Hello, it's me! Yes me! You know, the one with the - that's right - and the "monkey beans". Yes. That's me! I've been condemned to the sulphurous depths of List Purgatory for a few weeks, after forgetting to resubscribe when I left University, and am still rather sore. It's terrible down there in the fiery depths, I can tell you! Honey danced on all my soft spots wearing her stiletto heels and made me call her "mummy". Oh! The indignity! So I'm here in Kidderminster, working in the petrol station again. It's not totally boring here, though. We found a shrew in the petrol station last week. Today I had to fill up for a lady who was allergic to petrol. On Wednesday the lady on the fish counter married her late husband's brother and he died the same evening. Honest. That's pretty dramatic, but it is mostly boring here. Anyway, those girls on the fish counter are all the same. I rather terrified a customer last week because she was wearing a Belle and Sebastian bus t-shirt - a brown one - and the shock of seeing one of these in Kidderminster almost made my feet fall off. People round here only saw toothbrushes for the first time last year, and they still only use them to polish their mangles. Well, I confronted the girl. "Hey! Belle and Sebastian! I saw them in London last Friday!" "Oh, I see" "Oh yes! They were dead ace!" "Have they got a new single out then?" "Er, yes." "I don't really listen to them anymore. I just wear this because I like the bus." "Oh" "Can I have a receipt, please?" Ah, the concert last Friday. Well I suppose it's the Friday before last now. It was fun. I really enjoyed all the songs, especially Lazy Line Painter Jane and I Love My Car. Even though the band were tiny from where I stood, and even though no one else was standing where I stood, let alone *dancing*. Thank you Sarah, Alix and Vibri, by the way, for having me stay in your house and sleep in the incredibly comfortable bed. And hello to everyone I met, whether you were from Finland or from just down the road. The recorded voices on the tube are okay, I feel almost certain they do want me to mind the gap, but the man at Birmingham New Street who tells me he is very sorry that my train has been cancelled is a liar. He's not sorry at all. I was walking through Nottingham one time and heard a van parked in front of McDonalds. It was a Securicor van and its electronic voice was saying, ever so calmly, "Help! Help! This vehicle is being attacked. Please call the police!" Nobody believed it, so they carried on walking. The driver had been locked inside automatically and looked embarrassed. I didn't call the police either. I went home and ate some mashed potato. Robin x _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+