What’s with this ghastly new colour scheme? It’s given this august institution all the graphic dignity of a Bisto tin. Is there nobody amongst the mods who isn’t either colourblind or totally devoid of graphic skills? It’s an outrage. And – like Trump – NOTHING WILL BE DONE. We’re stuck with it.
Brown Is The New Orange
by 124 Comments
I mean – I know it has to be boring, so it doesn’t give anybody a misleading impression of topicality or liveliness, but it was boring before, and now it’s ugly as a bowling shoe. Actually, the more I think about it – it’s perfect.
Just replace “musings on the byelaws of popular culture” with “Ugly And Boring”, and we’re there.
@H.P. Saucecraft
“Bisto tin”.. hope that’s not another plug for your dad’s book, HP
I think it makes sense given the amount of time we spend talking about music from the Seventies. In fact I reckon we should change the font used for the title to the one that the Goodies used.
Excellent suggestion. I’ve just had a look at Mumsnet (my first time) to see how the competition does it, and they’ve gone for a local government look, which is boring without being either ugly or attractive – thus, better-designed than the Afterword.
(And before Mo Esher weighs in with a tiresome “pretty ironic coming from someone who designed the False Memory Foam blog lol!” I’d like to point out that my blog had no pretensions to elegance or good taste. I’m pretty sure the mods think this place is “contemporary”, “bold”, “clean” and so on. Well, good luck to ’em, I say! It’s all subjective, innit?)
The colour of a Bisto tin?
What could be more wonderfully inviting!
I like it, it’s a very cardigan, slippers, pipe, comfy chair, reading specs, Manuel and His Music of The Mountains kind of vibe.
It’s actually more a severely soiled, doubly incontinent with burst piles underwear kind of vibe.
Fawn and lovat are the tones you need for your specified vibe.
I wish I hadn’t read that before breakfast, put me right off my Ready Brek.
Fawn and lovat can do that.
I quite like the new colour, I couldn’t get through the interminable bore fest of the orange look.
Hmmm. Something brown has washed up on the Afterword shores not unlike the shores of the UK. A protest perhaps? Never a frown with shit brown. Clashes terribly with red of The Afterword text.
… and the piss yellow of the “lively community” blurb panel. Mm! Nice!
I find the lack of Braille exclusionary.
Pardon? What?
I like it, it smells of worn leather, cigar smoke and quiet despair.
We’re going through all the colours of the speculum.
And once we’ve done that, we’ll go through the colour pallette of the Commodore 64
Might as well do all the Commodores. Won’t be difficult. Like Sunday morning.
It’s dark orange, retro with a hint of playfulness and a nod to the past. Tested well in focus groups our PR agency assures us.
If anyone can come up with an alternative that 100% of members agree on, with not a single dissenting voice, we’ll happily change it
Oatmeal buff?
I vote for taupe, with just a soupçon of chilled mint. *chef’s kiss*
They’re not allowed to use Crispy Mint Sunrise cos I own the copyright.
Raspberry Ripple.
I don’t think you’re supposed to say that anymore.
I like the idea of “retro with a hint of playfulness”. Makes it doubly aspirational.
You can’t beat teal. The best colour.
Teal isn’t proper. It’s a posho green for those who harbour an unnatural and unfulfilled desire for cobalt blue but are too repressed to express their innermost perversions.
I rather like Prussian Blue…
Unfun fact: the pigment Prussian Blue is used to derive prussic acid, also known as cyanide.
French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac gave cyanide its name, from the Ancient Greek word kyanos, meaning “blue/cyan”, because of its Prussian blue color.
The cyanide derived from Prussian Blue is a key component in Zyklon B, the pesticide used by the Nazis for genocidal purposes.
There are reportedly bricks in the gas chambers at Auschwitz stained with a Prussian Blue residue.
Thanks for that…I was talking about writing ink rather than genocide, really…
Do you have a view on its use in Japanese prints, some 200 years prior to WW2?
Too late! Your diabolical ink preferences have already exposed your appalling predilection for genocide.
The only consolation here is that you didn’t express a liking for Feldgrau, the preferred hue of serial killers and beast fondlers.
Interestingly, science tells us that Pantone 448 C, also known as Opaque Couché, is the ugliest colour in the world.
After three months of investigation, market research firm GfK found the muddy olive hue to be the most offensive colour.
Might I suggest that Team Mod exploit this finding in the site’s long-overdue revamp?
I suppose “opaque couché” does sound marginally better than “the scummy crust on the top of the vat of mushy peas at the chippy on Beesley Street before the health inspectors eventually – but, for more than one local digestive system, belatedly – shut it down”.
I’ll take that as a no, then…
I’d say it was red, rather than brown. Approx 106/49/32 in RGB, circa Pantone 1815, or Humbrol 73 Wine in old money.
