The Cloven Hoof

[ichabod @ichabod]

@pedant  — well, most fanfic writers I’ve heard talk about their work are very quick to point out that they are not “authors” in the same way that the creators of their source materials are: “I’m a writer, but it’s just fanfic” is not an uncommon description.  In fact, I’ve never come across a fanfic writer claiming to be an author at all — has anybody here?  I only buzz around that area from time to time, and may well have missed such a happening, or a whole bunch of events.  You don’t find their work for sale in the dealers’ rooms at conventions; they don’t sit at the autograph tables, and they rarely get invited to speak on panels unless those panels are about fanfic.  I’ve heard lots more people title themselves “authors” and then add that their claim to own it is an unpublished original novel in a drawer that has never seen the critical light of day than call themselves “authors” of fanfic.

Just not seeing the “I am an author” being justified by some fanfic pages.  That’s been my experience.

 

 

[lisa @lisa]

So btw I just finished watching the BBC series ‘Happy Valley’. Excellent writing and acting too IMHO
by Sally Wainwright. She also did Tango in Halifax but what I find particularly interesting is that
she also wrote ‘Sparkhouse’ which was a modern Wuthering Heights. I guess that has to be sort of
fanfic? So she had a history in fanfic before finding success as a BBC writer. Anyone that has not
seen any of these series you are totally in for a treat!

[Anonymous @]

“Good critique doesn’t show mercy and it judges quality, of which invention, skill, craft and bunch of other stuff are all componts. But the greatest of these is invention.

If the writer hasn’t bothered to invent before moving into someone else’s universe then he or she will get a right shoeing. It may be done with a scalpel or a bludgeon, but a shoeing it will be.”

@pedant and

@ichib

That above, there, right there, in bold, is what I like. I sit up and pay attention.

@arbutus

Yes Japan and Europe -but it’s six weeks: three 70 mins lessons with at least three-four of those ‘budgeted’ out for carnivals; library collections; HPV injections etc etc. Thank goodness I am no longer ‘doing that’. Although the Boy is! I have my own methods for ensuring he’s on track. 😉

On the subject of Sci-Fi or Fantasy, I must begin somewhere and if Atwood herself ‘claims’ neither Oryx and Crake nor A Handmaid’s Tale ‘fits’ then I am bloody no-where! “To begin at the very beginning; At the very beginning is …A.. B.. C” So moving away from Julie Andrew’s trilling discourse, where should I begin?

Regards. Hapless.

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod -Yeah I believe you might be onto something for a new game! Do we have any dedicated
game players here that would know about anything similar out there? Might be able to also
incorporate principles of Chess or perhaps maybe Mahjong which although I think that
originated in China I think it was also played in Japan possibly around that time. I like
the game within a game thing – many different levels are good 🙂
Regarding Happy Valley- I’m looking forward to seeing series 2 which I think is up-coming
next year sometime and of course more Tango in Halifax and basically any thing voming
from Ms. Sally W.

[Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty]

Well that’s been an interesting morning catch up! 😀

Everything, literary…

@ichabod, @lisaB, engineer (or architect as GRR Martin puts it) v gardener, bit of both. Like the stock cards, mobile idea, tried doing that for my post-grad, couldn’t make it work, might be better suited to four/five act tv than science. Just need to keep an eye on structure, I guess.

@pedant, I do see what you are saying, but I think it basically comes down to, “eventually you have to show that you can get out of the sandpit,” which clearly many of the self-identified fan-fic writers here (@juniperfish, @bluesqueakpip) have done, and to suggest none of their “sandpits” have exposed them to criticism worthy of the name is surely at least erroneous. If they are communities like this is, then I doubt that very much. 😉 But apologies if I misunderstood or missed your point.

So, to state the bleedin’ obvious, writing is a whole heap of skills, a small part of which is committing word to paper (analogue), some of which need to be gained in the “real” world, but plenty of which can be honed on a fan-fic forum.

