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Dirty Feed III

Published 21st May 2017

Meta

Ah, how time changes. Back in 2010, changing the name of this site from Transistorized to Dirty Feed only warranted a tweet, not a proper mention on here. In 2011, the same was true for a brand new design for the site. These days, however, I’m prone to long, rambling posts on the subject instead. Many apologies. On the other hand, I have been promising a redesign of this place for fucking years, so finally launching it deserves at least a little ceremony.

So, what’s new?

A responsive design
The old site was pretty unfriendly on mobile, and I’m not entirely sure it being designed in 2011 is much excuse. Finally, you can view the site on your phone without it being a pain in the arse. (Though knowledgeable people shouldn’t dig through my CSS too much. And beginners shouldn’t try to learn anything from it. In fact, nobody should go near it, ever.)

Proper archive pages
Trying to navigate the archives of the old site was rather annoying, and I always meant to fix it… but never did. You can now view a chronological list of articles by year, and I’ve also vastly improved the categorisation of articles. Finally, you can see all my edits articles in one place. Or perhaps you’d like to help me with my collection of sitcom recording leaflets?

Best Of
Speaking of categorisation, all the articles which aren’t quite as shit as the other ones are now to be found in one handy place.

Comments
I very nearly got rid of comments on the new site entirely1 – partly because some articles on here don’t really suit having comments at the bottom, and partly to get rid of the spam problem – but that seemed a blunt instrument considering comments can be really useful. So I’ve decided to take a more selective approach – articles where comments are useful will have comments open for a couple of months or so. Other pieces will never have comments open in the first place.

Have a mess around, and let me know of any issues you find – either on Twitter, via email at jhoare@gmail.com, or in the comments below. The previous design rather stagnated – think of this one as a living, breathing thing, which will hopefully improve over time. It’s nowhere near perfect – and some articles from 2010-2013 aren’t fully converted to the new design yet – but hey, it’s a start.

Right, I’m off to watch every single episode of Come Back Mrs. Noah and attempt to extract something meaningful from the experience.

  1. More exactly, I nearly got rid of being able to add new comments to the site. I never would have got rid of the old ones. ↩

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On Linkrot, Part #3928452

Published 5th March 2017

Internet / Meta

Recently, I wrote a little piece over on Ganymede & Titan which was ostensibly about the popular science fiction comedy series Red Dwarf. In fact, it was bugger all to do with Red Dwarf. It was actually about the transient nature of the web – a bit of a recurring theme of mine these days.

To summarise, then: I went back and looked at a random day of G&T’s output from ten years ago – and the result surprised even me. Every single external link used in those news stories from 10 years ago no longer works correctly. I expected some – perhaps even most – to be dead. But every single one to succumb to linkrot? That’s completely ridiculous.

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On Permalinks.

Published 20th January 2017

Internet / Meta

As I’m working on the upcoming redesign of this place, I’m trying to reassess every single decision I ever made when originally creating Dirty Feed. Everything from the category structure, through to comments, and even the URL structure of the site.

Whilst thinking of that latter point, I’ve been considering this post from Matt Gemmell:

“Can we talk, briefly, about the URLs on your blog?

If you’re like most people, your permalinks (the permanent links to individual posts) probably look like this:

yourdomain.com/2015/02/24/title-of-post

We’re all familiar with those URLs. The date of the post is explicit, so you need never wonder when it was written, or how recent it is.

Here’s the thing, though: they’re horrible.”

Oh dear. I am a naughty boy.

In fact, I end up disagreeing with the vast majority of his piece1 – but let’s skip right to his main point, as I think it’s the most interesting.

“But there’s another reason, and it’s more compelling than any of the above. Date-encumbered URLs dilute your article’s standing.

Here’s what each style says to me:

  • macro-gurber.co/2014/02/14/about-smartwatches: This is what Macro thought about smartwatches on Valentine’s Day last year. Which raises some other questions, admittedly.

  • macro-gurber.co/about-smartwatches: This is Macro’s definitive goddamned opinion on smartwatches.

That’s the distinction. Have a think about it for a moment. The latter, shorter style is what you want.”

My problem with this: I am never going to have a definitive goddamned opinion on anything. And frankly, I worry about anyone who thinks that they have one. We should all be open to changing our minds. The latter, shorter style here very much is not what I want.

