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Happy 10th Birthday The Word/Afterword Blog

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This week marks the 10th anniversary of The Word blog, which begat The Afterword. The Word magazine website existed already and readers could comment on topics set by the magazine writers but the major change in 2007 was that readers could start their own 'blog' to create topics and posts in a format which remains pretty much unchanged in the site as you see it now.
Here's a screengrab of the page with Mr Hepworth announcing the new service and telling us to expect the same “high standard of banter and the well-informed, well-mannered exchange of amusement, erudition and entertainment” – On the whole, I think we've stuck to that brief even without the Magazine to orbit around and I think this is worth celebrating, so Happy Birthday and Long Live The (After)Word.

https://web.archive.org/web/20071012014351/http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk:80/

12

Comments

  6. I owe this blog so much, and I’m so grateful. The wonderful posters I’ve met on here have changed my life in so many ways:

    – I found the courage to get myself out of an abusive relationship, thanks to the support of the friends I found here. (And the many posts on here got me through the long days and nights while I was sorting out my freedom.)
    – I had supper with Francis Dunnery, and was later serenaded by him, thanks to the kindness of one of the posters on here.
    – Thanks to the Afterword band (debacle that it was), I started performing in public again for the first time in many years. I now play the church organ at the Union Chapel, occasionally.
    – After the London minglers gave me a ukulele, I was inspired to start teaching music.
    – Working as an admin on here got me a wonderful new job, and I now work as a writer and editor.
    – I met my splendid, beardy boyfriend on here (and at the mingles). And, suddenly my little family (just me and my girls) doubled into the six of us (my boyfriend and I, and four brilliant kids).
    – Even last weekend, I got to meet (and get hugged by!) the amazing Kathryn Williams and Michele Stodart (thanks to a mutual friend, who has been so kind in too many other ways to list).
    – There have been laughs, adventures, sneaky cigarettes, and all sorts of joy I’d never expected, thanks to this blog.

    I don’t post here so much anymore (after I finished my time as an admin, I needed an extended break from the site, plus I’m now writing full-time, so don’t always have the energy for more writing), but I owe so much in my life to this site. It helped me find love, happiness, freedom. It gave me two bonus kids and dog that I’d never have had, and similarly gave my girls a wonderful step-dad, friends I will always treasure and I even have a new career thanks to it. The last ten years have been some of the very best of my life.

    Thank you.

    Hx

    • Bluddy hell, and me, in the Bruce Springsteen thread…… 10 years of extemporisation……
      (Mind you, if you press “last” at the bottom of the screenshot you will see it is actually the 12th birthday, as the blog began in 2005, well before me….)

      • Iirc there was an earlier version where posts had to be created by the Word team for others to comment on. The new version let anyone add content.

  8. Happy birthday, all, and thanks for being so welcoming to a (relative) newcomer. Lovely to meet so many funny, interesting and smart people, both online and in person (and thanks for making the Mingles not half as intimidating as I feared they would be.)

    As Tiggs says- found my tribe, and what a relief it is. Cheers.

  9. Thanks also from me to everyone – I get a huge amount of pleasure and information from you all, and even had the opportunity to talk bollocks on a podcast – yippee! Only met one of you in the real world – @jimmyjimmy at Cropredy this year, which was really nice, – but feel I am among friends….ta!

  10. Hats off to Hannah and all involved! It’s ten years after – so let us celebrate with Ten Years After, and another contender for Afterword Theme Song: ‘I May Be Wrong But I Won’t Be Wrong Always’ (unless you’re flouncing, in which case it’s ‘I’m Goin’ Home’). I feel sure there are many more apposite remarks to be made from the canon on TYA song titles… 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnY6y_aNyxg

  11. I remember the switch over from the previous version – someone did a long post explaining why it would never work as the last thing the Internet needs is another blog. Hmm.

  12. Great to read comments above…i too get great pleasure in reading the comments and have put together a playlist…as you do…of tracks that were part of my first threads,namely tracks on free cds from Mojo,Uncut and of course,Word.

  14. The magazine was recommended to me in 2008/9 by one of my closest friends. He did post a couple of times on the blog, but never became a regular. He’s much too sensible to get too involved in interwebs-life!

    This might seem strange, given my usual taste, but around that time I was going through a real back-to-basics period, listening to lots of The Band, AC/DC and Johnny Cash. As I’ve mentioned before, I was a founder member of offsetguitars.com, which was my first foray into internet discussion after we spun it off from the old Fender forums (I say we: other people did the actual work – there were about 20 of us who went with the founders). I’d originally come to that community through the guitars themselves (Jaguars and Jazzmasters) and the bands who use them. Essentially noise-rock, punk and shoegaze types: Sonic Youth, MBV, Dinosaur Jr, Nirvana.

