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The Word Nostalgia

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Apparently I saved a pile of stuff from the old website. Just found it. If anybody has a favourite thread they want to kind of see again let me know and I will see if I have it.

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  8. I also saved a few pages. Mostly a memorable bon mot. To this day, I still get an internal laugh from a few comments but one in particular stuck with me. On the return of The Stone Roses – I saw one concert in 2016 – but when they returned they got, let’s say charitably, a mixed welcome from the Word Faithful. Comparisons were drawn The Mahavishnu Orchestra, To wit:
    ——–

    “…if you could find a single live recording of the Mahavishnu Orchestra where people are significantly, amateurishly out of tune I’d hold my hands up… ”

    Reply “If the Mahavishnu Orchestra were out of tune…how would you tell? There would first have to be a tune to be out of. ;-)”

    Bravo.

    This exchange, doubtless along with many others, are saved for posterity on archive.org’s Wayback Machine. Hours of fun to be had.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20120706041748/http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/the-stone-roseswhy#comments

  9. Before my time, but some of you keep going in about it. Here’s… Squirrelgate”

    Summarised, thus, by Chat GPT –

    Here’s a digest of the “Was Andrew Collins guilty of ‘crass populism’ in defending the grey squirrel?” post and its lively comments from December 2008–January 2009:

    —

    📝 Blog Post by Martin

    Martin criticizes Andrew Collins’s piece as “tawdry,” “ill‑informed,” and “irresponsible.”

    He argues Collins painted the culling of grey squirrels as elitist or even racist—calling it “crass populism”.

    Martin counters that the cull is a government-backed conservation effort supported by organizations like the RSPB, National Trust, and Forestry Commission, not just aristocratic injustice.

    He parodies Collins’s logic by comparing it to curing diseases or eliminating invasive species.

    Martin contends the article’s tone damages Word magazine’s reputation.

    —

    💬 Selected Comment Highlights

    Enthusiastic Back‑and‑Forth

    ceepee: “Greys: dull… send ’em back where they came from!” vs. “Reds: splendid… they have tufts!”

    Con Coleman shares fond memories of red squirrels in snowy Sweden.

    SirTerence, DogFacedBoy, and Sven banter about whether the comment thread will “break” at 250 posts and ponder what happens if it hits 666.

    Author vs. Critics

    Andrew_Collins himself enters:

    Notes that reacting to criticism is not naïve—he’s open for debate and context explanation.

    Pushes back against people claiming to speak for everyone.

    Chris G notes Collins’s podcast was intended as humor, not a literal statement.

    Ethical Nuance & Concerns

    Sven (a scientist) found the article “very entertaining,” but also criticized Collins’s views on homeopathy.

    Jim Thomas offers a balanced approach—recognizing accountability is good, but cautioning against turning culling into “gleeful, real‑life shoot‑‘em‑up game.”

    Retropath2 and Lucky Tiler raise serious concerns:

    Retropath2 objects sharply to Collins’s Hitler analogy as diminishing the Holocaust:

    > “surely not at the expense of suggesting that the culling of squirrels is comparable to the extermination of 6 million Jews?”

    Lucky Tiler clarifies Collins’s intent was ironic, comparing propaganda tactics, not atrocities—apologizing to those offended.

    Meta‑comments on Magazine

    chasandmorph defends Word magazine’s open editorial policy:

    > “…the beauty of Word is its generous door policy.”

    Still, some voice fatigue over the topic’s lengthy run.

    —

    ✅ Summary

    Martin condemns Collins’s article as misleading and sensationalist, missing scientific context.

    The comment thread became a vibrant mix of humor, defending Collins’s satire, scientific perspectives, and ethical criticism—especially regarding misuse of Holocaust language.

    Collins pushes back respectfully and clarifies his intent, drawing more meta‑discussion about the role of humor, activism, and editorial choice in media.

    • I remember posting the deliberately provocative question ‘ were the Beatles really that good?’ To which I got a barrage of abuse and some agreement.

  14. I started a thread the day before I got married so it would be dated 16.5.2013. I can’t remember what it was called but it featured a clip of Roddy Frame singing his song Stray. I think I was musing on how it was a song that captured the spirit of my bachelor lifestyle up to then. I wouldn’t mind reading it again just as a window on that time.

    Apart from that, the Viz thread mentioned above was one I used to re-read back in the day. Guaranteed to crack me up.

    • As The Word closed on 29 June 2012 (about when I started joinng in), would it be on the Afterword, not The Word?

      I find the archive.org hard to navigate – opening up dates in search of the celebrated threads above is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

      • I’ve tried to search for the article again this evening but there appears to be nothing of mine prior to 2015. I know I was on the old site with the same name and have never gone by any other handle here. Can anyone else access their contributions on dates before 2015?

        *I’m not getting all JR Hartley about this, just curious.

          • Yes indeed, the great Drupal crash of 2015 I think, when the first 3 years of Afterword archives were either wiped, or made so difficult to access, that it would be an intrepid explorer who dared into such Mirkwood (I was led to believe, I think by either Dr Volume or Brookster). I lost my complete Image Resolution Blog series, in which Tiggerlion fed me a song every day of 2014, and I drew and later painted a sketch.

            Somewhere I still have the urls of many many entertaining threads, including Roxy Music vs Talking Heads, Jimi Hendrix Experience vs Cream, and Pentangle vs Steeleye Span vs Fairport Convention. Sadly those urls now lead nowhere.

