Sinister: He was the prince of infidelity

[Nick.Dastoor at xxx.uk]

I'D RATHER UNION JACK THAN STEEPLEJACK

>also like robyn and ben and all other sinister types in north america...i
>think that stum playing soccer with NO SHIRT is just so spectac.  really,
>you uk types complain about bearded men and dronerock bands and that just
>shows how little you've really got to complain about.  for real.  you don't
>really have winter for example.

but we *want* winter.  It used to snow in London when I was a kid.  No more.  It
rained all last week.  Because the weather is so changeable no one is equipped
for it.  Houses don't have roofs, for example.  And in 'summer' we all die.

 > or hockey.

We do!  Many moons ago, a renegade public schoolboy had this great idea of
melting all the ice with his flaming arse and replacing the puck with a ball.
It works well, although everyone falls over a lot, what with ice skates not
being very stable on grass.

> or beavers and mounties clogging your streets.

No, but we have otters and beefeaters.  They're a pest.

> or no really good bands who live in your city and
> play all the time and are people you meet in drinking
> establishments and record stores.

I *never* see famous people in London.  Oh, that's not true.  I saw Hugh Scully
and Alan Bennett once, but not together.  Also, Jude Law used to hang around our
school an awful lot.  But none of them can play indie-pop for toffee.  We have
to go to the East Sussex coast to see anyone good.  Or Mike and Pam's house.
And really, it's not all that great seeing people you admire in the flesh.  I
mean what are you supposed to say to them?  It's all very embarrassing.  You
just end up cringing at the way people hang around them and strike up dire
conversations, knowing you couldn't do any better.  It's just too unequal a
relationship.  You know so much about them (or think you do) and they know
nothing about you.  And unless they fancy you, what reason have they to want to
find out.  They just end up having to be polite or rude.  The only way it works
is if you have a mutual friend, just as in any other social meeting.

I suppose bands play a lot, but I'm not much of a concert-goer.  Let's keep live
music dead.  The only band I want to see all the time never do, which is
probably just as well or I'd be broke.

>really, i mean every now and again i run into don mckellar
>or that gawky dork from sloan, but thats it.  and mo berg,

who?

>but no one even knows who he is outside of canada.

ah.


RECOMMENDATION SPOT (I LIKE THIS GAME)

All this pining for Britain reminded me of "Richard Smith's Compendium of
Britishisms"
(http://toronto.planeteer.com/~rsmith/phrases.htm). I forget how I stumbled
across this moronic page.  Its humour derives from a combination of
innaccuracies, bizarre inclusions ('top sad', anyone?) and the dream that people
might actually read it and come over saying things like "Mucker, that donkey's
breakfast is abso-bloody-lutely brill - must buy one goes like stink!"


ROB'S DILEMMA

>I was wondering, hypothetically speaking of course (ummm),
>what you all would do if you had an advance copy of the
>new album available to you.  I know alot of people like to
>wait...I mean, there is definatly something to be said for
>anticipation and the satisfaction of reaching the end of a
>long wait.


I thought about this at the bus stop the other day.  The 341 came but it wasn't
due for another six minutes, so I refused to get on. I have a policy of only
getting on buses if they come at the scheduled time.  If everyone boycotted all
those 'wrong buses' then perhaps they'd get their timekeeping act together.
Anyway, it's such a thrill when a bus finally arrives on time that it's worth
the wait.  Say no to the pre-release menace, Rob.


TWEE ICONS AREN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE

As if 'Cock Fun' and 'Judy is a Dick Slap' weren't enough of a kick in the teeth
for us all, check this out:

The Times: April 15 2000
Little prince falls to earth as neurotic philanderer
FROM ADAM SAGE IN PARIS

THE most successful writer in French history and hero to generations of Gallic
children, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, has been knocked off his pedestal by the
posthumous publication of his wife's memoirs.
The author of The Little Prince is portrayed as a weak-willed womaniser who left
his Latin American wife humiliated and frustrated. "He was the prince of
infidelity," said the magazine, L'Express.
Written in 1946 by Conseulo de Saint-Exupéry, to whom the writer was married for
13 years, the memoirs were left to gather dust in a trunk after she died in
1979. Discovered by a gardener three years ago, they were given to the
historian, Alain Vircondoloet, who has published them on the hundredth
anniversary of Saint-Exupéry's birth.
The book amounts to a frontal assault on the heroic status enjoyed by the writer
and pilot ever since his death in the Mediterranean during an undercover mission
in the struggle against the Nazis in 1944. Far from being the brave, strong,
creative hero that the French remember, Saint-Exupéry emerges as an anguished
soul incapable of satisfying his wife and fleeing into the arms of his
mistresses.
Mme de Saint-Exupéry, who was born in El Salvador, recounts their wedding night,
for instance. "At the hotel he lay down, fully dressed, on the sofa. He woke up
the next morning." With his mistresses, he appears to have been more active. His
wife reveals how he "would return home with his handkerchiefs covered in
lipstick". One of his mistresses, Elvira, a 26-year- old aristocrat, according
to M Vircondolet, would telephone at 4am. "I know your husband is not asleep,"
she once said when Mme de Saint-Exupéry picked up the phone.
To another he wrote passionate love letters to say that he would be prepared "to
spend seven years at sea with you, my darling". A third hid in the bathroom when
Mme Saint-Exupéry arrived. "I saw the skirt of a woman dressed in green. My
husband was red and feverish and shouting with anger. It was all a mixture of
farce and tragedy."
The author suggested a journey to China as reconciliation. But his wife guessed
the real reason for the trip. "It's because you like Chinese women, isn't it?"
she said. "Yes, Conseulo, I like little, silent women," he replied. Mme de
Saint-Exupery tells how they repeatedly moved homes when her husband failed to
pay the rent, having squandered his earnings.
They eventually separated but met again in Pau, southern France, during the war,
about a year before his death. "I wanted to kiss him, to take him in my arms,"
say the memoirs. "He closed his eyes and murmured 'I would so much like to
sleep'."


  Nick xx



+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
 Twee adj. Brit. excessively sentimental, sweet or pretty. [C.19 from
 'tweet', mincing or affected pronunciation of SWEET]

 ie. NOT GOOD

(Collins Millennium Dictionary)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


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