    After a few years I got to a place where I honestly don’t think I could’ve known any more about the guitars, and was getting bored of the musical monoculture surrounding them. Went back to a much rootsier, and – yes – Americana-ish place for a few months and ended up here.

    That didn’t last because The Word wasn’t Uncut. At its best it was Smash Hits for grownups, and I rediscovered my musical home (electronic pop) just as I lost the last of my late-20s indie snobbery. I found the Word blog in 2009, just before my 31st birthday. The Fame Monster and Body Talk came along not long after and my obsessive love affair with synths, beats and fizzing tunes has remained firmly resurrected ever since.

    It’s given me some great friendships, really thought-provoking discussions, many many many LOLz, some fabulous ding-dongs, a bit of annoyance. It’s also – in the last few years – coincided with some of the worst years I’ve experienced as an adult, and some of the best. It’s somehow stitched itself into the fabric of those years and become a surprisingly integral part of my life.

    I’m an addict. Even when I think I’m done with the place, it fills a hole that nowhere else can quite reach. Many of my IRL friends don’t post here any more, and I wish they would, but it’s a real testament to this community that so many of us are still here and it’s still a funny, civil, interesting place to be. And when it’s good, there’s still nowhere better.

      • Sadly the really big ones mostly pre-dated me, or I missed them. Middlerabbit I just about remember. Squirrels and Andrew Collins was before my time (was it squirrels?), as was the “has Rob Fitzpatrick read the FAQs” one, where somebody (if I’m remembering right) got really upset with RF for telling him out of Reverend & the Makers to fuck off, repeatedly.

        Maybe a meringue, but I feel like we’re a bit more serious these days, and a bit more prone to seeing a bit of heated debate as a personal fight.

        • Yes, I started the squirrels one. Thing was, I’d picked up one of Andrew Collins’s memoirs (think it was Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now – a dangerous title, at the best of times) at an airport once, expecting great things, but I was really irritated by it’s relentless, and slightly smug blandness – sorry Andrew if you’re reading this – but that’s how I felt. The squirrels article came out a year or so later, and I just thought it was poorly researched, sentimental tosh. I was amazed it was commissioned for a music magazine. I think it was all about the culling of (introduced) grey squirrels in the UK, to help favour the native red squirrels. I’d worked in conservation biology, so I knew a bit about what I was talking about. The magazine did publish it as a letter, but it was uncomfortable when Andrew came on the thread to defend it – he seemed genuinely upset – and I was bolshy and strident.

        • I remember that Rob thing – he seemed to have a whole page or two of the magazine to tell somebody called McClure to **** off – repeatedly. I think that has to be the most bizarre piece I’ve ever read in a music-based magazine – something that seemed to exist for no reason bar the writer telling someone (whom nobody had ever heard of) to **** off, for reasons that were either not explained or that I don’t remember. weird.

  15. See above. I can rely on this site for sound analyses of music and films, warm support, kind gestures, and wise advice. I’ve only met a couple of you (Steve T and Paul Wad (I think – I gave them by C81 NME cassette) but all are part of my extended network and exist in my imagination.

    To meet some of you, I shall be at the O2 for the Steely Dan concert, and really think a mingle / representation / convergence is required there, of all events. If there is a desire, i will ask if we can book a corner of somewhere; “Gaucho” seems appropriate, though anywhere would be fine, really.

  17. Happy Birthday to us! This place has given me so much music, especially my first listen to my beloved Big Big Train, courtesy of @Beany. That one post has taken me on a fantastic journey of discovery of so much wonderful music, and some of the best gigs of my life.
    This place has been a sanctuary for many reasons but mostly because it has allowed me to find a small audience for my writing. I have had wonderful encouragement and, before my illness last year, had begun to seriously write about my teenage years, in the seventies, through to my breakdown in 1994. The illness robbed me of so much of my energy and enthusiasm, but I’m hoping it will come back and that I can start to write again.
    Thank you to everyone who has been so helpful with advice, private messages and encouragement.
    Here’s to another 10 years

  18. The AW is always my first port of call when connecting up the Interweb, morning, noon and often in the middle of a sleepless night. It’s what the internet was invented for. Thanks everyone for making it so welcoming, thought-provoking and entertaining. Here’s to the next 10 years.

    • Same here, Bungliemutt old chap – even when going through a phase of non-posting, it’s still my regular first site whenever I fire up the www engine….

      Happy birthday to everybody: past and present, here and gone….and here’s to another ten years of arguing about prog and guitarrrrs…..

