Now there's a name for a heavy metal band if ever I saw one. Hamster Death. They could come on stage with various assorted stuffed hamsters and pints and pints of fake blood. No? Oh well, it was only a suggestion. My own tragic hamster story (pete cranks up the music from "Our Tune" in the background) happened when I was about six, and my sister four. We used to take our hamster out of it's cage every so often, and let it run freely through tunnels that we'd lovingly crafted out of upside-down books. At one end of the tunnels would be some food, and it nearly always chose the correct route to get straight to it. (Dramatic pause whilst "Our Tune" music comes to the beginning of the next bar). One afternoon, I gently lowered the hamster into the start of our little maze, and sat there with my sister waiting impatiently for it to appear at the other end, where the food was. After about a half hour of waiting, I began to realise that something had gone drastically wrong. I started to lift the books up, one by one. There, under a particularly gaudy chapter of the "Children's Encyclopedia Brittanica" (G-I - I remember it even now) was our beloved Cyril, who instead of popping it's head out the other end of the tunnels, had decided to pop his clogs instead. After a short while spent poking it to try to get it to move, my natural human reactions took over, and I ran away shouting "Urrrrgh." Anyhow, on to matters of far greater importance, which is where I try to do an Alasdair Cook impression, only with far less style and wit: Ellen said:

..frosty wind made moan..

and right she bloody was about it too. Mostly it comes from pensioners. The moaning, that is, not the wind. You wouldn't believe the amount of whinging than my gran does at even the hint of a cool breeze. As for frosty winds, well, she never shuts up. followed by P F:

Me, I'm occasionally provoked by the *revenant* of Arthur Albiston. Despite being well past his best by 1988, he was still appearing in full-page colour 'posters' in *Match* magazine. He also adorns the mid-80s edition (was there ever another?) of Jack Rollin's Soccer: The Records.

and he was, as I remember, the only bugger I could never get in my otherwise complete book of panini football stickers from nineteen eighty something. Not even when I offered my mate three and a half hundred Kenny Dalglishes in return. Shows you the warped values that some people hold in life. Now there's an idea - panini B&S stickers. You get a great big board to put on your wall for which you can then buy stickers of the band members of your choice. Hardest to get, and most treasured, would of course be the Sinister club badge, done in red on a silver background. Just think - you'd be the envy of all your friends. But there again, if they just let you fritter away your lifetime earnings on sticky pieces of plastic they're probably not very good friends anyway. And on to Brandt:

2. Unfortunately Kate Bush's voice is not what angels hear when god speaks to them. that would be Rose Melberg's voice.

Not too sure about that Rose character, as I have absolutely no idea who she is, but you were pretty spot on about the first bit. If I was an angel (and to be quite honest, the *only* people ever to have thought of me as such were my sadly misled parents) I'd go running straight to Old Nick himself if Kate Bush so much as threatened to open her cakehole. Deary me. Just to keep the flow going, Jan said:

who knows, maybe they're even spying on us.. komm raus, christian kracht, oder ich barre dir ein stück rad, dass es goetzt!

which was all rather sadly lost on me, I'm afraid. The only bit of German I can remember from four annoying years trying my best to learn the bloody stuff is "Hauptbahnhofschnitzel". Which means "Mainline railway station lightly covered in breadcrumbs and fried for half an hour". My heart raced when kitten mouse said:

i like macintoshes

and then sank again when she swiftly followed it with:

(the computer)

God. Has everyone these days lost their appreciation of a good quality raincoat?? Such a shame... Zoe pondered upon

the soundtrack of my life

Which got me thinking. Laterally, of course. Does anyone else have mornings when you get up and you think about a song so much that it's like having the band playing inside your head?? It can sometimes be quite nice, but unfortunately when I arose this morning My Bloody Valentine had taken up residence. Ordinarily I wouldn't mind this, but at the time I was extremely hung over. And they were making one hell of a racket. Well, I'll leave out all the other tedious rubbish I was going to include (because I've gone on long enough already), and stop to say thankyou to our incredibly lovely list mummy. Honey, we love you. I'll leave you all with a heartwarming, festive letter of thanks sent by a participant in a charity-sponsored lunch for the elderly: Dear Safety Harbor Middle School: God blesses you for the beautiful radio I won at your recent senior citizen's luncheon. I am 84 years old and live at the Safety Harbor Assisted Home for the Aged. All of my family has passed away. It's nice to know that someone really thinks of me. God blesses you for your kindness to a forgotten old woman. My roommate is 95 and always had her own radio, but would never let me listen to it, even when she was napping. The other day her radio fell off the nightstand and broke into a lot of pieces. It was awful and she was in tears. She asked if she could listen to mine, and I said "fuck you". Sincerely, Edna Johnston Says it all, really, dunnit? Have a great Christmas and a truly pissed-up Bennyhillium, lol p xx. -- -----------------------------*||*-------------------------------- Ode from London, SE8 "In the midst of life, we are in Deptford." - Martin Newell, Poet. Pete Ramsdale - Unix Systems Administration, Warburg Dillon Read Phone: 0171 568 3836 -----------------------------*||*-------------------------------- This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. This message is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/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 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+