@ichabod etc (can’t honestly remember all who, apologies for non/mis-attribution), I love the idea of others playing in a writers sandpit. The only issue I get, and it is a fragment of an issue really, is when the writers aren’t afforded the same luxury by the more strident fans, but assuming they show keeps running, it is a bit of a high end problem, and really those fans are only hurting themselves.

Anyway, what fun. Love you all 😀 away to browse the shelves at Waterstones

 

 

 

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@purofilion

 where should I begin?

This list is a decent guide and the list may well be published on Oz.

On that list, those that I have both read and recommend include:

• The Forever War (Joe Haldeman is the most under-rated writer, and when it comes to military SF achieves everything that Robert Heinlein fails miserably to);
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (8 pages of which inspired Blade Runner). Also, Now Wait For Last Year.
• The Stars My Desination ((aka Tiger Tiger). Alfred Bester also has The Demolished Man, which is also superb)
• Stand On Zanzibar (bizarrely, not as dated is its premise might suggest. Brunner is a bit of an oddball)
• The Dispossessed (and The Left Hand of Darkness). LeGuin is superb
• Sirens of Titan (and, for that matter anything by Kurt Vonnegut. You MUST read Slaughterhouse 5 – it is one of the great works of American literature. So it goes.)
• Time Machine and War of The Worlds (As much as anyone HG Wells was a true pioneer of SF)
• Timescape – but don’t skip ahead an read chapter headings!
• A Case of Conscience (James Blish wrote some lovely stuff, but this meeting of Science and the Vatican is marvellous)
• Rather than The City and The Stars, I would go with The Songs Of Distant Earth, by Arthur C Clarke. Also, Renzesvous With Rama (but NONE of the sequels, which he didn’t write). And 2001, obv.
• Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang (and I’d add Juniper Time from Kate Wilhelm)
• Ringworld (Larry Niven may be a right wing libertarian nutjob, but the boy can write)
• Tau Zero (includes the best explanation of relativity theory I have ever read AND the most sublime sleight of hand ever)
• Roadside Picnic (a bit of Soviet SF!)

Not yet read by me, but which everyone I know recommends:

• The Man in the High Castle
• Flowers for Algernon
• Riddley Walker

Ones I’d add (non-exhaustive). Can’t guarantee they are available

• Waystation by Clifford Simak
• A Canticle of Leibwitz (on a list lower down the linked page)
• The Gods Themselves (easily Asimov’s masterwork)
• The Book of the New Sun  – Gene Wolfe
• To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer (and many sequels if you like it)
• A Dream of Wessex (in fact pretty well anything by Christopher Priest)
• Rite of Passage by Alexia Panshin
• Almost anything by John Wyndham, but especially The Chrysalids

Everything above fulfils the criteria of being Good Fiction (posts passim)

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Hi everyone.

Wow! Just popped in for a quick saturday lunchtime pint, and the pub’s buzzing! Great discussions everyone. Not got time to do a in depth response, and I’m not someone who’s ever been deeply immersed in fanfic, but my view would be that quality is everything. Is the writing itself any good, does the writer bring anything new to the sandpit for the characters or the plot to play with? Does it stand on its own or do you need to know about the source material before it makes sense?

Nice list @pedant, though you missed out a few including Ballard, Bradbury and Iain M Banks.

I started reading scifi with Asimov and Wyndham, (and loved a lot of their books and ideas, still do), but gradually edged more towards writers who were more character driven and the ones who were more sci-fantasy.  There’s also the whole world of graphic novels/comics which is where I found Gaiman and Moore. (@Wolfweed could add loads more to this if he wasn’t currently incarcerated in a parallel dimension 🙁 )

@arbutus I think the most important thing schools can teach kids is about developing their critical faculties, including (especially) online. That means they should be encouraged to read as widely as possible and question everything. Wikipedia etc are wonderful resources, they just shouldn’t be taken uncritically and without checking other sources (including whether those other sources have in fact ripped off Wiki!) Sadly, in my experience, most education systems aren’t designed to do this.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

This should maybe go on the music thread, or fan creativity… but it seems loosely relevant to the discussion here. I think it’s also been posted before but hopefully it will make you smile. I did.

http://www.kasterborous.com/2015/01/laurel-hardy-dance-doctor-theme-tune/

Cheers everyone, have a great weekend

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@scaryb

Yes, I was using the list as a guide.