  21. Hi.
    I don’t really feel comfortable on the site anymore so I mostly quietly lurk about in the shadows.
    So many important aspects of life have changed for me since I first signed up for the old Word blog that I seem to have lost myself somewhere along the way.
    I continue to cherish the kindness and support I have received from some of the wonderful people that comprise The Massive. I always will.
    I wish I felt a part of this as I used to do but I just don’t. It’s me not you.
    Nevertheless a sincere and deeply felt happy birthday from me.

  22. Great posts above. I can only echo the feeling that this is my “spiritual home” on the web and I will always be there with a new list now and again.

    I also promise to dial back the NWOBHM stuff…partly because I, and no-one else,
    cares anymore!

  24. I still can’t listen to Todd Rundgren without thinking of the late James Blast. I really enjoyed chatting with him online and although i never got to meet him face to face i still classed him as a mate. Sadly, we’ve lost some good’uns over the last 10 years.

  25. I too used to contribute occasionally on the original blog, albeit under a different name. For reasons that I can’t remember, I decided not to move over to the Afterword with the rest of the members so I am unfashionably late to the party. It feels odd that I recognise a fair few of you from all those years ago.

  26. Happy Birthday to us!
    The blog’s continued success is due in large measure to the etiquette established under the clear-sighted guidance of our founding leader Fraser Lewry. Although Fraser was boss, the site policed itself and as a result people were willing to share their intelligence, but also their vulnerability and ignorance, without fear of being ridiculed.
    The unique community spirit of those early days carried on fairly seamlessly into the AW. Within hours of the Word closure announcement, a new web forum had been set up and credit this time goes to the AW techies and admins who believed it was worth the effort to build a whole new online community site.
    Raising a glass tonight to a few names we no longer see for various reasons: Stimpy, Blast, Sheev, Patrick Crowther, Vorgongod, Mojoworking, the original Word Birds Hannah, Drakeygirl and Katy G, the Twitter splitters, Lenny Law, Jo, Richie B, SpecsBeard, Backwards 7 et al. Cheers everyone!

  27. I’ve never met any of you and, because I live in the Anus of the Universe and am in any case a recalcitrant, antisocial shit-head, never will.

    But I do feel, in a very real sense, that you are my family – ie. I love all of you, even though some of you are clearly arseholes, and we’re all pretty good at embarrassing each other. This analogy* also means that we can never have sex, but that’s probably for the best.

    (*hur)

  28. Ah … Birthdays. A time for reminiscences.
    Can’t remember when I stumbled in here – I’m guessing around 2009/10 time.
    The fact this place is still here without the magazine is testament to its content, people and humour.
    Reviews of supermarket compilations, lists and job gags- what else is needed in this world?
    Where else can I go and post daft comments or links to un-remembered punk tracks, or enter into intellectual debate about The Barron Knights.
    (Note: I tried this on the Mojo site and they told me to f*ck off)
    Happy Birthday to us

  29. Echoing all the above, this is obviously the nicest place on the interweb.

    Along with my wife, the NHS, Pointless and RacMac it helped me survive a year of illness and operations 2013/14 so it will always be very special for me.

  30. It definitely feels like more than ten years!

    I’ve been here from the start, although I’ve changed my name a couple of times. I still remember my pride in getting 87 responses (87!) when I got brave enough to start a thread of my own. (About Dire Straits. And Hepworth was the first to respond!)

    I wish I had more time to spend on here. It really is the nicest place on the internet.

  31. – joined in ’08, I think
    – awed by writers then, Archie, Backwards
    – Ellen Hepworth, Harrison Forde
    – Strings of dumb puns (the art now lost to Twitter)
    – Vorgongod’s OMD joke (still giggling)
    – Patrick and Steven’s Bloody Silly Bands reaches 1,000 posts (Come to bed! My wife said. I can’t! I said. We need three more!)
    – Cake and mingles, invisible friends corporeal
    – Blogger awards, still got my rosette
    – The inadvertent in-crowd, the critical clique
    – “Like-minded people,” cruelty of crowds
    – So I took a year off

    – Lured back by Bingo, Bob and Burt
    – Reviews you can trust
    – You Tube librarians, death by a thousand cut-and-pastes
    – Cartoon politics, before politics became cartoon (Faux was right but don’t tell him)
    – Blogger takeover, love it, the spirit of The Word in every word
    – Grown men’s toddler tactics (Tell Me You Love Me or I’ll Leave)
    – (They never leave)
    – Almost made me listen to prog. Almost
    – Reviews you can’t trust
    – Never post for ‘UP’s, they’re heroin
    – Third thing every morning (after the bog and the BBC)
    – 10 years, bloody hell. Is it still raining outside?

  33. I’m not as regular a poster as some, but I’ve been here since the start (apart from an extended break when the bitchiness became wearing), and it’s still a great place for reviews, witty repartee and talking bollocks. What more can you ask for?

