Yes, THE Fraser. Mr Lewry – the spiritual father of this community and foundationary Landlord of the Aspidistra and Hatstand.
By way of explanation, he is a born and bred Kiwi and my work travels meant that I was close to where he lives and took the opportunity to have an evening meal and a birrova chat.
He is writing for Classic Rock and one of his first questions to me was “is everyone behaving themselves?” ( I lied and said yes ).
He says he doesn’t lurk here but he might pop in one of these days. I know there’s a tankard with his name on it dangling over the bar as he is highly respected in these parts.
We did wonder if there were Afterworders who aren’t aware of The Word – because a lot of time has passed (about 10 years) since the mag breathed its last.
Anyway, he sends his love and kisses to everyone. Well, perhaps not kisses. Certainly a thump on the upper arm.
Is he still eating every kind of meat imaginable? Crocodile foots? Stingray fricassee? Woolly mammoth rissoles*?
(*behave)
Foots?
Bu-hut-seriously, no. Just a serving of kiwi beaks and some orc shins.
Foots – I was trying to sound southern. Yiiiiip, yer darn tootin etc.
No recent holiday trips to North Korea?
Thought we had another thread about Frasier for a second. Hi Fraser…
Aw I miss him. He steered the ship well back in the old days.
There was serious steering to be done as I recall. Some right old punch-ups. Especially on those threads were people would end up falling off the right-hand side of the screen.
I remember some serious rucks over whether or not there was a clique.
Of course there was a clique. There always is.
Ahhhhhhhhhh FREAK OUT
Le clique
C’est chic
anybody remember the up and down arrows?
….yes, and each post had to have a little title of its own.
I think down arrows were removed eventually.
They were. I suppose in a way it was early Web 2.0 kind of stuff and the dynamics were unknown in advance.
I remember people getting quite upset at down arrows because they were, as i recall, anonymous.
I forgot about the down arrows! I used to quite like that. It was brutal but honest.
⬇︎ 😜
Now that’s just brutal.
🤷♂️
Does he miss going to Sixfields to support the mighty Cobblers?
10 years since The Word ceased publication.
It would be very odd if there weren’t a few people here now who never read it.
It’s great that you keep in touch with Fraser, Black. His legacy lives on.
Worse than that – eleven years. I think the Afterword has been going on twice as long as the old Word blog now. Such a long time ago. How well I remember writing my first post with a quill pen on vellum.
..in Raven’s blood.
I’m reliably informed that in the Mods control room, above the big screen showing who’s logged on and whether or not they’ve uttered any Forbidden Words recently, there is a framed plaque asking the immortal question, “What would Fraser have done?”.
The mods have a control room? I dunno why, but I always pictured them in a sauna.
To be honest, it’s more of a bunker, a lair if you like, where we can stroke the cat (not a euphemism)
I thought you were in a purpose built 40 storey building in the East End of London.
That’s only when they’re on Illuminati duty.
The AW Blog is their side-hustle/hobby project.
Even nefarious plotters need a little chill time.
The control room, earlier today
It Takes a Massive of Millions to Hold Us Back.
Mwah, hah-ha-hah!
(Fluffy white cat off-screen)
The Guv’nor! 😀
The Original Arbiter! Huzzah!
Though I read (The) Word form the Nick Cave issue, and listened regularly to the podcasts, I only joined the blog as the ship was sinking – so only knew of him by reputation.
For those reasons, I do feel I will always be an incomer – those early blog years being written about like the Silmarillion – full of odd wispy characters that never really connect to reality, and stories that don’t really resolve into anything with a plot.
I’m sure you were able to update him on all the stalwart, long standing members from those days, BC.
So were you there for Squirrelgate?
I wish all those old Word threads were still available somewhere. Some real zingers I’d love to read again (Squirrelgate amongst them).
I know the Waybackmachine has a bunch of them, but it’s a random assortment, and so hard to track down the real gems.
I’m still proud of my “Yes vs Pink Floyd” thread. I was tickled pink when it got over 100 responses. 🙂
That takes me back…
One of the proudest moments of my life was when my Meaning of Cliff thread had some excerpts printed in the magazine. Yes, I am that sad.
One of the proudest moments of my life was when my letter was published in the magazine and I became a founder member of Pedants’ Corner (note to self have I put the apostrophe in the correct place)
That was a fantastic thread. ‘McFly: Budget Airline‘ was the title of the column in the magazine, and one of mine, obviously.
I had an entry in the printed in the mag too. As I recall it was Chumbawumba: The sensation of driving over speed bumps faster than intended.
That thread was an absolute belter. Vorgon won it with “OMD: expression of surprise by texting Satanists”, as I recall.
I can’t remember why I decided Pere Ubu was the captain of the Vatican’s elite synchronised diving team but I’m pleased I did.
No, none of the above. Though I was aware, being a reader, that Squirrelgate probably referred to an Andrew Collins column. But that was after, when the incident was already in the dust.
TBH, I was rather daunted by the thought of putting my words in hard pixel among all those celeb journalists and knowledgeable music fans. After the Word, I thought I could get away with it. Some days, I still do.
There was one story I remember being very impressed by – about Van Morrison at Christmas by Backwards 7. Quality stuff.
He’s still on the artist formerly known as Twitter.
This guy presumably?
Fraser would be my nomination for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Who was nominated this year, I wonder? Some nobody presumably.
Taylor who?
He was, very much, a splendid fellow. Glad to hear he is keeping well.
Another one glad to hear he’s in fine fettle.
I liked Fraser. He told me off once. I avoided the cane but got 100 lines. “I must not refer to xxx as a fooking cnut”.
*AHEM* I was the Landlord of the Aspidistra and Hatstand.
Nonetheless, Fraser was, and is, a dude.
I’m so sorry. It’s just that Fraser was doing all the work and you just seemed to be smoking cigars and flirting with the barmaid.
(BC is second left, I’m on the right)
12 years ago (I think it was) we had our very first NZ Mingle, in the corner of a pub in Auckland city decked out as a library. Me, BC, Fraser and a couple of other guys who, well, we weren’t sure if they knew about the mingle or they just happened to be there. They were not active members of the Word Massive anyway.
In those days each blog entry had a title, thus:
Kiwi Massive, with a beer glass, in the library
“The Word’s commander of coding Fraser Lewry moved among us last night, joining Word Readers for an evening of music and rugby banter.
“Several Pironis later, BC’s love for Depeche Mode and Gary Numan was undimmed. Steve told of his time working on NZ music magazine Rip It Up. Andy revealed the, um, climactic effects of listening to Basement Jaxx at the Big Day Out. We discussed the hazards of swapping trousers with John Bonham; Rob Fitzpatrick’s Rush Pig and how, for children of a certain age, Ron Mael was Hitler.”
As others here attest, Fraser is a dude, whose knowledge of Prog and obscure European football teams is unsurpassed, in Aotearoa at least.
These people have been drinking.
What was Michael Portillo doing there?
…bright orange jacket just out of shot
Gosh – I remember that night really well. So long ago but it seems like yesterday. The two interlopers had no idea about The Word but they finagled their way into our group somehow. Why though…why?
@nick-duvet you’ll be pleased to know that I discussed Gary Numan and Depeche Mode with Fraser and he didn’t tell me to stop talking, so that’s good.
Mouth full of koala burger, no doubt