John Relph of the grandaddy XTC site Chalkhills stepped up to the plate, probably sick and tired of seeing me swing and miss, and provided me with a simple solution to my mail list problem...

To join the Optimism's Flames mailing list - send the command

subscribe

in the body of a message to optimisms-flames-request@chalkhills.org

You'll then receive a confirmation email - simply follow the directions and respond accordingly.

Many - many thanks to Sir Relph... my arms were really getting tired.