(The early parts of this post have tendencies toward both sentimentality and wankiness. So quick! avert your eyes, children, it'll soon be over!) Earlier this week I climbed a hill overlooking Edinburgh called Arthur's Seat, which, despite having lived here all my life, is something I'd never managed before. This can mainly be put down to laziness and my eventual conquest has probably more to do with boredom than much else. From the top you can see the entire town, and although Edinburgh is a small city, it's still an impressive view. Leaning on the Ordanance Survey pillar at the top, in a valiant but doomed attempt to regain my breath *and* smoke a cigarette, surrounded by Scandanavians and Americans, I looked down over the town and it was like seeing my life so far spread out in front of me. As far as I can tell life is a collection of little stories of experiences and suchlike and everywhere I looked there was some kind of story or memory. Some parts of town reminded me of individual experiences, while others were more connected with certain periods of time. I thought of the people I'd known, who, despite promising not to, I'd lost contact with and who may, or may not, still be down in the city somewhere. And I thought of the people I still know and how important it is that I don't lose touch with them, however difficult that might seem. Most of all I thought of how I'd reached a juncture in my life and how it had seemingly ground to a halt since leaving university earlier in the summer. I realised that I have to do something to get it started again, to actually make the big decisions for the first time in my life, although I've no idea what those decisions are. But the only way in which I can see this happening is for me to finally leave Edinburgh, however much I love it. Nick, the Polyester Groom said:

Ive entitled the summer of 2000 "The Summer of Endings" This is maybe true for me too, but I'd like to think it could be a summer of beginnnings as well.

At what point in one’s life does one really really have to grow up? On her twenty second birthday earlier this year, a friend of mine told me that she was worried that she might have to buy a handbag cause she might be grown up now. Which was intreguing. Is buying a handbag a recognised sign of growing up? Is there a set age at which one (ladies, mainly) should buy a handbag? I

OK, you can look back at your screens now. But be warned! there may be further spells of wankiness ahead. Sorry for the shameless self-indulgence - I'll have to stop giving myself away like that. Anyways, Liz Daplyn pondered: think we should be told! I went to see Alasdair Gray (not a handbag carrier, as far as I'm aware) at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Friday, and despite being sixty-five and incredibly intelligent and knowledgable I think it would be fair to say that there are a lot of ways in which he hasn't grown up. And Edwin Morgan, who I saw reading poems at the same place the week before, seems to be, at eighty, getting younger. So the answer is probably never, Liz. Not really really grow up. But I'm just a young sprig of a boy, what do I know?! By the way, these are two people who you *should read*, kids. Ransack your libraries post haste! Sometime this week Paula Cullen yelled:

"I QUITE LIKE COCK ACTUALLY" Which you can hardly argue with, as well as:

the conversation came around to what was The Best Curseword In The World.........Ever. naturally, "Cunt" was streets ahead of the rest, what with it being the Most Offensive Word In The English Language and all.

You would have thought so, wouldn't you Paula? I certaily did, but apparently it's not. At least not in Britain. The one thing that they told me at university that I still remember, and therefore must have seemed to me at the time to be of greatest use, is that according to the British film classification people "motherfucker" is badder than "cunt". Which is fair enough, I guess. But only if it's your own mother. And "twat" is worse than "arse". Who'd have thought it? I seem to have written more gibberish than usual tonight. Shut up, Ian. OK ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ ++++++ ++++++ ++++++ August 27th Sinister Third Birthday Red Underwear Day ++++++ ++++++ ++++++ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+