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.
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.”
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.
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.
Bob is fine, just not much interested in this place anymore. He popped in recently to check what’s happening, and some slagging off of classic Stevie Wonder set his eyes rolling immediately, so he exited sharpish. Can’t say I blame him.
Hmm I wonder which albums are the “classics” that were slagged off @minibreakfast
I thought that was an interesting debate and promoted me to revisit TSLOP. I didn’t change my opinion. But the point is I consider weed the comments and have it another go.
Consensus on the blog would be a bit boring. Why would you come here ?
As a lifelong patron of The Winchester Club, Bob took exception to the rather cheeky suggestion that the theme from “Minder” might owe something to Stevie’s “Ebony Eyes”…
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.
Oh yeah, we’ve heard that one before. Only last week I caught you legging it out of HP’s room, pulling on your platform heels with one hand and trying to reapply your eye-liner with the other, you Jezebel.
P.S. Where’s Poppy Succeeds? I have a horrible feeling I’m going to miss out on “the new Burial”, or at least make a fool of myself in front of the chaps when it comes to the latest electronic micro-genre without her steadying hand to guide me through the latest clicks and bleeps..
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.
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.
Another Up from me Junior. The AW is a community where people get to know each other and inevtitably there are a certain number of ongoing discussions, references to previous threads, in-jokes etc. But to my mind, it does not exist to compete with Quietus, Pitchfork etc. It’s a small local venue where you run into people you know, not the Rainbow Theatre.
Gosh! Haven’t been to the Rainbow for years. Must go to a gig there next time time I’m in London!
Blimey, has it been a while since you’ve been to London?
The Rainbow has been some kind of church (Pentecostal, I think) for at least 20 years, and the last time a roadie showed his crack on stage was the early 1980s.
Like there were no running jokes in Word, the magazine? Jeez, it’s earlier incarnation, Smash Hits, virtually invented the style and certainly made sure the baton remained in the same good hands. And if you consider this blog as the developing bratty offspring of Wordblog, and that the concept is anyway a logical (illogical?) progression of the letters page in print mags, were they not always full of side-references? Answer, P Bob, Cat, I think so. So unless you are HP Tosspot, as you may and could well be, as Junior says, this is indeed a fork in the road you might fork off.
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.
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.
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.
We all love you so much H.P. Come back soon.
It would be a shame, not many to play with in our time zone, plus we have more contributors, lurkers unlurking, some really good reviews too.
As per his last exit I say again – best writer on here so a real shame he is disillusioned.
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.”
He has a point. That road sounds lovely to me.
Cantankerous old bastard.
I cannot imagine you in a state of infuriation, KFD!
So, a sort of boutique road then?
I missed that thread. Link?
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.
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”
There’ll be tittering up the Mekong tonight, I’ll be bound.
I’ve read about those bars.
We do like Lionel Blair, we really do!
Whither also Bob and Moosey? I rather miss them all.
And Bingo – anyone heard from him?
Bob is fine, just not much interested in this place anymore. He popped in recently to check what’s happening, and some slagging off of classic Stevie Wonder set his eyes rolling immediately, so he exited sharpish. Can’t say I blame him.
Clearly, he was disappoint.
Hmm I wonder which albums are the “classics” that were slagged off @minibreakfast
I thought that was an interesting debate and promoted me to revisit TSLOP. I didn’t change my opinion. But the point is I consider weed the comments and have it another go.
Consensus on the blog would be a bit boring. Why would you come here ?
As a lifelong patron of The Winchester Club, Bob took exception to the rather cheeky suggestion that the theme from “Minder” might owe something to Stevie’s “Ebony Eyes”…
“Why would you come here ?”
That’s pretty much answered itself though, hasn’t it? Had a look, decided it wasn’t for him, went away again.
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.
HP is still locked up in my basement, of course.
Your obsession with Stephen King’s Misery is getting out of hand
Oh yeah, we’ve heard that one before. Only last week I caught you legging it out of HP’s room, pulling on your platform heels with one hand and trying to reapply your eye-liner with the other, you Jezebel.
He needs to man the fuck up and get the fuck out here.
Don’t hassle the guy. If/when he wants to he will.
Nevermind poxy old HP, more importantly – whither Tigger??
He’s right there! *points to reviews section*
Reviews Section, there’s a Reviews Section?
P.S. Where’s Poppy Succeeds? I have a horrible feeling I’m going to miss out on “the new Burial”, or at least make a fool of myself in front of the chaps when it comes to the latest electronic micro-genre without her steadying hand to guide me through the latest clicks and bleeps..
Where’s the AW Village Rover when you need it ?
That would be telling
Be seeing you https://imgur.com/gallery/wHm85
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.
Couldn’t agree more. Bloody Saucecraft, even a post asking where he is gets more replies than most of mine.
Have a consolatary Up, Mike. I feel your pain.
Our Man from the Mekong is the elephant in the room, even when he has left the room.
An elephantasm.
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.
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.
Up klaxon for you JW
As usual critical typos undetected within the edit time.
“Nickleback heck” is the clear winner.
Beano comma, Nickelback hyphen
But they pale compared to the one’s earlier. And to think I checked.
Laughably, I am currently proof reading a course I have just updated for advisers dealing in options and warrants. Lord vase them.
Another Up from me Junior. The AW is a community where people get to know each other and inevtitably there are a certain number of ongoing discussions, references to previous threads, in-jokes etc. But to my mind, it does not exist to compete with Quietus, Pitchfork etc. It’s a small local venue where you run into people you know, not the Rainbow Theatre.
Gosh! Haven’t been to the Rainbow for years. Must go to a gig there next time time I’m in London!
Blimey, has it been a while since you’ve been to London?
The Rainbow has been some kind of church (Pentecostal, I think) for at least 20 years, and the last time a roadie showed his crack on stage was the early 1980s.
Well, it’s been a little while since I visited but I’m sure it can’t have changed that much.
I suppose the Rolling Stones, Blind Faith and the Pink Floyd are still doing free concerts in Hyde Park and Parliament Hill Fields…….
“What did you say, nurse? My meds? First, I just want to listen this track by the Edgar Broughton Band.”
Like there were no running jokes in Word, the magazine? Jeez, it’s earlier incarnation, Smash Hits, virtually invented the style and certainly made sure the baton remained in the same good hands. And if you consider this blog as the developing bratty offspring of Wordblog, and that the concept is anyway a logical (illogical?) progression of the letters page in print mags, were they not always full of side-references? Answer, P Bob, Cat, I think so. So unless you are HP Tosspot, as you may and could well be, as Junior says, this is indeed a fork in the road you might fork off.
Edith Fnuction is another one.
Where is Beatles band?
I think the nme was there before with it’s t*zrs?
but hey, anything can be answered with a song….much more my style…
I was hoping to be more conciliatory but OOAA
Clique klaxon?
I’m going to stick up for pbobcat. He makes an excellent point. I hope he posts more often.
Er, squirrelgate? Do tell….
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g401/mikethep/peaky%20blinders_zps6mp9e5zj.jpeg
Cliquey banters – Afterword t-shirt right there.
As long as we don’t have to have the mad mental haircut to go with it!
Cliquey Banters – was he in a skiffle band with Lonnie Donegan ?
Second engineers assistant on the Beano Album I think
No, it’s that crime series on the telly.
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.
Ha. Best comment on this thread by a mile.
I knew I’d got it wrong as soon as I finished typing it!
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.
King Mekong? TMFTL. Have an up. In fact have a klaxon, have a playful feck off, and a sidelong Gerry Rafferty reference.
He definitely HAS to return under that moniker now.
I thought he’d already morphed into a 70s/80s rock scribe?