    Here’s to the next ten. Well done to all who got the ship afloat, kept it floating and…..nope, run out of nautical metaphors. Anyway. Well done all!

  34. Bloody hell.

    I joined in the early days with an ill-advised username, not intending to post. When Michael Jackson died I got into an argument with Archie about his influence, and then landed myself in hot water for using a masturbatory epithet to describe a fellow member who slagged off Mogwai. Fraser was really nice about it (possibly because I shamelessly exploited an off-board personal connection) but even so, I didn’t like myself for doing that, so thought it was best to take a break. Out of the bubble was weird. You can get a lot of work done when you’re not posting, and I happily lurked for ages. About a year back it seemed as though a lot of the posters I liked had left, so in a spirit of ‘use it or lose it’ I decided to re-join with a less offensive username and no desire whatsoever to argue with people.

  35. Favourite thread: 100 verses of A Bang On The Ear.
    First thread I started: can we mention all the years of the 20th Century by using song titles/lyrics? Answer, no but we had a bloody good go.

  36. I was here from the beginning (different name) of the old Word blog, transfered across at the start of all this (different name again) barring a few years of just lurking and a point when I thought I was done with it all, I find I just can’t keep away. Call me what you will, (I am still a massive((ha))bell at times) but this place has helped me be a better person.
    Thanks to everyone who keeps it afloat. 😍

  37. Hiccy Burpy. I joined in the fun not long after the blog went to user posting.

    I was another avatar then, and became Grey after Fraser’s ‘amnesty’.

    At the risk of being icky, this blog has helped me hugely in the last 18 months, and I really am awfully pleased it is here.

    There’s no shame in eating a Frey Bentos pie, and C.W Stoneking? We gave you one hell of a beating. . .

  38. Basically it’s a laugh. Plus I get to know important stuff. Like… er.
    Anyway on here I’ve met fans of the Church from Thailand or somewhere foreign like Brighton. Praps. That’ll do for me.
    Plus other people like NWOBHM and aren’t embarrassed either.

  39. Ten years? Incredible. I’ve been here man and boy. I posted under a couple of usernames, one being my real name. Undeniably stupid given the amount of sweary inanity I posted.

    Sweary inanity being the level I operate at. Thrilled by it all initially, I was soon relieved of any thought I had that I could write. Archie V, Backwards7 et al showed me what blogging was meant to look like and I’ve happily let others similar entertain, educate and confound ever since.

    This place has been of immense value to me. My tastes in music and books have expanded, I know a lot more facts and my opinions and unconscious prejudices have been challenged.

    It’s safe to say this site has made me something less of a twat. Despite my inherent twattyness constantly trying to make me remain so.

    I’m deeply fond of this place. I can drop in with a wry quip (made wryer and quippier due to my de-twatting coefficient noted above) at any point even after longer and longer fallow periods and still feel part of the place.

    Carry on everyone. You’re all doing very well.

  40. Way back in the Word days someone likened the board to a chat with mates in the pub, except that it was a bunch of mates who are interested in the same crap culture as you are. That’s how I still is. Occaisionally I’m perplexed by posters who confuse this place with real life, but by and large it’s a welcoming and civil corner of the Internet where we get to spout off about the important stuff without someone trying to drag the conversation back the new one way system or whatever their hobbyhorse might be. Long may it thrive.

    • I likened this place to a virtual pub. The comment you refer to may well have been mine. The fact of the matter for me is that in the last ten years three ‘locals’ have closed in the part of North London I live in. I no longer have a real ‘local’ – this site is now my ‘local’. I pop in after work most evenings and can quite often be found here for the happy hour on a Friday night! I just hope this place remains a spit & sawdust venue and not a gastro pub. Cheers y’all.

  41. Into The Blog Of Bedlam, or The Abyss Shouted Back

    I first encountered the Word Blog in March 2010. I remember it well: I emerged from the bathroom waving a copy of the new edition of Word Magazine (Dylan edition – the first of the controversial cartoon covers) and proclaiming it to be the greatest single edition of a magazine I’d ever read. No small claim for a man weaned on Your Sinclair.

    My wife, as is her wont, rolled her eyes, made a sad mental note of the various life choices which had lead her to this moment and resumed whatever she was doing.

    Having seen my enthusiasm gain limited domestic traction I resolved to seek fellow travellers elsewhere, and where better than on the internet, invented just six months earlier and popularised by a wave of blogs about 60s music and culture?

    I still remember my first encounter with the original Word Magazine blog; I was astounded to find a thriving community already in place, replete with its own rituals, language and dance moves. It was akin to discovering a fully functioning Ewok village at the bottom of one’s garden. My initial impression was that the natives were a whip-smart bunch – probably all hip young gunslingers of some description. I resolved to hang back and lurk, to perhaps learn a thing or two about this new forum, and categorically, at all costs, to avoid making an ass of myself in such high falutin company.