@purofilion

Although a change of editor rendered some of Iain M Bank’s later works borderline unreadable, you should definitely explore his early Culture novels Consider Phoebus,  A Player of Games, (Look To Windward is shockingly prophetic when you note the publication date and its dedication). Leave Inversions until you’ve read a few to see how clever it is.

Ballard is more of an acquired taste but “Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan” should be required reading. Not SF at all.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@scaryb   You have made my day — this is so ridiculously charming — !

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

Books — please add “Earth Abides”, 1949, George R. Stewart.

[Anonymous @]

@pedant Thank you so much for going to all that trouble of typing all that up. Seriously! Thank you.

@scaryb and @ichabod. Indeed.

It strikes me that for whatever reason -my mind is playing slow and loose – that I have read Wyndham and Bradbury and …nope. nothing else on that list. Well, off I go!!

BTW, I watched some of (what I thought) was the worst (no, say ‘not the best’) Buffy in ‘Put the I in Team’?

Is it just me, but whilst Crouse’s performance in parts was spectacular, some things just did not work at all?

And the ENDING?? What the hell happened! I get the vague motivation and the inevitable ‘pay off’ but jeepers!

Giles was great -as always, but there was little Willow time and everything seemed wrong: I can’t get my head around it! I will enjoy some episodes today  -I gotta add I liked A New Man quite a bit!

*Ah hah, I know Flowers for Algernon. From where? TV? Nope? Some school kid? Is it actually in the bookshelves? Nope. A puzzle.

Thanking you, puro

[Anonymous @]

@pedant

Right,  on Vonnegut -not an entire idiot am I! I read Player Piano but many years ago and of course in Humanities Depts (before the leprosy of Post Modernisn The Only Way arrived) we discussed portions of his writings and political leanings. His own knowledge was astounding -Horace, Homer, Pliny and so on. Slaughterhouse 5 -oh boy, I read that ages ago. God knows, where it even is. I generally keep every book and music score in one room, but since The Great Toilet Crack of 2014, paper became pulp etc and many many books and whole texts containing analyses of books (so very old) were completely written off.

Well, I must stop whining and get on with it.

A day without Hail and Buckets, puro.

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb that particular score – in @ichabod‘s words “charming”  -(and what I’d deem the full score) arrived on my desk  with a very funny woman who knocked on the door and said: “Dr Dr Dr eerhm… I ..I ..I ..want to perform that score in September. Can..I ..Can..I..p..p..please?”

I sat her down (she’s a very nervous young lady from the Indian subcontinent, 100 pounds soaking wet) and I asked: “this score. You want to conduct this score. There’s a choir too, are you up for it?”

“Hmm. err.. I think so. No. Yes”

I said, “Are you mad or are you a fan?” At which point, deciding I couldn’t put her through any more pretend misery, I just laughed very happily and she was enormously relieved. Turns she’s both mad (as in as high expectations & freakishly clever) and a fan.

It requires a choir, enormous strings, more winds than one can count, with more than 4 double bass and it just won’t fit in the venue without spending beaucoup bucks. But she’s gonna give it a try. No doubt it will be recorded as part of her MA(Mus), so hoorah!

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion   Four double bass et al?  Who’s gonna do the Laurel & Hardy dance?  It won’t be the same without the Laurel & Hardy dance!  Surely some faculty members can be found . . . No?

Aw, pity.

