Sinister: Hamster Death (and other such atrocities)

[Pete Ramsdale]

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 at majordomo.net". To unsubscribe
   send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
  "majordomo at 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        +-+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+