    Later that afternoon, some bozo said something I really took issue with, and before I knew what my own hands were doing I’d registered, created a dreadful username (“eminentdan1978”) and posted a lengthy, if somewhat timid, rejoinder. The game was afoot.

    As the months flew past, I sought my place in this new world, taking great pains to avoid upsetting the regulars, towing the party line and largely limiting myself to one liners and bons mot. I was impressed by the Massive’s apparent perspicacity and esprit de corps, and resolved to hitch my little dinghy to the great tugboat of digital discussion that was merrily ploughing its way through a harbour of broken metaphors.

    In late 2010, I became a father. It was a real life changing moment for me, and I think it’s a real reflection of the growing influence the blog was exerting on my life that I was able to convince Mrs Little to name our first-born Archie Valparaiso. The name has caused her some problems at school, but thankfully her undomitable spirit and flawless grammar has seen her through.

    The termination of the old Blog came as something of a shock to me. By that point I’d built up some mild repute and was loathe to see my efforts so cruelly rendered null. I was, of course, delighted when the Afterword rose from the crackling embers, but I also found myself pondering whether it was time for change in my own approach. My blog persona had been mildly successful, but it also lacked a certain flair. It was a C+, could do better effort, and I knew I had more in the locker.

    I’m a big believer in proper preparation, so it was only natural that before registering with the new site I would first bring in a team of marketing consultants to audit my post history and suggest some tweaks. Their first suggestion was that I should get a new haircut, so I did. They then sat me down in their vast conference room and introduced me to the new “me”. Gone would be the earnest, wet behind the ears Internet debutante of eminentdan1978. In his place would be a new, improved persona, combining all the most hateful aspects of millennial hipsterism with a dreadful penchant for misty eyed nostalgia and an insistence on speaking almost entirely about music that no one on the blog would listen to in a million years. I was dubious at first, until they showed me their polling, at which point I was forced to recognise that “Bingo Little” (as they named this monstrosity) was testing through the roof with focus groups, and had clear potential to really cut through with the likely Afterword demographic.

    We took Bingo online shortly after the new blog launched, keeping a careful eye on his metrics. Obviously, the launch was supported by a full programme of sock puppetry and paid-for up arrows. Within weeks, we began to see results. Name recognition was up, Bingo’s posts were attracting more clicks and a far longer average stay per user, and the persona was starting to really come together.

    In 2012, we identified a critical next step: Bingo needed his own slogan if this stuff was going to really fly. In long meetings with creative I watched as wording was honed and rehoned. Early contenders included “zippity zoppity, show me the boppity”, “he was no Van Halen” and “crunchy!”. Eventually, the team settled on “Afterword tag line” (denoting the posting of a phrase or sentence that would usefully serve as a motto or slogan for the blog itself). I still remember the crackle of excitement as we watched from mission control as those soon to be immortal words were first cascaded into the blog. Surely, we were onto a winner?

    Four weeks later, Burt Kocain launched “Afterword tshirt”, and the rest is history. Sometimes you have to recognise when you’ve been beat good. Of course, the blow was softened somewhat by the birth of my eldest son, BaldlySlapHead Little, at about the same time, and we would later find success with “That’s EXACTLY what a massive racist would say”. It took an enormous astroturfing operation to make it fly, but fly it did.

    Buoyed by our success, the logical next step was to make a few acquisitions. The user accounts of Jim Cain, minibreakfast and newpathstohelicon were purchased for a tidy fee, and converted to operations that we felt would best support Brand Bingo (as it had come to be known). The accounts have subsequently met with varying degrees of success, although I must give particular kudos to the Jim Cain team for driving a wave of nu metal revivalism across the blog that the main Bingo account was able to surf on for some time.

    2014 was a difficult year for the Bingo operation. Inexplicably, we hit a period of turbulence: our clique approval index suddenly plummeted to the sub 40s and various other major verticals began to stall. There was a brief upswing around the time of the blog’s famous “selfies” thread, when a computer generated image of a man-child calculated to be most likely to appeal to the core Afterword demo briefly triggered a surge in pro-Bingo enthusiasm, but otherwise the downward spiral continued. By mid 2015 I was forced to sack my advisers and hire in a new team, comprised entirely of bored looking early 20 somethings in red trousers and asymmetrical haircuts, with creative vision out the wazoo.

    What they proposed in our first meeting was shocking. Shocking and arousing.

    Phase one: a full brand reset, under the cover of a drupal hacking attack on the blog community.

    Phase two: the Bingo Little character to be repositioned as an edgier, snarkier proposition, with a greater focus on music that would appeal to an even younger age group – specifically, the blog’s tiny but incredibly lucrative market of under 40 posters, plus tigger.

