Sinberland Street - So far, yet so near

Welcome.....to the dark side of reality....to another dimension, another time, right on your doorstep........

I have often visited this part of town, this dusty car fume infused dual carriageway. Shops offering mouthwatering offers of beautiful clothes, lino, carpet and football themed beds...
Many people have debated the many goings on, trials and tribulations of Sinberland St, a normal road, a busy road, bustling with cut price stores offering mainly luxury goods, but nestled in between are big brand names for small prices: cupasoups, garden shears, Exclamation! perfume, copies of Alan Shearer's biography, maybe even an Umbro gift set...I even stumbed across a Thai themed Fray Bentos tinned pie - pretty normal I thought really, until I started observing myself and discovered the wonderfully dark world of Sinberland's visitors and residents......

Blaine Siwil

Here we have the first character I ever came across....Blain Siwil, a 40 something claiming to be 24, a runaway, I met him whilst working in a cafe on Sinbarland St - he would come in every day and would order a pile of bread and beef paste washed down with his own supply of super strength warm yellow lager - everyday he would mention his collection of animal bones, of which some looked suspiciously human - no one ever knew why he was here or why he had left Oz - no one ever asked him - expcept me...and I was sorry I ever asked.....

Billy 'Razors'

Billy 'Razors'

Billy 'Razors' .... hands full of swallow tatoos, hair all matted like a thatched cottage roof, his chin awash with multicolured stubble -a sasquatch lookalike- Sinbarland's window cleaner. You can hear him 'singing' at the bottom of the street, his singing comprises of him wildly shouting Billy Ocean lyrics at the top of his voice whilst violently cleaning the grubby windows - He bashes his cleaning shammy on a stick against the windows scaring the life out of its workers and residents. Everyone fears the arrival of Razors - it is a scary event, likened to Charles Bronson shammy leathering your windows.

Charles 'ChiChi' Hanson

Charles 'ChiChi' Hanson

ChiChi. Charles. A kind pillar of the community. I noticed that everytime I would open the cafe's shutters, Charles, or ChiChi as he liked to call himself, would be stood right next to me, stuffing Beef Disco crisps into his mouth, his favourite, saying that he was watching out for me whilst i opened up shop, as there were 'many wierd people about'. His hair piece was always wonky, and his 1980's frilly victorian styled ladies dress a tad too small, his long hairy arms dangling at his sides, he would help carry in the bread of a morning and mop the steps.
He was an honest person who stood out from the rest, a little different yet the most normal....liked by all apart from Arthur C Mandolino, whose piggy eyes would watch ChiChi like a security camera, scared of the unkown, of 'the strange man in a dress', who was, actually, far more 'normal' than Arthur.

Aurthr.C.Mandolino

Arthur C. Mandolino....."The Toad"

Arthur C. Mandolino was a cat amongst the pigeons, a rose between the many thorns of Sinbarland St, he liked to think. My first encounter with Mr. C Mandolino was one friday afternoon, as we were closing the cafe, he waltzed in with the grace and pinache he could only dream of.
Dressed in a cream Del Monte suit, pink shirt, his chubby pink hands pushing through the cuffs , a thick gold bracelet strangling his piggy wrist, his swollen head poking out of the top of his oversized jacket, red and sweating from walking across the road....
He introduced himself as a 'local entrepeneur', 'Sinbarland's Sir Alan' he would tout himself as, whilst leering at girls chests and mens crotches.
His money,however wasnt real money, just a string of Gold Visas. He owned a chain of sleazy discotheques called Diamonds, was believed to own a large mansion stuffed full of taxidermy and greek pillars. I started to notice that Arthur had a strange relationship with Blaine, and would smack him on his buttocks everytime they crossed paths. His manicured fingernails screamed laziness, smooth fat hands suggested not a hard days work in his life - a real Toad of Toad Hall...

Dawn Constable

Barry London