Sinister: The geeks shall inherit the earth

[Ailsa Ross]

Woke up this morning after a pleasant dream that involved none of you at
all, only to find a rather dazed and confused poetry parrot hovering in
the vicinity. No wonder, carrying about all that stuff about my beloved
Highland homelands. Well I am sending it back on its way, but not before
sharing some Stevie Smith sweetness with you all.  
	  
CONVICTION IV

I like to get off with people,
I like to lie in their arms
I like to be held and lightly kissed,
Safe from all alarms.
I like to laugh and be happy
With a beautiful kiss,
I tell you, in all the world 
There is no bliss like this.

So am I meant to send the poetry parrot on to someone else now?  I think
I'll just set him free and see who wants to catch him as he passes.  Is
that acceptable do you think?  I don't want to send him off somewhere he
wouldn't be welcome...

I have been sitting biting my tongue (well, fingers actually I have yet
to master the art of typing with my tongue) in response to accusations
of tweeness and trying to be all sensitive with regard to why I (and
others) actually like Belle and Sebastian.  Some of you non-newbies may
remember that I got a little huffy at the Sensitive Stan rant a wee
while ago - I took that as an insult to those of us with social
ineptitude when really it was a tongue in cheek pisstake of non-existent
(as far as I know) stereotypes.  Lots of you wrote to me and said "don't
be silly, it's just a joke" and I continued on my merry-ish way.  I took
little offence at Iain Hamilton's diatribe as it was patently misguided,
and would have been funny if he hadn't used it as a parting shot, but
then Ciaran jumped in to imply that the list was mostly a bunch of
pretentious people with too much time on their hands pretending to be
twee and buy records they didn't actually want or like to perpetuate the
myth that they were twee and to shag people of similar levels of
pretentiousness or to take advantage of the gullibility of the socially
inept.  Then did exactly what Iain couldn't (or wouldn't), stayed around
to enjoy the fallout.

(Please note use of the word "imply" above, this is just my opinion and
I may be wildly off the mark.  If so, please come and talk to me
personally unless it's a point that you genuinely feel should be
addressed to the list in general).

Now it seems to me that Ciaran has got the vast majority of us all
wrong.  Last week I made what was intended to be a fairly throwaway
comment about why I identified with certain Belle and Sebastian lyrics
and was touched beyond belief with the response, both on the list and to
me personally.  I don't believe a single person said any of this in
order to get laid.  I certainly didn't.  I don't fit in to any of these
preconceived notions of Belle and Sebastian fans, I listen to records
that would be considered way too uncool in places where judgmental folks
live and call you names for not playing up to the way you are meant to
be.  You don't get that here for the most part and I was quite touched
by Willy Robertson who felt the need to apologise for having been a
Guns'n'Roses fan.  This has never been to me the kind of place where I
have had to pretend to be anything, or to re-invent my own history to
fit in.  I don't think I have to fit in really, I have met some
inordinately good people and some less good people on this list and can
quite honestly say none of them are in any way "typical" Belle and
Sebastian fans, other than sharing a quite passionate love for
finely-crafted wry Glaswegian folk-pop.  This gives me things to talk
about to you but does not mean that I expect you all to understand, to
agree or even to care.  What I don't expect is to be put down for
feelings I can do nothing about.

Those of you unfortunate enough to have met me at picnics/Bowlie will
know that I drink like a fish, swear like a trooper with Tourettes and
have an unhealthy obsession with 80 chart music, Sunset Beach and Celtic
FC.  I have been known to wear non-twee clothes, have a loud and raucous
voice, can't talk with any conviction about bands I probably should be
expected to like, and have made an arse of myself in front of Struan and
chums in too many pubs at too many times.  Inside I feel like a shy wee
soul, but I'm not a flaming martyr to it :)  I have never, to the best
of my knowledge, been laid as a direct result of these feelings.  I own
a fair collection of Sarah records which I never discussed with anyone
for seven years before joining Sinister as no-one I knew was in the
slightest bit interested making it possibly the most expensive and
pointless charade of passive tweeness known to man :)

I know there are lots of you out there who aren't unhappy or twee or
vulnerable, and that there are some of you who are.  Some, like me, are
paddling along inbetween the two, and I suspect that's where we mostly
are.  Pre-Bowlie I never thought for a second that I was the sort of
person who would fit in with what was widely conceived to be the
legendary London-centric clique and their earnest discussion of the
early works of Felt and Talulah Gosh.  Then I went, met the people you
probably all know and really should love on this list who were without
exception, a very nice, pretty diverse and remarkably un-twee bunch of
folks with a mutual love of B&S, and realised that not one of them was
how I had imagined.  And that's the greatest compliment I could pay
anyone I met.  And I don't see that any of the rest of you are going to
be any different from that, whatever floats your boat apart from B&S.

Incidentally, Eliot, how does typing in lowercase make you twee? I can
only think of about three people off the top of my head who steadfastly
refuse to use capitals and I would defend, if not to the death, then to
a reasonable amount of mild pain, their right to use whatever typeface
or font they desire.  Especially as I know a couple of them personally
and can vouch for their non-tweeness.  

As someone who has been rapped gently but firmly on the knuckles by our
gorgeous list mummy for speaking out in a confused and misguided
manner,  I fully back Honey in his administration of this list.  If
people are offended and are frightened off when people laugh at them for
being happy, sweet, shy, socially inept (I consider myself to be all of
these at times, mostly the latter two which I can do damn all about and
as I explained actually magnifies the admiration I have for Stuart and
kind of got me here in the first place) then I want Honey to come along
and stand up for us.  We are the ones that make this place one of the
nicest places I have ever been privileged to call a sort of home, and
although I am not naive to think that makes you all the apples of my eye
and potential bestest buddies, I think there's enough diversity for
everyone to feel comfortable here.  If you don't like people different
from you then stay away.  Just don't castigate them for it, especially
not if you at the same time claim "I'm a sucker for outsiders and
misfits".

Keep smiling, stay yourselves and NEVER let the bastards grind you down.

Ailsa xx
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