    Phase three: demand management. Once we’d built up a head of steam with New Bingo, he’d need to suddenly and inexplicably pronounce himself to be “bored of the blog”, and cease posting for a few months, before returning with a bit of a splash.

    Their final suggestion was that Bingo would benefit from greater homo-erotic tension. Having leafed through the selfies thread, the new team identified the neighbouring “Gary” account as the perfect counterparty for this project, and made a cash offer to the cowboys running that operation. Big spoilers here, but the relationship goes physical in 2018.

    I’m happy to say that the relaunch was a roaring success. The new bored, slightly indifferent Bingo was kind of an asshole, but he also made for compulsive reading, and the key demos flocked to him, exactly as projected. It took a team of Hong Kong based teenagers approximately three months to write the Frank Ocean review post, but it proved to be worth its weight in gold, bestowing upon New Bingo a sort of craft and authenticity he’d never previously enjoyed. Our jubilation was capped by the birth of my third child, MyAmericanMate Little.

    And that just about brings us up to the present day: soaring numbers, happy sponsors, and champagne corks perma-popping at Little HQ (doubly so on Naked Thursdays).

    It’s been a real journey, and what have I learned at the end of it? That if you really work hard, that if you’re true to yourself, and that if you’re prepared to spend your way out of trouble, it’s possible to capture critical market share in the insular people who all quite like old music blogspace. That, and that schoolyard bullying is a terrible thing.

    Here’s to the next ten years.

    Love and kisses

    Team Bingo

  42. Happy 10th to us all. Incredible (is the Word).

    I too was here from the beginning. Heck, I even remember when and where I bought my first magazine with Ry Cooder on the cover. Don’t post much, english not being my first language, but still visit daily. It does feel like a tribe of some sort, the exactly right one for me. As we all probably did, I learned a lot and expanded my tastes and for that alone I am grateful and keep this place treasured.

    A collective pat on the back, therefore, a raised glass of chardonnay and a thank you to past and present admin and moderators. Now, we have to do something about those t-shirts…

  45. Wow is it ten years
    I’m here since Dec 07
    I don’t post that much but it’s my first port of call online
    It’s generally intelligent and a good vibe
    Tanx to the admins for keeping it on
    Long may we run !

  46. Only ten? It feels longer, and I’m not sure when I joined, but probably not at the start, at least not actively. I’d never ever had friends who were interested in music – that’s why I joined! But I probably stayed on for the laughs. And it’s a good way to practise writing in English…now all I need is somewhere to practise speaking it as well, to lose my muppet accent!
    To celebrate the old blog where it all started, and some of the people that got lost on the way, here’s a reprise of my Word version of a Dylan song, first posted on a Dave Amitri blog years ago…not my finest work but bringing back some memories! 🙂

    SUBSCRIBERS HOMEPAGE BLUES

    Hannah’s in the kitchen
    mixing up the mac’n’cheese
    Nobody’s bitching
    everyone says Thanks and Please
    Adman quips, then *grabs coat*
    Dood’s soon laid off
    says Cameron can F*** Off
    Are bonus discs a rip off ?
    idiotbear
    is not a real bear
    Vorgongod knows
    when’s the best time to post
    You better surf down the Massive wave
    lookin’ for some good friends
    The Captain in underpants
    is the big shot
    Dave Amitri, Drakeygirl
    you hit the right spot

    Lennys fun foot notes
    Frasier’s full of FAQ quotes
    backwards7’s blogposts
    plants inferiority in most
    Pencilsqueezer’s musketeer
    with Ah_Bisto and Specs_Beard
    Ganglesprocket guards the rear
    idiotbear
    ( is he a real bear ? )
    What is your dayjob ?
    Don’t try N-Dubz!
    Better stay away from clubs
    that doesn’t meet up in the pubs
    Keep a civil tone
    don’t come here and moan
    you can be a LOUDspeaker
    but leave the megaphone at home

    Ill health dispel
    come; we’ll make you feel well!
    Go to hell, I can tell;
    if your English grammar smell
    Badly writ – have a fit!
    Write list, get pissed
    ( non white artists badly missed )
    Join crusade and shake your fist
    Stand ready to sedate
    MyAmericanMate
    But YouTube’s soothing
    one hit wonders
    there forever crooning
    Some do their daily round
    looking for a new sound
    Don’t follow Hepworth
    sycophantic step, serf!