I haven’t watched BtVS in ages, but remember Giles and Buffy fondly.  That girl got the best School Dad ever — no wonder she turned out so well!  That’s parenting for you — you try to prepare them, and then you get to . . . watch . . . Well, a bit more in Giles’s case, but as I recall the situation was a little, ah, unusual.  Them was the days . . .

 

 

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod  no dancing 🙁

Buffy is superb “and..then you get to . . . watch . . . Well, a bit more in Giles’s case, but as I recall the situation was a little, ah, unusual.  Them was the days . . .”

Huh?

Ah, you must mean Giles ‘following’ Buffy to Univ Sunnydale…or something else? Bear in mind, I’m a clean skin watcher 🙂

Just heard a great Giles line: “I’m surprised you could hear anything above your Wagnerian snoring”. Wonderful

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion  I just meant that Giles eventually gets into the action quite a bit, as I recall, instead of just being a “watcher”, plus lager developments like uni that I never went along for.

[Whisht @whisht]

ah – been meaning to post but stuff getting in the way.

And now the conversation has moved on, but… haven’t (knowingly) read any fanfic but like several here, I just care whether I end up enjoying what I read.

And as with most categories or genres, they’re handy for initial navigation in terms of “what type of thing should I read/listen to next?” but pretty useless in terms of “what will I like?”.
Even a genre you’ve not found anything good in is unlikely not to have something you’ll like (as I discovered with Country music!).

When the discussion was around Marketing and not finding the right ‘place’/genre/category for something, I thought that this was typical for a profession that has evolved to segment its audience in order to better communicate to them. To find the right message that a segment of people will respond to.
But the danger is if this is aligned with a conservative approach of not taking risks, not disrupting (as they say) by putting stuff to a segment that doesn’t necessarily align with what they’re perceived to like.
It also occurred to me that we’re segmenting ourselves through our filtering of information (I’m sure Clay Shirky has written about this, but looking at his wiki page can’t find the right link – anyway its not new thinking on my part and just pondering as I walked to work and now can’t remember the key points!).

Not sure after how I’d define fanfic – it can’t just be “did you get paid?” and if its taking already existing characters and having fun with them, then Alan Moore has been doing that for years. Characters from some of his best works (Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as well as Swamp Thing) were not ‘his’ originally, though what he did with them was original.

As for sci-fi – that was my escape as a kid. I used to devour scifi from the local library (2-3 books a week).
Good, bad and indifferent stuff. I took a look at the wiki list and it is interesting that I didn’t see any Ray Bradbury (maybe he’s fantasy… ah, genres…) but I think best scifi I’ve read recently was The City and The City by China Miéville (not sure if its really sci fi but…). Luckily I didn’t know what the conceit of the novel was so it was a fantastic reveal for me (I’m hopelessly anti-spoilery so I didn’t even read the back cover – I liked Perdido Street Station – an early book of his – and simply looked for something he’d done since hoping it wouldn’t have some of the faults of that one and picked The City up – lucky me!).

blimey – I’ve rambled, sorry!

[Rob @rob]

@bluesqueakpip

Followed the link and thoroughly enjoyed your writing,  bloomin’ fantastic

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@rob
Thank you. 🙂

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

FAO @purofilion, @blenkinsopthebrave and the rest of the Aussie crew: if Hollywood was Aussie –

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2015/01/26/films-made-australian/

[Anonymous @]

@pedant

As I woke up at 3.30 am with no ability to return to sleep, reading that list of Oz-‘remakes’ was wonderful. The Dingo one, particularly and one…other but as my brain is memory wormed, I laugh and then forget why.

1st day with the squaddies always makes me nervous: hell I could be Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and not be nervous but a room full of 17 year olds? Cripes. Actually, I had a look at the remake -as did Boy Ilion and it has whatshisname (The Dream Lord), John Hurt and at least another two actors from recent Doctor Who. Though, really I had no idea they’d re-made it.

It was slow as syrup.

