. Next Christmas is going to be perfect, and it’s going to last forever. I may not have that quite the right way round. After all, it’s a confusing time of year. On Christmas morning this year, I’m going to wake up extra early and catch a taxi to the airport. Then I’m going to spend all day sitting about with bags and my Gameboy and a headache and small collection of the more fashionable phobias, alternately in lounges and on aeroplanes, heading away at varying speeds from the rut in which I’ve spent this past year. What I’m heading towards is far more exciting, so I shouldn’t let the fact that it’s scary and uncertain worry me overly much. I’m actually hoping that the experience will help me to decide what to do with the next little bit of my life; I’m sure that in one way or another things will be clearer then than they are now. Or at least different. Or maybe I’ll just be less tired; who knows? In any case, travel seems to put a different sort of perspective on things. So does meeting beautiful girls that you’re crazy about. I’ve been off the fags for two months now. As a result, I’m not nearly as sexy, but I do smell a bit nicer. Um, I’ve been a bit crap about sending packages lately, and there are FOUR people on this list, would you believe, that are patiently waiting for items that are STILL sitting in neat little piles on my bedroom floor, rather than winging their way across various large bodies of water (and some land-y bits as well, I suppose) towards their intended destinations. This is not by any means indicative of a lack of loveliness on the part of the recipients, let me assure you, just of a general laziness and disorganisation on mine. I’m deeply sorry, and (it should go without saying) a truly awful (though dashingly handsome) swine. Alright, that’ll do for now. Embarrassingly long and almost uncomfortably tight hugs must go to the kind few that responded so delightfully to my last post. You’re good eggs, the whole job lot of you. God bless your cotton socks. Cotton sock blessings also go to Honey for (along with, you know, everything else) the #sinister stats page, which is my new obsession. I’d like to see a punchy half-hour programme, shown weekly on the television, giving a rundown on the big movers in the chart, and spreading wildly inaccurate gossip about the celebrity #sinister types. If you didn’t know me, you’d think I should get out more. Stay stuffed with breadcrumbs, sage and onion, and oven roasted until cooked through, yet still moist and tender. Bulk love, -David. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+