It’s the colour of old blood…
It’s BROWN. BROWN. Shit brown.
Pantone 161 is a good turd brown, though too dark for the poo emoji.
Good turd brown, good turd brown
Everybody’s got their heads bowed down
The sun don’t shine above the ground
Hey, we’re going to good turd brown
Maybe if you ate more tomatoes, HP…
Babies be like…
Shit ain’t brown, it’s green, derrrr!
Compare and contrast.
An exhaustive (and exhausting) study has shown me shit comes in quite a rainbow of clouds. A limited rainbow but there’s a job for every promise.
Arf, and the post below is Colin’s Rings of Power!
Headings brown or maybe some sort of orange.
The text red.
And all in block capitals with plenty of exclamation marks.
Surely a jobbie for every promise?
It’s brick red with a hint of rust and a soupçon of shit.
It’s a brick shithouse.
Surely The Commodores’ finest moment!
More orange and more brown for me. Matches my living room perfectly. You should see how my curtains set off my GPlan…
Those colours are a bit 70s for you Dave.
I thought you’d be all silver-grey with red piping.
That’s my bedroom….
Smoooooth!
I’ve had a peek and it’s the brown of Old Kent Road.
I didn’t even notice.*
* I am colour blind.
What with the majority of the massive being ’80s-’90s pop-fixated, the colour scheme should accordingly be pastel shades, silver and black.
Though I suppose bowel cancer test sample brown is also appropriate.
You’re not wrong….
“What with the majority of the massive being ’80s-’90s pop-fixated…”
Are they, but?
You can’t move for Cathy Dennis reappraisals on here.
Jackie Dennis, maybe…
Den Dennis, certainly.
The case for Scottish independence right there.
From an English perspective.
Aye, right enough…
Michty me! Whit a catastrophe!
The mods have turned the site broon
Which one’s Hen and which ones Daphne?
(removes pipe slowly from mouth and crosses legs slowly and purposefully)
Y’know, brown is a very sophisticated, mature and relaxed colour, much under-used in general, and only maligned by extremely childish, giggling folk with whom Sigmund Freud would have a field day. Personally, I think it’s absolutely perfect, thank you very much.
You, Sir, are just brown-nosing. It will get you nowhere.
It’s also the colour of the finest county cricket club in the land, so I love it.
I think we can all agree on that (apart from one or two of the more aesthetically discerning contrarians) but what’s the whole picture here? Is this new AW colour permanent? Only some of the more credulous among us have might have invested heavily in T-shirts with the old colour.
Coventry City… when they were unfailingly moderate… I’ll narrow it down – the ho-hum 1970s.
Apparently it was “made by a small Leicestershire company that made big pants for older ladies.”
Ian Wallace cut quite a dash in that kit (when he wasn’t busy banging pots for Bob Dylan)
That is White Hart Lane and I was at the game in October 1976 (a 1-0 win to Coventry), I can’t remember if they played in brown, maybe it was the season either side?
Tottenham got relegated.
Chelsea up, Tottenham down, Alleluia!
Remember it like it was yesterday.
Liz McDonald’s looking well
IT’S DARK ORANGE !!!!!!
IT’S BURNT SIENNA !!!!!!
What has the fragrant Ms Miller’s baking got to do with any of this?
burnt sienna, raw sienna – can’t anybody cook sienna properly?
Or Charlotte’s Locks if you’re buying Farrow and Ball.
Google ‘Dark orange’ and the first suggestion you get is ‘dark orange urine’.. which apparently can indicate a problem with your bile duct. Not that we get a lot of bile round these parts….
Team Mod’s breezy insouciance is a slap in the face to all the plain, simple folk who have over the years toiled to make the Afterword what it is today – boring. Boring – yet not, until this, ugly.
You can call it “dark red” until you’re blue in the face, but the new (*cough*) colour remains what it is – brown. That’s actually what “dark red” is. Brown. And a particularly repellent brown, at that. Not the comforting brown of a much-loved pair of brogues, nor yet of the bowl of that faithful briar resting upon the mantel of similar hue. Not the brown of the nut-brown jug, neither the foaming mead that fills it. Not the brown of the newly-tilled field of Dear Albion, nor the brown of the humble garden shed, but a noisome shade, redolent of discharge and blood and excrement. As if this in itself were not enough to get Team Mod flogged around the fleet, it is placed adjacently to the existing red of the banner heading, degrading it, soiling it, and setting up a chromatic discord that may result in eyestrain, seizures, and death.
I for one am not going to let this lie (I wouldn’t, would I?). Writing to my local MP is not an option, although it is for those of you not yet too enfeebled of mind and body (a sad minority among the diaspora). Stand with me! We are not a number! We are a free man! We’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore!