  20. How about Lenny Law’s collection of syrup photos? Other than the silent Bowie/Jagger “Dancing in the Street” video it’s the funniest thing that’s ever been on the internet.

    • If this is, as I suspect, a thread loaded with images, archive.org won’t have saved the images.

      I came across a promising thread by Drakeygirl which would have had a composit set of headshots of 40+ Word massive members. The detailed l-r, top-bottom listing of people was there, but the actual picture? Gone into the ether.

      • Hi all, long time no see. I was led here searching for info on a gig I attended long ago – The Specials/The Selecter/Dexy’s at Loughborough Uni, which I had written about here.

        Anyway, I recalled the Word massive photo montage put together by @Drakeygirl and I have found it. That’s me next to Fraser (6d11a)

        View post on imgur.com

        • Excellent! Thanks for sourcing that, nickduvet. Now I just have to dive back into archive.org to find the origial thread which still has the list of names. Oh, bugger.

          Meanwhile, here’s an earlier Afterword/Word nostalgia fest, littered with urls from previous greatest hits (some or all of which may no longer work any more)…

          Happy 10th Birthday The Word/Afterword Blog

          • I found it!
            .
            Massive Members Montage Who’s Who
            .
            Row 1: 1) Skirky, 2) Andy Mackenzie, 3) David Wright, 4) Paddy H, 5) Lucas Hare, 6) Martin Simmonds, 7) Big Si, 8) backwards7, 9) Ola Claesson 10) geedubyapee 11) plumb1909

            Row 2: 1) jackthebiscuit, 2) Mrxsg, 3) Roo, 4) hazeyjane, 5) Ozmium (barmaid obscured), 6) VincePacket, 7) Douglas, 8) ganglesprocket, 9) Sue 10) Neil Jung 11) Carol From Luton

            Row 3: 1) Steven C, 2) Five-Centres, 3) Sid Williams, 4) el hombre malo, 5) Paul Vincent, 6) Carl Parker, 7) Prestonia, 8) Reno Dakota, 9) Baskerville Old Face, 10) Richie B 11) Vinnell 12) maggieloveshopey

            Row 4: 1) Vorgongod, 2) Captain Underpants, 3) Grant, 4) Hannah, 5) James Blast, 6) fortuneight, 7) drakeygirl, 8) Pencilsqueezer, 9) Bob, 10) Phil Pirrip, 11) Richie T

            Row 5: 1) Beany, 2) JoLean, 3) DogFacedBoy, 4) Paul Waring, 5) southstand, 6) Handsome.P.Wonderful, 7) JamesB, 8) Pat Carty, 9) Anne (Mrs Grant), 10) Dr Volume 11) humphreym 12) itfc1959

            Row 6: 1) man.of.soup, 2) Red Umpire, 3) Joe R, 4) katyg, 5) Nicodemus, 6) Gordon Kerr, 7) Leedsboy 8) Melrose Ape, 9) Stuart 10) mojoworking 11) Rigid Digit

            Row 7: 1) rocker43, 2) Keith M, 3) borsuk, 4) Gavin Adam, 5) Lenny Law, 6) Doods, 7) RosBif 8) millymollymandy, 9) tkdmart (Liv Tyler kissing him, obscured. Yes, really). 10) Steve Hill 11) Nick Duvet

            Row 8: 1) Riccardo Gargiulo, 2) burncoat, 3) Uncle Wheaty, 4) el toro calvo grande, 5) daddyorchipsblog, 6) Donna (Mrs Pencilsqueezer), 7) Boomboy, 8) timjulian, 9) Graham, 10) BigJimBob, 11) Con Coleman

            Row 9: 1) badger_king, 2) Mondo, 3) Art Vandelay, 4) milkybarnick, 5) Steve Riddle, 6) TedLoaf, 7) Retro Man, 8) Tom, 9) Beezer, 10) Malc, 11) Scott

            Row 10: 1) Robbie1112, 2) heshofcheese, 3) jimmyshoes01, 4) Ivan, 5) Fitter Stoke, 6) YTDS, 7) Paul Vincent, 8) kidpresentable, 9) Otis J Watermelon, 10) Jon, 11) Steve Turner

            Row 11: 1) Merv, 2) Iainso, 3) badartdog, 4) Paul Cunningham, 5) Paul Thompson, 6) Othwaite, 7) Ahh_Bisto, 8) clivetemple, 9) QTron, 10) Glenbervie, 11) bigsteviecook

            Row 12: 1) Stephen Merrick, 2) hubertrawlinson, 3) Mark Bagnall, 4) thecolonel, 5) Nick Orton, 6) Twangothan, 7) andielou, 8) Colin H, 9) fatmanjez, 10) newpathstohelicon, 11) Mike_H

            Here’s the link to the blog post:
            https://web.archive.org/web/20110514092800/http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/massive-member-montage

  23. There was also a literal translation of musicians’ names thread, which actually ended up as an article in the magazine. My contribution featured (ahem) in a special little box of its own

    Frank Zappa – Device for quickly cooking sausages

  24. I started a thread once going on about how dreadful Nickelback were and it was picked up by a Canadian news outlet as being “The Word Magazine slams Nickelback” or something. At the time I was on a 9 month sabbatical from Canada in Europe, I was getting worried they wouldn’t let me back in!

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