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Other voices, other rooms…

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There was a post about this a while ago but I can’t find it… but apart from this fine place, where else do you fritter away useful time on the web?

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  1. I spend a lot of time on the web reading science articles, and also psychology and philosophy. These are areas where the trashy stuff hasn’t permeated yet. I occasionally go onto sites about programming as I am learning Python. The only other music place I go is a forum for The Mars Volta and related artists, and I have rarely ever posted there. I avoid all social media except LinkedIn, and have that all set as private and rarely use it.

  2. Facebook, Hoffman forum, Welsh rugby forum (Gwlad), Grauniad, BBC (both news and sport), CBC/CTV local news and The Weather Network probably make up 95% of all websites I visit if I include this one. Oh and Superdeluxedition

  3. I spend too much time on Twitter for my own good, a mixture of funny animal stuff and things that unhelpfully enrage me mainly. I was blocked by Kirstie Allsopp last night because I called her out for blaming the murder of Sarah Everard on lockdown, which is probably as good a sign as any that I should back off for a little while at least.

      • I admit that Twitter does give me a kick when I feel ‘seen’ by someone whom I follow because I admire their work, and especially if I have entertained them in some way.

              • Really? Think about this. Have you seen her righteous anger about violence against women? Seriously don’t go there. I know this is in jest but the current climate doesn’t warrant that.

                  • Of course- that’s not why I said it. I think any kind of perving- even in jest – is probably not a good idea. This is the kind of banter that we should consider the impact of. Nothing personal- just a call for a reset of attitude for all of us. There are very few women here.

                    • I’ll be honest: I think you could rid the world entirely of comments like the ones above and men would still kill women (and one another).

                      Leffe Gin is still right though.

                      Whether the above is the kind of thing that causes literal murder or not, it’s still crass, probably at least mildly sexist and certainly ill-judged. Whether consciously or not, it positions Marina Hyde as a sexual object in a week where she’s written fairly cogently about her wish that women stop being objectified as such. I very much doubt she would invite or enjoy the bants. Consciously or not, it’s an invitation for us all to consider whether we’d also like to give her one.

                      I’m sure there are some women who find this stuff charming (and indeed make similar comments about men), but I would guess they’re in the minority. Regardless of whether that’s accurate or not, I can confirm that there are most certainly some men who don’t welcome this stuff and who find it – at best – a bit embarrassing to be around.

                      I’m not writing all of this to have a go, or to be a white knight, or to score internet points. I’m writing it because it’s what I honestly think, and at this point it feels like it’s better out than in. Others may feel differently, they’re free to add their tuppence as well.

                      I’m conscious that this post is a bit unfair, in that to be cast as having made a sexist comment this week of all weeks puts one in a totally untenable position. So: to be clear; I don’t think you’re sexist, I don’t think you had any intention to be sexist, and I’m certainly not trying to make out you’re supportive of violence against women. I’m just asking you to stop and have a think about whether these comments needed to be made, and whether we might all be better off if in future this stuff was thought but unexpressed. Plus, I’m operating on the assumption (possibly incorrect) that i’d be more of a dick to think this stuff and not say it than to just come out with it.

                    • I think I said this last time I got called on this, but I need to can this shit. Clearly I am sexist, whether I think of myself as a nice person or not (who doesn’t?) The fact that other people’s sexism makes me furious makes no odds. As the man said, we have to take a look at ourselves: I might not have personally enabled Couzens to do what he did but I do contribute to that culture, not least because I know, as only a man can, what men are really like when women aren’t around. Women are around – not on the Afterword, but on this planet. I’ve got one right next to me now. Would she like someone to make the joke about her that I made about Hyde? She wouldn’t. (I asked).

                      And while I might not have read this week’s piece I sure as hell had read, and remembered, this:

                      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/12/what-happened-women-uk-harassed-street

                      …and even if she didn’t write things like this I still wouldn’t have the right….well you know the rest.

                    • I’ve just seen on Twitter that the hashtag #NotAllMen is trending. I scrolled down looking at quite a lot of the Tweets and I couldn’t find a single one that was using it to actually express any “not all men” point of view. Every single one I read, without exception, was basically saying “if you use the hashtag #NotAllMen you’re part of the problem”. And rightly so. But it does show how very weird Twitter world is. It seems it’s the very people who are (I repeat, quite rightly) angered by that hashtag trending who are making it trend.