    Ah get on, keep up
    Short rants, bromance, join the dance
    Duco01, he’s the one
    passing jazz to everyone
    Please, please Beatles Massive
    fans aren’t passive
    Is Maxwell’s Hammer useless
    or is every song a classic ?
    DogFacedBoy
    is a dog facing a boy
    ( I bet it’s a badartdog )
    Too many to shout out to
    Pax Romana, Sour Crout too
    ( poor rhyme: Patrick Crowther, ooh! )
    and el hombre malo
    the last before I go
    I love the Word
    and the Massive no doubt do too…

  47. Ten years, crikey. I think I’ve been doddering around in the undergrowth for many of them, being consistently entertained occasionally infuriated inspired and educated but never bored. Roll on the next decade and trebles all round!

  49. Some of you already know this, but I first joined the Word blog as a project for a creative writing workshop I was attending. We all had to assume a radically different persona (to our own) and contribute to an internet forum, establishing our new character and forming “relationships” based on it. I chose the soubriquet “rosbif”, casting myself as a sensitive, bookish type with many women friends, enjoying a middle-class life and listening mainly to music by female singer-songwriters. If I had a fault, it was a tendency to priggishness. It was a character so alien to my own that at first I struggled with it; stories of my jaunts to Glyndebourne came across as forced, and descriptions of “delicious pastries” I’d eaten seemed parodic. But I struggled on and soon created a character so convincing I started behaving like him in real life. “rosbif” began to take over. I started wearing green wellies and bought a Peter Pears box set. It had to end, and it was only through an extreme effort of will, and the help of a local priest, that the succubus was exorcised.

    Now I’m Chiz, of course, and much happier!

  50. Happy birthday Afterword and thanks for the lovely post Hannah.

    Arse, Cock and Ball Muck was hardly a band name that would appeal to me but I persevered and continue to be rewarded to this day. It happens at the oddest moments. Queuing at the supermarket checkout, in the doctor’s waiting room, while drifting off in a dull client meeting. It usually starts with a smile, sometimes my shoulders shake, followed by an involuntary snort. The worst and most embarrassing thing is the suppressed laughter.

    The Word – the virtual company is fantastic, the wit and intelligence illuminating and of course central to all is the music that just keeps on giving (apart from that awful Andrew WWKKD and all the other shit).

    I now wash my hands regularly.

  52. Happy Birthday to us.

    If I recall correctly, I joined just after this in Nov 2007, although it took me a good six months before I started my own post. I do remember one of my early posts on first record bought that got a great response and that I got a buzz from it being mentioned in Fraser’s weekly email (??).

    Anyway, this place continues to inform, entertain and infuriate. Long may it continue.

  53. As a hopeless fanboi of the Smash Hits/Q magazines of Hepworth and Ellen, I was always going to like The Word magazine. When one of my very best friends (TV’s Robert Fitzpatrick) started writing for them, that sealed the deal. I had a presence on a (don’t laugh) Depeche Mode forum and most of the time that was fine and civilised. But when I started to read the word forum (2008ish) it was the stupid humour that appealed to me. As I may occasionally mention, I am in NZ and the Afterword provides me with a link to the UK and what I love most about it, which is the people and the humour.

    As @nickduvet will attest, we had a fantastic NZ mingle several years ago featuring very special guest star Fraser Lewry. Without him, I doubt any of this would be here. Not to detract from the ridiculously punishing workload taken on by the admins of Aftwerword v1 and v2.

    My proud moments were having a stupid thread of mine discussed at some length on a podcast by Hepworth and Collins and Dog Faced Boy asking Dr Who Directir Rachel Tallalay about something I had asked. But in the main, it’s the day to day exchange of bollockery and the opportunity to develop really thin comedic ideas. Thanks everyone.

  54. You know you are a tragic when not only are you on the blog but then spend quite some time re-reading the Rob Fitzpatrick thread. I had forgotten how that detoured into a raging debate between MiddleRabbit and Archie over inadvisably/ unadvisably.

    I’d forgotten about ups too.

    It’s a shame about the exiles on Facebook -there is some good stuff posted there and nice people too but I still don’t get it. Pity about Mojo too. When he returned as Johnny Concheroo I didn’t twig it was Mojo. I tried to connect them over in Perth as I thought well they live in the same town, have similar music tastes etc. Then I got a text …Junior, tis I ! Johnny is Mojo and Mojo is Johnny !Had a good laugh at that one after telling him off for not informing me he was back.

  55. Yes there have been some bruisings on the otherwise cheery byways of pop culture on which we choose to meander. Sometimes more school playground than convivial boozer. A nicer bunch of impossible to please, generally unimpressed snobs it would be hard to find. To be fair there’s also a whole lot of enthusing that goes on.

    I recall diving into an epic Beatles Are Overrated thread early on despite not having a terribly strong opinion one way or the other. Nothing changes. Often it’s possible to just as easily argue for as against on most topics. One leaves the battlefield a little dishevelled, wondering why one got involved. Just to join in really. Oeufmann was in on that one – as was appropriate with his name. I think he flounced at some point. Went back in his shell.