I’ve now subscribed to Poke (at least I hope it’s the right site) where a daily dose of grammar will be in order: “Know your shit and know you’re shit” etc. Yep, this is the level at which my brain is working; what a colossus.

@bluesqueakpip I also followed the link -1st I just checked it out. And then I read it. Really wonderful.

[janetteB @janetteb]

Have been reading through all the wonderful posts making mental notes, which I have now completely forgotten, so forgive me for not doing justice to all the interesting posts in this conversation on one of my favourite subjects. I especially enjoyed the discussion about what is and isn’t fan fic. As always there are not hard lines delineating what is from what isn’t. As I said in a talk last year we as a species have a tendency to want to catagorise things in nice, clearly labelled boxes.

@pedant, thank you for putting up that reading list. Like Puro my sci fi repertoire is embarrassing. In the last few years however I have read far too little fiction of any kind. There are several works on my “to read” list, The Diamond Age, Wyndham’s the Midwich Cuckoos which a teacher read to us in primary school. One of my favourite fantasy works, which I have mentioned before, and recommend is Jonathan Strange and Mr NOrrell. The BBC are currently in post production on a adaptation which I await with baited breath. Also thanks for the link to the Aussie film posters. Cheered me up after reading the news.

@Purofilion best wishes to Boyilion on his new school. My youngest goes through in the one school so did not have to go through all that. Is you son entering yr 7 or 8? It sounds as though he is doing the same topics in history as Owain. I was rather excited when I read through the history book for this year, especially as it had a chapter on vikings and a pic of the viking longhouse on the Lofoton islands.

@bluesqueakpip I know where I shall start. 🙂

Cheers

Janette

.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@Purofilion  Did I pick you up correctly that you are going to conduct the Dr Who score (with orchestra and choir)? That redefines awesomeness!!

@pedant – great link to the Aussie film  remakes, much chuckling

@whisht – Agree re marketing “segments”. The problem with it is, as you say, that it tends to become self-limiting and encourages people to play safe in their choices. One of the things I love about Dr Who and this Forum is that it can lead you down all sorts of unexpected paths, some you like more than others, but it’s great to get the chance to explore new things.

 

Thinking about fanfic and sci fi reminded me of Michael Moorcock – he fanfics his own work!!  (Some of his books were amongst my earliest and favourite sci fantasy reading and I loved some of the first ones I read, especially the Elric stories with Chaos Ships and semi-sentient bloodthirsty swords, and the early Jerry Cornelius ones. But talk about rebooting and reinventing. Or maybe I missed the point 🙂 )

[Anonymous @]

@janetteb Ilion started yr 8 today- which means, if they’re doing the curriculum I think they’re doing, it’s Medieval Europe and Japan followed by a longer ‘investigation’ into the Black Death. The Ancient topics of Greece, Rome and indeed the ones you mentioned seem to be exclusively year 7? – as far as I know. Different schools take a different approach so there could be some with 8s completing 210 mins p/week for the full year (History): early societies thru to Renaissance/Reformation.

Rather than lofty analysis, however, we were concentrating on polishing shoes.

 

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb

no, not me. I got me own credentials I do 🙂 The student -an MA(Mus) is attempting to do this as part of one of many conducting performances (much like learning to drive, one has to log a substantial repertoire) She’s a fan (actually from China), a softly spoken petite person who whispered that she intends to present a similar score to the one above (richly textured with added percussion) but with a bonus: the beginning is a free form intro exactly as written in 1963. Thing is, she’ll have 5 hours of rehearsal? She’ll need to know it like she knows her own skin. Hours of painstaking ‘reading’ with the tell-tale red and blue coloured pencils scribbling in transitions, pauses and time signat changes. It’s a big sound, though, with considerable subtlety- rumbling percussion/low strings and a tickety-tickety pace. It’ll her show her off: that’s the point.

Regards, puro.

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@purofilion
Thank you. I hope it didn’t include too many spoilers for you, but glad you enjoyed it. Best wishes to Boyilion as he starts at his new school. 🙂

@janetteb – hope you enjoy it!

[Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty]

Dear @ichabod, so lovely to “meet” you, feel rather honoured. Got pleasantly lost in the “Vampire Tapestry.”

Now that I am committed to playing in other people sandpits, a chance phrase, paraphrased from articles on the mysterious Denisovans and Red Deer Cave People made me wonder if, collected, Weyland’s publications should be titled, “Contributions from an unknown Hominid.” Or not 🙂

[ichabod @ichabod]

@barbaralefty — Oh, I like this working title!  Why not?!  But only if I don’t have to buckle down now and write his books and articles for him, the arrogant old bastard . . . I’m circling, slowly and so far without full commitment, around another story about W.  There’s a band in it, in a coffee shop, middle aged guys who all have other jobs because they never made it as musicians (maybe a fiddler, guitar, drummer), and they come in Tuesday mornings and play in the background (yeah, they’re modeled on something local near the university, where I live).  They call themselves “Rubbish Robots from the Dawn of Time” . . .

Glad you liked the book.  I still like it pretty well, myself, truth be told.

[Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty]

No @ichabod h  I don’t suppose he treats his editors and secretarial staff any better than he does anyone else! Band sounds very interesting, so long as they never meet in pubs called the Cloven Hoof or venture into Puccini, otherwise we would need to excuse ourselves, unless you happen to have an elephant gun on your person…

[ichabod @ichabod]

No gun, god damn elephant won’t give it back to me.

Coffee shop = Figure and Grounds?  Grounds for Divorce (oops, no, that’s gotta be a bar)?

Fair Grounds?  Sheesh, my imagination seems to have been grounded today.

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

Apropos of..well, not quite nothing, but this is a bit of writing I did a while ago. Not really linked to today’s stuff in Poland, other than en passant, but it felt appropriate to stick it up.

The Lost Princess

[Anonymous @]

@pedant

it’s beautiful. Your story and The Snow Goose.

everything has relevance: (my Latin is awful) in specialibus generalia quaerimus (to seek that which is general in the specifics of the matter?).

I remember receiving a copy of The Snow Goose at age 8. Typically, during that year, I wrote my name and age in teal texta over the first page. I still have that hard copy somewhere in the attic.

A music lecturer asked us once to choose a “children’s book and compose a small theme or motif for this work”. I chose The Snow Goose. Although, for me, it’s not really ‘just a novella for children’ as some believe. Anyway, I recall I used a trio of: oboe, violin and cello. I was surprised that few of my fellow students knew the book!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@purofilion

The film is available on YouTube now (Google really respect intellectual property see?). 1971. Richard Harris, Jenny Agutter.

[ichabod @ichabod]

The Snow Goose — god, so many years ago.  So many fine books led me out into the world before I ever left home.

[lisa @lisa]

So following thru on these conversations recently around fanfic and mashups etc. I thought I’d
post this conversation by the writer Seth Grahame-Smith since he mentions some of these same
topics in a engaging and interesting way. He’s the guy that wrote the ‘Pride and Prejudice and
Zombies’ and ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’ and he has a new 1 called the ‘Last American
Vampire’. If ever there was a confluence of fanfic and mashing up this might just be your guy!
I enjoyed hearing his take on the future for writing and his own writing process but quite
honestly these Google talks are usually ‘good stuff’

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Okay, so I think I’ll be staying away from the Graun for a bit.

It’s like somebody thought ‘What is the most unreadable format we could possibly use, which gives our readers as little information as possible?’ and then made it into an index page.

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

@bluesqueakpip — I’ve been looking for an excuse to quit the Graun for a while but always ended up falling off the wagon. Now looks like a good opportunity. Design-wise, it’s an absolute travesty. Looks like they’ve let the Nathan Barleys all over it and abandoned what remaining vestiges of usability the site had left.

