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Where for art thou H.P. Saucepan?

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Is he okay? Has anyone heard? Have I missed something on my sojourn to Scotland?

2

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  1. He’s OK. He had internet trouble for a while and used the downtime to finish his latest book. He had to take it back to the library before it became overdue, you see.

    Thank you, I’m here all week.

    He’s also expressed general disillusionment with the blog recently, so I don’t know if we’ll see him here again. I expect the sky will be black with hats at that news from certain quarters of the blog, but H.P is a good man and the best writer I’ve encountered online.

    Feel free to submit this post to Private Eye’s Order Of The Brown Nose section.

  4. Glad to hear he is Ok. Like Bri, I have been wondering the reason for his absence.

    He can be supremely infuriating at times but also very entertaining, even when I am the butt of his waspish comments.

    On the Year so Far Thread, I praised those on the AW who had more maverick music taste and took roads less taken. H.P. was not having that and was rapid with a riposte.

    “The Road Less Taken makes you all sound very heroic, doesn’t it? Except that the road is travelled by a good proportion of the Afterword, maybe more than half. And it’s a dull old road, too. Nicely paved, with bench seats for when you get tired, and well-tended flowerbeds, and the litterbins are emptied regularly. And it goes on forever.”

  5. HP’s writing is amongst the best on here, and it would be a shame if he didn’t come back (again). I understand why some feel that he can be overwhelming, but he can often be the drive that keeps a thread going, and his views are seldom delivered with anything other than sharp humour and a tongue firmly in his cheek – banter, as I think he has described it himself. I sincerely hope he reconsiders and comes back to amuse and provoke discussion in equal measure, as the site would be all the poorer for his absence.

    • Can I say I hate ‘banter’. But as someone who has been at the sharp end of HP’s comments I do think there isn’t an ounce of nastiness in him.

      It would be nice to see him back.

      • I don’t like banter either. In general it is cruel and unpleasant unless you are the hilarious one dealing it out. But I never thought HP was either cruel or nasty. Funny and occasionally outrageous yes. Hope he comes back.

  6. After all the above comments, can I just say “Fuck off, HPS”? It’s for balance…I work for the BBC.

    Oh alright:

    “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”

  10. Of course he probably is here. I recall the theory that AW is all a Truman Showesque shill of only 2 people: you, dear reader, with all else being flimsy charade, possibly even of your own imagination. (Scary, eh)
    But maybe we should all have been kinder to his night in reviews, wherein he revealed his maverick taste in roads less travelled. I was particularly harsh to his last post of one such, I recall, not that I would wish or want to take credit, or be mistaken by him for so doing. But, sorry, old fruit. Fainites. I was only kidding and only listened to one track.

    The Foreign Films – The Record Collector

  16. Threads like this remind me why I don’t post more often on this cliquey love-fest of a blog. I loved The Word – (dev) hell I even worked on it for a few years! But, how about reducing (i.e.- deleting) the amount of threads about a single poster, no matter how popular (relatively speaking obv) they may appear to be?

    Unless of course you’re happy to continue with a shit-load of cliquey banter, in-jokes nobody else would comprehend, obscure references and have no need to attract new members.

    This is, of course, not to demean HP Saucepan or whoever 😛

    • Well we’re not really interested in people coming here just to moan about the place, but I don’t recall anyone ever getting a hostile reaction after de-lurking (clique terminology). We like to be friendly, mostly, to friendly new people.

      Not contributing, because there are things you don’t like about this place, is not an approach likely to improve the experience for you.

    • I don’t come here for ‘anonymity’ – there are plenty of other places on the internet for that. The whole point of this blog was to keep the Word community alive, and while it’s great that new folks join, and are always made to feel welcome, it’s inevitable that this place has an acquired language and in-jokes of its own, and nowt wrong with that. I lurked for ages before contributing, and don’t have the time to contribute as much as I’d like, so threads have often exhausted themselves before I join the party, but you’ll get out of it what you put in. The ‘in-jokes’ and knowledge of our fellow bloggers are what makes the place work, and when one of our major contributors like HP ‘Saucepan’ or Moose is missing in action, it’s perfectly natural to wonder where they are.

  17. Well my first reaction @phobcat was to think fuck off if you don’t like it…

    But that doesn’t progress things doesn’t it. I see a recent post of your expressed annoyance at the use to the term klaxon. Presumably, things like HJHM > hey jude hit makers > Beatles, TMFTL >Peel’s three more from them later for a term that sounds like it could have been a band etc.I guess these things are cliquey, ditto references to the Beano album. Nickelback heck if you are Word fan and worked there, there is even the odd reference to squirrelgate. But put these comments in perspective of the total content of the blog and I expect the references would constitute a pretty low proportion of content. Also is the purpose of the blog to be an ahistorical source of musical information that any agnostic, new reader has to immediately “get” every reference ? Rolling Stone in its heyday, NME, Word , Private Eye etc they all have running gags of various descriptions. Many of us have been reading and contributing to this blog for quite a few years, people do become “friends” conversations carry over- it’s how human dialogues work .And, in the end, the purpose of the blog is musings on the byways of popular culture. So call that cliquey if you want but I guess if you take that view it is a fork in the road.

    There have been new contributors, lurkers (klaxon- clique term) making first postings and I think the response has been entirely welcoming and encouraging.

  20. As we, learned scholars all, know very well “Wherefore art thou…?” is a quote from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. Juliet is asking why Romeo has to be Romeo, a Montegue. Why couldn’t he be a John Smith, or a Benedict Cumberbatch or a Snake Pliskin or something? Anything but a Montegue. Cos his being a Montegue makes things a tad awkward.
    I think bricameron’s question is essentially why “H.P. Saucecraft”? Why can’t he be a Gary, or a Sting Ono or an Edward Woodwouldwood? And I can’t help feeling this question has been somewhat negleted amidst the discussion of forks and rainbows.

  21. Well, I personally like the balance of this place. It’s informative, sensitive and also outright barking at times. As long as some of the banter is funny, and it is, there’s nowt wrong with a bit of banter. You don’t have to read every thread you know Phobcat – I often give up on ’em. On the other hand, it’s always a pleasant experience to realise that you can become fond of someone you’ve never actually met. It’s only when someone crosses over into direct personal abuse that I ever become uncomfortable, but even then I suspect that little actual insult is ever intended. Even a feck off can be affectionate, provocative or ironic, but judging tone and intent isn’t always easy. Me, I can live with it.

    I suspect I’m one of the few people here who have actually met King Mekong, and what a warm, generous gent he is too. He will return.

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