To take an example, let’s take a look at what the URL for this article would be, if I followed Matt’s advice:

https://www.dirtyfeed.org/on-permalinks/

Certainly, www.dirtyfeed.org is going to be the place I use for my random nonsense for many years to come, whatever that random nonsense happens to be. If I live 50 more years, I think I’m more likely to be using this domain than not. So, the above URL indicates: “What I think about permalinks, forever.” And I may have very different opinions on permalinks in 50 years.2 I may not, of course, but how can you tell? I can’t see into the future to tell what I’ll think of this article in 50 years time.

Instead, the current URL format makes more sense to me:

https://www.dirtyfeed.org/2017/01/on-permalinks/

This article is what I had to say about permalinks, in January 2017. Perhaps there’s an argument for simplifying things a bit, removing the “01”, and just indicating it’s how I felt about permalinks in 2017. (Unlike Matt’s original example, I already don’t include the day, which I agree is pointless.) But the crucial thing is: it doesn’t indicate that it’s my definitive goddamn opinion on permalinks, and that’s entirely intentional.

It very much isn’t.

  1. For instance, the first reason given against dates in URLs is: “They’re visually ugly. Strings of numbers aren’t nice to look at. They look like they’re made for machines.” Considering I used to happily write things like “20/01/17” at the top of every piece of schoolwork I did, I don’t consider my URLs to look especially ugly or only suited to machines.

    An ugly URL which is made for machines I would suggest is something like:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sYtul-U3J4. ↩

  2. If, of course, they still exist. But that’s a whole other discussion. ↩

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The Saga of ofla.info

Published 10th January 2017

Internet / Meta

As I work on the upcoming redesign for Dirty Feed, my thoughts idly turn to the old blog I used to run on ofla.info, back in the mid-2000s. Let’s take a brief look, shall we? I’m sure there’s some great stuff on there.

5th April 2004, “óflå.info Launches!”:

“Make sure you explore all corners of the site; I wouldn’t want you to miss any of the fascinating treats on offer.”

Sadly, all is gone by 18th July 2004. In its place, “Site under renovation”:

“Piss off.”

Never mind. On 9th August 2004, “For Fucks Sake”:

“I’ve had this domain nearly two years, and the only thing I’ve got out of it is a decent e-mail address and some hangers on.

Let’s try and do something useful with it, eh?”

Excellent… oh, wait, deleted by September 2004.

Don’t worry! On 26th October 2004, we get, erm, ““óflå.info” “launches””:

“Ah, it’s not as good as this one. But it’ll do. Let me know if there’s any problems with the design of the site – I know it’s a bit SHIT here and there.

Stuff to come: ill-informed rants on web design, revoltingly geeky TV stuff (The Sitcom Boom Mike Apperances List, anyone?), and various other shite. And news on the progression of the content management system I’m writing. Current status: Learning Perl, page 1.”

This one actually lasted right up until the end of 2005. Then suddenly, on the 3rd January 2006, all is wiped clean. In its place, we get “Errr… óflå.info, erm, “launches””:

“Hello! It’s yet another relaunch of my personal site! Hoo-fucking-ray. Forgive the odd rough edge; I’ll be smoothing it all out in the next few days.

So why? Well, I did get bored of the old design – but it also reflects a change of DIRECTION. All my web/media guff is going on Noise To Signal (due a relaunch in the next couple of weeks, hence the lack of life around there at the moment).

The old content will be stuck back on here at some point (and some of it also incorprated into NTS); till then, use the Wayback Machine. I apologise for breaking all my links in the meantime; the only consolation is that there was nothing worth much on here.

So, what’s going to go on here, then? Well, my personal blog probably – I think it’s a waste of time personally, which is why I didn’t update for ages before, but so many people have requested I carry on with it that it would be rude not to. It also functions as a nice gateway to all the other sites I’m involved with. Beyond that, there are a few things I have planned – but, learning from past experience, I won’t be announcing those until I have something to show for it. I’ll try and update round here most days, though.

Oh: wank shit cunt.”

Surely, this is it? Surely? Nope. Not only was all the old stuff never put back online, but this entire version of the blog was all gone by June.