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

@lisa — very interesting video. Thanks for posting. I think he’s largely right about where publishing is going but as to his own stuff, he strikes me as … how does one put this diplomatically … being utterly bereft of originality. Mash-ups and fanfic are fine if you bring something to the mix but the 30-odd pages I managed to read of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies didn’t strike me as remotely having that. (In fact, I was reminded of Dorothy Parker’s ‘This is not a book to put down lightly. It should be hurled across the room with great force’ when I was reading it.) And from that talk, I’d say he’s now moved on to ripping off er, mashing up Scott Snyder’s American Vampire series. (Which incidentally is well worth checking out, especially the earlier volumes.)

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

Oh, and not sure where to put this, but I thought this was kinda fun.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@jimthefish @bluesqueakpip

Further more, when you mention in comments the staff come of board at get all obnoxious at you…  See this moronic exercise in not using captions, and the comments: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/ng-interactive/2015/jan/07/best-january-tv-shows-premieres-guide, most notably this total cockwomble

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@pedant

What the fcuk was that? Some kind of ‘Guess the TV programme’ game?

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

@pedant and @bluesqueakpip — yeah, that’s really quite unbelievable. Looks like someone failed Design 101: Introduction to the Bleedin’ Obvious.

[Anonymous @]

@pedant  heheheh (I don’t think I’ve every typed that before). So, very funny indeed. Well, sad, but y’know what I mean. Errm: “cockwomble”? I’ve never heard this expression!

@jimthefish  what a great table!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@purofilion

cockwomble

The writer Tony Grounds needed some authentic army slang for one of his shows – he asked on a football fan site I read, and a couple of ex-squadie fans came up with a fair few, of which ‘cockwomble’ was the only one remotely safe for broadcast.

And it amused me.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Hi everyone

*shakes the snow off wellies and flops in the corner”

Ah, it’s so cosy in here. Glad someone brought some sofas in.

Have to say I’m in complete agreement with the comments about the new style Graun. I thought it was just me getting progressively more confused with it. The Last Christmas board I nearly gave up on – it was just too hard to find new comments, or follow discussions.

@Purofilion “Cockwomble” sounds very @pedant ish to me 😉

And agree, @jimthefish‘s periodic table is great, thanks for posting.  I seem to have missed the links to various people’s writing, going to have to timetravel back a few pages I think. 🙂

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Meanwhile… just found out that today is the Feast of Juniper! (For Brother Juniper, follower of St Francis and also known as “the renowned jester of the lord”)

So I propose roasting some pigs feet (veggie options are allowed) and passing round a few flagons of gin, while raising a toast to our own @juniperfish

🙂

[Whisht @whisht]

@bluesqueakpip @jimthefish @pedant – holy hell.

I’m…. stunned by what the guardian have done. After they’re redesign some years ago, they were someone I’d point to as ‘getting it right’ (hierarchy of information, legibility, ability to ‘ignore’ information, innovation etc).
Over time they kept adding stuff and it destroyed what they’d had (happens to all designs).

But this? This is…. this is like an agency pitch from the B team.
Or ‘recommendations’ from a research company.

Funnily enough the basic ‘grid’ is similar to one we’re thinking of for our new site at work.
I’m gonna have nightmares now thinking “how do I stop that grid doing this to us??”

8¬0

🙂

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@whisht

It’s awful isn’t it? Especially when you realise they’ve spent the best part of a year (I think) road testing it and taking feedback. Never mind, they don’t need us, they get 1m + impressions every month. Tho I suspect that’s just cos people get so confused with it they have to keep reloading 😈

I’m gonna have nightmares now thinking “how do I stop that grid doing this to us??”

Easy. Ask our emperor and webmaster @craig‘s advice!! (seriously 😉 )

[lisa @lisa]

Sympathies to the Aussie readers -writers- Who-sters on the passing of Colleem McCullough RIP
She was a excellent and prolific writer. I always meant to read 1 of her Rome books- I must do that!

[Author]

Posts