The last time I saw her, she got on my nerves as most of my adult
family members do. This was two years ago, at my uncle’s place. We had
Christmas dinner and she demanded to know ‘what I’d done with my
mother’s money’ and why I didn’t believe in God. That got my heckles up.

But she and her husband were very kind and welcoming to me on many
occasions, and she and I wrote letters for a while, that kept me in
touch with and part of the family.



When I got the news about my uncle two months ago, I was also told my
aunt, like her brother, had been diagnosed with lung cancer in the
final stage. The same disease, by the way, that took my mother.



God must have had an off day when he concocted our family gene pool.



My aunt, who was in Copenhagen for treatment, passed away Wednesday night. She was spared much suffering.

I don’t have much use for the E! or Fashion channel, or all the bloody Discovery stuff, but I can’t express how great it is to finally have an MTV channel (MTV2) that actually plays music. MTV2 Europe is British owned, they show the NME chart show and the presenters are English, as are the ads. Thank you, lord. They just showed Kaiser Chiefs, Interpol, Magic Numbers and Gorillaz videos. *Cries tears of happiness*. Don’t laugh. I’ve had years and years of MTV/TMF Holland, mostly R&B crap presented by Dutch nit wits, interspersed with the worst bits of MTV USA (Jackass, Road Rules, etc.)

Now I just have to wait (another ten years?) for the rest of their package to become a little bit more interesting.

I may be the only 42 year woman on the planet to get worked up over this. Does ’50 quid spinster’ exist?

I suppose it’s one of the lighter sides of being feverish and sick again.

“Peeh-ple of Holland – Ah luff youh”.

That was a great impression Tom :-] I’m still waiting for the day he gets it wrong, like Cathal Coughlan going “Hello London!” in Vicar Street. He never quite recovered from that…
e – 16 March 2005 – 22:09

Luc Jansen, who incidently will be interviewing Gavin and Guggi at Ancienne Belgique’s Virgin Prunes matinee on Saturday in Brussels, presents a 3 hour John Peel special on VPRO radio. (real audio)

Peel made radio shows for VPRO in the mid-Eighties. In the first hour (‘uur 1′) – after a Dutch introduction, you can hear one of his ’86 shows, in which he calls Tom Waits a terrible old bore… then plays Husker Du’s cover of Ticket to Ride.

You’ll also find some lovely pictures of Peel and his son at VPRO’s old villa/studio.

Me: “???”