      • It’s funny the thrill you get when some small scale famous person notices you for a second on the Internet. I always feel a bit sordid afterwards, like a groupie (after the initial thrill of course). A sense of ‘surely I’m above this?’ For me recently it’s been Charles Shaar Murray and Tom Newman (producer of Tubular Bells).

  4. I still do a bit of Facebook, although since the great purge of unfollowing people a couple of years back there is obviously much less activity on there, so I interact with it less. I follow quite a few people on twitter, mainly for music and football reasons. Other than that, I look a bit on the Steve Hoffman forum, although I don’t post because I can’t be bothered with the level of detail and sometimes pedantry. This place is great, and I also look at various non-league football sites and forums. The Guardian site is good for a skim whilst eating lunch.
    I’m not as active online as I once was but I still have a look most days.

  5. Twitter but in a limited way. I post my work on there pretty regularly along with the covers of some of the albums I’m currently listening to. I don’t get involved in the utter nonsense that seems to be everywhere at the moment. I tend to block anyone expounding extreme views, I can do without that bullcrap in my life. A lot of DMs from a very kind and helpful group of artists and the occasional writer I seem to have attracted from all over the globe is more my speed nowadays. Twitter is fine just as long as you don’t allow yourself to get dragged into arguments. I don’t do conflict any more, it saps the spirit and achieves absolutely nothing. I do Facebook in an even more limited stylee, paintings and music again but I mostly keep my account open simply because I know a few people that use it and it’s the only place I have contact with them.
    I use Spotify as a podcatcher when the urge to pod overcomes me and I use Tidal for music on a daily basis. Apart from those I post my reading on Goodreads and I click into Head-fi and other audio related sites occasionally or when I’m looking into kit upgrades. Mostly though I’m busy painting, reading and listening to music so I find that I’m using the net far less than I did a few years ago.

    • Sounds very similar to me. Except substitute swimming for painting. And I don’t know what Tidal is.
      I use Twitter sometimes for news, but I’ve never Tweeted. When I see the arguments that people have on Twitter (“Do some research! Educate yourself, dummy!”) I always think, how do you know you’re not arguing with a 13-year-old child, or a drunk person, or someone with learning difficulties? And what do you hope to achieve? They just want to get their opinion heard by someone, I suppose.

      • Twitter is a make believe heath that’s infested with countless Lears. A technological Tower of Babel, a virtual Ouija board where the spirits only move the glass after draining it more times than is wise.
        Apart from that it’s a bit of a laff.

  6. My routine Favourites bar is:
    Afterword (too much time spent here)
    Faceberk (and here)
    Fantasy Premier League
    Fantasy Football Scout
    Flashback (old photos and stories)
    BBC Sport
    Wikipedia rabbit holes
    Various blogs (including my own)

  8. Afterword
    Uncut
    Superdeluxeedition.com
    BBC
    CNN – Occasionally
    RT – More than is good for me but offers a different view to the Weaterm media and some of op-ed piecea are very good.
    News Now Birmingham – for news on my football team – standard is poor.
    Websites of Elvis Costello and Lucinda Willians.

  9. AW, faecebook, twatter, mainly to keep in touch with what virtual buddies are up to. Am on a couple of angry doc type private fb pages also. Then it is mainly music sites that are kind enough to print my scribblings (and even to sometimes pay me a little, which is nice). Graun for news. More than enough there to keep me from catching up on the pile of books growing by my bedside.

  10. I can’t abide Twitter, as it seems to routinely attract the professionally offended, the angry, the abusive and the frankly unhinged, but I do dabble in Facebook and Instagram. I regularly use the BBC News website, the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds. For streaming I use Amazon Music. The only other music sites I look at are Americana UK, and occasionally Saucecraft’s site. I’ve been using the AW for over 10 years in various incarnations (both the site and me), and while I don’t always contribute, this is probably the only place online that I generally feel comfortable. There was a period a couple of years back when posters seemed to be regularly squabbling, but thankfully that’s much less the case now. Life really is too short.

  11. Here and the BBC news. Tiny Facebook presence, only to keep up with a couple of music things I do with pals. That’s it.

    I’m retired. I’m far too busy to be pissing about wasting time on the web.

  13. Was it this post from H.P. in 2020 you were referring to?

    Or your own one from a year before that?