I’ve lived with the new palette for a day or two and told myself I would get used to it, but no – it’s just hideous. Let’s revert or try something new and the rest of us will be kind enough to pretend it never happened.
It … gets … worse … I … uh …
I think HP and Gatz are on the money here. The new Afterword ‘shade of shit’ is just plain bloody awful, and the clash between it and the red makes me feel queasy every time I visit the blog. Time for a rethink Mods! And time for us to suggest an alternative instead of just moaning about it. This would be my choice, but other colours are allegedly available.
How about sky blue pink with yellow dots?
All I see are little dots. Some are smeared and some are spots.
You need to invest in a bumgun, young Moose – no more smearing…
Feels like murder but that’s alright.
Must be the jalapenos.
That reminds me, purple.com was one of the first websites I ever looked at. It was a page consisting of the colour purple (no, not the film). It is now something to do with mattresses.
pylonofthemonth is still going strong.
You naughty man.
A brahn blog!
I ask yer… a brahn blog!
Fancy coming to the World Wide Web,
In a brahn blog!
… and get rid of that piss-pot yellow, while you’re at it.
Ah but.
inter faeces et urinam nascimur.
All human life is there.
Nothing but smug complacency from Team Mod. Rather than admit a mistake, they’re confident we’ll get used to it, maybe even come to love it. They’re wrong, again.
It’s shit. Change it back, if you really can’t think of anything better!
I’m going to lay my cards on the table and say I don’t give a toss. It’s not what I’d choose, but then very little is. I’m married to a woman who can identify 50 shades of white by name.
Looks fine to me. Mods can do what they want – a small dispensation for keeping the good ship Afterword afloat.
Oh shut up the pair of you. Bloody bien pensant kangaroo diddlers.
The verdict form the Australian jury is in, and tells its own story.
It’s like they’re some Antipodean two-headed version of Rick out of The Young Ones. “Ooh, I like your shirt, Mr. Team Mod! Can I get you a glass of Lucozade?”
HP’s deluge of posts suggest he is building up to a flounce. By the time he’s back, it’ll have bedded in.
What a mean-spirited post.
Arf!
He’s. An Or. Di. Na. Ry. Guy.
Building up a flounce.
WAKE UP, SHEEPLE! Afterbrown™ is now the NEW NORMAL! Can’t you see what Team Mod is doing (rhetorical question)? It’s a process of gradual desensitisation! Once you accept this, you’ll accept any change they make! It’s the thin end of a very slippery slope indeed!
And you know what?! They’re laughing at you! Because you do nothing! You roll over, praising them for their benign dominion! OOOOH!!!! THANK YOU TEAM MOD!!!! WE ARE UNWORTHY TO BE COVERED IN THIS SHIT!!!!
When they impose Gothic Blackletter site-wide it will be TOO LATE!!!!
HP, I fear you may be pissing in deaf ears. Or something.
I got me hamper, though but. *smacks lips* *rubs palms*
There just aren’t enough conspiracy theories on the Afterword. I’ve just said that Murdoch owns the New York Times even though he doesn’t. We can surely work up some more ideas of terrible things that aren’t true but we’d secretly like them to be because it suits our foetid world view?
I mean the CIA tried to bring down the Monkees, what more have they been up to, eh???
More locally, the mods are sitting on a Corsair mountain that they’re corruptly trying to get rid of by provoking transparent postbait threads like this. You won’t catch me falling into their trap by contributing…er…
I heard somewhere or other that the Baker Street hitmaker had carked it. Stretched my credulity I can tell you.
Do you mean Gerry Rafferty, Sherlock Holmes or Danger Mouse? Or all of these?
Penfold says…..Crikey!!
One and the same personage old fruit. They is legion.
Corsair Mountain. Three more from them later…
I preferred them when they were still called The Chicken Hill.
I’m a bit team Team Mod on this one. While I accept that the idea of giving them free rein to engage in any sort of independent thought or action should frighten even the least sane AWer*, I do enjoy not having to do anything myself.
*And we all know who that is.
I think your not-so-veiled reference to Lodestone is uncalled for and inappropriate.
May I ask on what grounds?
Coffee grounds are the new brown.
The grynze of his lovely hyce.
Brownxit Means Brownxit!
We’re All In (sh)It Together!
etc.
I for one like it. It reminds me of that tasty bit of gunk that you get at the bottom of a Beef & Tomato pot noodle.
Did it briefly go polluted pond green earlier, or is that the Ainsley Harriot kicking in?
It went black for a while, in memoriam for our dear departed friend Carolina.
Pond green I like as an idea.Reminds me of one time our freezer carked it and we lived on spinach soup for a week. I turned into Popeye, only not as beautiful. Great days.