    I’ve learnt quite a bit from all this musing. That someone isn’t necessarily saying what you think they are saying – read it again, that your own long held assumptions and opinions benefit from a good shake up and questioning. That there’s some incredibly bright and decent folk out there.

  56. Wow, 10 years old? I can’t remember when I joined, but I’ve been coming back ever since, so it must have done something right.

    Favourite thread? There was the terrific one about famous people being horrible with the brilliant picture of a certain well known rock band member giving the cameraman a dirty look (whenever I see/hear said rockstar on the telly/ radio this is the image I have of him). More recently HP’s “guess the soul hit I heard in Thailand” thread (it was High by the Lighthouse Family, I think) was a joy, and got progressively funnier the longer it went on.

    The best thing is how much support folk have for each other here, even if they’ve not met in person. It makes it one of the nicest places I know of on the Information Superhighway, even if there is the odd flounce.

    Happy birthday from me, anyway.

  58. Ten years? Man, what happened? Oh yes, moved to London, got a fancy pants (yet ill paid) career going and then got married and had two children. So caught as I am in the lovely chaos vortex of toddler world I now miss a great deal.

    Congratulations to all who have made this a pleasant corner of the web and my apologies for the occasions when I have not.

  59. The first online community I joined was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Forum, but my heart was never really in it. I laboured to commune with fans of Vampires and The Undead. So imagine my delight at discovering the Word blog!! No stakes and garlic required. But seriously I am very grateful to all those who have worked over the years to make it happen and continue, despite mag closure and hacking disasters. I have got so much out of it – countless hours of companionship, a lot of laughs, and discovered so much music. Also found friends, both real and those of you I only know through the blog but are still very affectionately thought of in my mind. And to quote Nicholas Parsons on Just a Minute “not only in this country but ALL around the WORLD!” And I have a beautiful piece of Squeezer Art in my hallway.
    Long may it continue.

  61. His name gets a few mentions, but he really was the life and soul of the olden days, along with Archie Valparaiso and Backwards7. Who? The boy Patrick Crowther, whose posts in the combining 2 bands names thread was still the biggest ever post, getting well over a 1000 responses, in the days when posts had to go into 2nd and 3rd pages. Can anyone find that marathon for me/us? There were some corkers.

  62. Happy memories indeed. This site has made me cry with laughter (and sometimes just cry) more than the rest of the Internet put together. Still the first place to go whenever I log on.

  63. Congratulations to all involved. It does feel like I have a vast number of characters in my head, popping up in some multi-dimensional space that I can access when I go to this site. I only joined when it turned from Word to Afterword, but it’s been a joyous accompaniment to early fatherhood, and prompted me to at least three ill-advised, year-long, web-related personal challenges.

    I don’t deign to approach the heights of wordcraft of those well-versed in the earlier history of the site, quicker in wit, sharper in syntax and more informed of the historia de musica rock, but it can often be fun, hiding in the sidelines and saying to myself “I wish I’d said that”.

  64. Ten years. Coo.
    I’ve been here since the start, never a prolific contributor but addicted anyway. Thanks for making me laugh/annoying me in more or less equal measure.

  66. I didn’t join until (I think) shortly before the Word closed down.

    In the time since I’ve bought some lovely dub reggae, helped some people spend their money wisely on audio kit, bored many more on the subject of audio, weaned some off iTunes, laughed until tea comes out of my nostrils, cracked off* a few nob gags, talked a load of old rubbish, done the sound for two AW acts (third soon, I hope) and made a couple of real-life pals.

    I have Bob’s CD in the car, Mini’s surplus LPs leaning up against the record player, and a recording date with Skirky in a couple of weeks.

    Not bad for several years of typing shite at strangers. Here’s to the next 10.

    (*) one for you Moose

  68. In a different time in my life the old blog became a place to escape and talk bollocks, some of which caused a stir, some was ignored and some was endured but none of that mattered. I haven’t met any of you and I don’t mean to be rude but I have no intention of changing that. I’m an insular chap at heart without many “real” friends but sometimes I want to discuss, stir, listen, read something that piques my interest without any real commitment and this place provides it in spades. I take more from here than I give but it has been so important through some dark and lonely times that I truly wonder if without it my life would have got back on track quite so spectacularly. There is no direct connection its just that sometimes writing for the umpteenth time how great “Songs From The Big Chair” is or reading a shit storm thread or saying Brexit might not be so bad was all I had and it just kept me ticking along. I miss Lenny, Patrick and many others but everyone here has something to contribute so thanks to all of you and here’s to the next ten when we’ll be re-evaluating Take That, realising that One Direction weren’t that bad and acknowledging that Ed Sheeran was the song write of a generation.

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