    Apart from Facebook, where I post and read puns, politics and permaculture, take part in an unending limerick group and lurk around Archers groups, my other source of info is Feedly, which aggregates any news source that does RSS, including this forum.

  14. https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/index.cfm#zoom=16&lat=52.67600&lon=-2.47940&layers=168&b=1
    This. Once the National Library of Scotland placed a huge chunk of its archive of historic Ordnance Survey series at my disposal, I was bound to lose evening after weekend after evening. The ability to drill down through successive periods, and to compare with a current aerial view, is all that I need to while away the hours – well, maybe a single malt as well.

        • In all seriousness, it’s amazing. Thanks for sharing this here. I’ve spent a good bit of time already this morning playing with it when I am meant to be working!

          My house was all fields a hundred years ago (no surprise there), but what has been fascinating to see are paths and trails from the turn of the twentieth century – some of which are still there, some not. And seeing which woods are old woods and which are newer. I’m in Kilmarnock in Ayrshire, and have family roots here going back to the 1800s, so it’s great to see this “now and then” view.

          There’s a quiet wood on a hill near me and I’ve just seen that a hundred years ago there was a farm building there or something. I must go a walk up there tomorrow to see if there’s anything left of the old building. I had assumed it was an older wood, but a big chunk of it seems to have been only planted in the last hundred years and has grown over this building – and fascinatingly, when I look at the modern aerial photo I can now see the distinct outline of the “new bit” of the wood from the tree colouring. I love that kind of stuff (in a very amateur, not expert, way), and it’s something I only noticed by using that fader on the website to overlay the old map on today’s landscape.

              • “The National Library of Scotland site covers the whole of Great Britain.” – oh god, you had to say that didn’t you ….you wouldn’t let it lie.

                I’ll be on that for months now. It’ll be like when I discovered MarineTraffic.com. My wife’s gonna kill me.

                (other Reeves and Mortimer catchphrases are available….uvavu!)

              • Yes, well, we usually reckon on five and a half hours and it took us six hours and 53 minutes, with a 25 minute wait at Frampton Cottrell to stretch our legs; only we had to wait half an hour to get onto the M5 at Droitwich*.

                This could have been a verbatim recording of the start of the opening response from my Gran when she arrived to stay for a weekend, back in the seventies.
                _________
                *closest junction to Salwarpe, of course.

                • ‘Then there was a three mile queue just before Bridgwater on the A38. We usually come round on the B3339, you see, just before Bridgwater….We decided to risk it ’cause they always say they’re going to widen it there. Yes, well just by the intersection there where the A372 joins up. There’s plenty of room to widen it there, there’s only grass verges. They could get another six feet, knock down that hospital. Then we took the coast road through Williton – we got all the Taunton traffic on the A358 from Crowcombe and Stogumber.’

                    • ‘historically Taunton is a part of Minehead already’. It is now, with the merger of Taunton Deane and West Somerset into ‘Swat’.

                      And soon, vun unitary authority for ze whole of Somerset, und who knows, the annexation of Weston-Super-Mare und Bath…

  15. I’ve found a way to manage Twitter and how I use it. I’ve found lots of like minded souls. A Friday evening BBC4 chat usually develops somewhere. The Vinyl buying community are a great bunch too. I’ve have had some lovely interaction with the likes if Pete Paphides, Ian Rankine, Gary Crowley and the ever lovely Nick Heyward. I’ve unfollowed P**** M****** and his ilk and avoid confrontation as much as possible. Cricket Twitter has some smart, friendly people who enjoy a discussion. Some of those that choose not to come here anymore usually have something to say. I found Toppermost which is a fabulous site for music buffs. There is still nowhere quite like here though…..

    • Likewise. There are some great people on Twitter who make me laugh, enlighten me and generally entertain me. I follow people I admire, like Roseanne Cash, Sam Neill, Armando Iannucci, Take Waititi, Cold War Steve, Richard Littler (Scarfolk), Van Dyke Parks, Marina Hyde, First Dog on the Moon, Jon Savage, Bill Bailey…I follow a few twats (they know who they are) just for shits and giggles. The vinyl mob as Dave says. I seem to have blundered into a nest of lesbian librarians, who are a lot of fun. I stick with Facebook because it’s how I keep in touch with old mates and old colleagues. Wouldn’t be without it. My Feedly feed is full of stuff I visit regularly in the areas of music, movies, tech, books new and old. And here of course.

      • Exactly, you don’t have to follow anyone you don’t want on Twitter. I just follow interesting people. Twat free. If you got into the comments of politicians (say) it’s a different world though.

  16. Barnsley FC fans forum
    Hip Hop Golden Age blog
    Actually, loads of music blogs, depending upon what phase I’m going through – for the past 12 months or so it has been countless jazz (not a euphemism) blogs, whilst I built up a ridiculous jazz collection to sit next to my ridiculous rap collection
    BBC
    Discogs
    YouTube – although there’s always the danger of getting sucked into the YouTube time loss vortex
    Classic Monsters Magazine
    Super Deluxe Edition
    Blu-Ray.com forum
    Boxrec forum (boxing)
    DVDCompare
    IMDB
    The usual shopping sites where I spend so much time and all my money – Amazon, HMV, eBay, Forbidden Planet, etc
    Several autograph collectors sites and autographed book specialists
    The Real Batman Chronology website has been invaluable to me in the past – I should tell you about that project one day!
    007 magazine…been to watch the film this evening – if you have any interest in James Bond, turn your devices off now, including TV, phone, radio, although you can turn on your phone to call in sick tomorrow and go to the very first showing, with your fingers in your ears and going ‘lalalalala…’ until you take your seat
    A few non-league websites
    Newsthump
    Fantasy bloody League again, after my niece cajoled me out of retirement. It’s been years since I had any interest in the Premier League, so I didn’t know any of the players, but I take it seriously (one season I won the first manager of the month prize and sat top out of 2.2 million people – it was terribly exciting, I still have the screenshot – you have no idea how long I studied every pre-season game and new signing before winning that!), so it has started sucking hours of my Fridays away, agonising over transfers, etc.
    And, morbidly, the Wikipedia notable deaths page, cos so many people were popping their clogs that passed me by – although yesterday i noticed a friend of a friend on there, a bloke I’ve spent several evenings in the pub with, Darrell Bath, punk guitarist. Nice bloke, but he had his demons.

  18. Funny that all you lot what post endless youtube clips on threads to remind people what Hey Jude sounds like or Brown Sugar, don’t mention that site as a place of interest. A major destination for me anyway. All sorts of archive material to trawl through, not to mention the new. Spotify also – podcasts, music.

    Then there’s Rotten Tomatoes for TV: certified fresh. Some tips there. Guardian and Aftonbladet, more for news than comment, also arts. Then there’s Facebook (photos, the odd joke, sharing things I like), Instagram (my photos and those friends and family post) and Twitter (just to follow).

  20. This site, Facebook (A couple of private groups including ours, plus a few friends and family), Discogs (For reference only. Not registered.), YouTube, Spotify, BBC News, BBC Sounds, BBC iPlayer, Amazon (Only when I’m looking for something in particular or Kindle bargains I’ve heard about). Dimeadozen (Rarely, these days).

  21. I do Twitter a bit, but my account is private and I only really look in when I’m not doing other things. It’s the only social media I’ve found genuinely addictive, and I’ve deleted many accounts over the years. But it’s basically hell, and should be switched off, despite the fact that my little locked corner of it is mostly fine.

    I’ve maintained for years that all text entry boxes on the internet which allow anything more than form-filling should be disabled. We’d all be so much happier.

    • Actually I do too, the Ottawa sub, just lurking there, people are mostly ok and polite (very Canadian) and I have learnt quite a lot about my adopted home city (still prefer Montreal and Toronto though)

  24. The Afterword
    Facebook – I use it far too much i think. Most of our oldest friends aren’t local and what with Mrs Beezer’s recent health problems coupled with lockdowns it’s been useful to keep in touch Plus I enjoy far too much posting pun-laden cobblers as status updates.
    Hodinkee – A watch blog
    Twitter I haven’t used in an age. Initially fun it became frenetic and almost competitive, joining in with the repartee. I called it a day soon after I tweeted something to the effect that I couldn’t believe The Wurzels had made a cover of Spinal Tap’s ‘Sex Farm’. They very sweetly tweeted back saying they were as surprised as anyone else. I was happy to bow out on that.
    YouTube i use a lot. Live footage of bands, fan or official, I can watch all night. Lots of watch reviews from the myriad horological channels.
    The Guardian
    BBC News

    Not a broad span at all. I’m in narrow minded middle age alright.

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