Since then, my writing has been rather more consistent. Once my personal blog disappeared from ofla.info for good, I wrote for years over on group site Noise to Signal. And once that closed at the end of 2009, I started writing here on Dirty Feed. Sure, this place was originally called Transistorised for some stupid reason, but from 2010 onwards all my writing is intact, and in the same place.

Still, there’s something to be learnt from the above. The reason I kept launching and relaunching back then was simple: some idiotic quest for perfection. “No, no, that article/design/word isn’t exactly perfect – best wipe clean and start again.” Idiotic is definitely the word… but that part of me still pops up every so often. It’s good to have a look back and remember the road perfectionism can take you if you’re not careful. Hey, write something shit? Or does something just not read that brilliantly with a year or two’s hindsight? Never mind, let it stand as a historical piece, and write something better next time. If you want everything you’ve written online to be perfect, never publish anything at all.

The single best thing for me about Dirty Feed is that I finally stuck at something. No wasting time, no constant relaunches. Just a body of work which built up, year after year, and now stands as something I’m proud of – not deleted off the web, never to be seen again unless someone bothers to throw themselves into the Wayback Machine. I see some people constantly launching new sites for the same old thing today, and I’m glad I finally managed to learn that lesson all those years ago.

If there’s one thing which can be said about Dirty Feed this year, it’s this: a lack of perfection is absolutely guaranteed.

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Dirty Feed: Best of 2016

Published 1st January 2017

Meta

2015 • 2016 • 2017 • 2018 • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • 2022 • 2023 • 2024

Man, people whinged too much about 2016. True, there was Trump, Brexit, and celebrity deaths aplenty, and on a personal note I nearly died of pneumonia. Still, I published some fun stuff on Dirty Feed, and isn’t that what really counts?

Time for my traditional self-regarding list, then. Below are a few of my favourite things I published here last year. (If you enjoyed any of it and can afford it, please consider donating to the Internet Archive.)

Fawlty Towers: A Touch of Class
Tracking down which parts of the first episode of Fawlty Towers were reshot between the original pilot recording, and the programme’s actual broadcast the following year. The second most popular piece on the site all year, and contains possibly the only time Dirty Feed will ever concentrate on somebody’s hairstyle.

The Fragility of the Web
I’ve written a lot of stuff about the web this year, most of it to general disinterest. This piece can stand to represent all of them: on how easy it is to destroy the web even when you think you stand to protect it. Not my best-written piece of the year, but a piece which gets to the heart of why I care about this stuff.

Who Framed Michael Eisner
Did the creators of Who Framed Roger Rabbit really manange to sneak in a flash-frame of Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s phone number into the film? (No.) Can I use this topic to talk about Python edits instead? (Yes.)

Blade Runner Afternoons
Ever wondered about how the famous Blockbusters cityscape opening titles were created? The show’s 1989 annual reveals all, with some beautiful behind-the-scenes pictures. This was the most read piece on the site all year. (I also posted some more behind-the-scenes stuff from the annual here.)

Hi-de-Hi! Edits #1, #2, #3
Comparing the DVD release of Hi-de-Hi! and its afternoon repeats on BBC Two. I maintain that Mr. Partridge really did once tell Peggy to “fuck off”. (Comparing all 58 episodes of the show is probably the biggest undertaking I’ve done on here all year. Final piece coming in January.)

“Network, we’ll have to come back and do the draw…”
About the lottery breakdown Bob Monkhouse dealt so expertly with back in 1996… and my own personal relationship to it. But not quite as wanky as that sounds. Nearly as wanky. But not quite.

A George & Mildred Christmas
A late entry, sneaking in at the very end of the year, about George & Mildred‘s Christmas episodes… and how the last episode manages to question the entire setup of the whole show. I’d love to write more stuff like this in the coming year.

Other things I wrote which I think turned out well: about the cut Diana joke in Men Behaving Badly, a skilful piece of presenting, the weirdest abandoned website ever, Elstree being silly, a guide to social media for game developers, why I dislike Digital Spy, old documentaries getting things wrong on purpose, and about ghosts of the internet.

However, my favourite piece I wrote all year wasn’t even on Dirty Feed. Instead it was published over on Ganymede & Titan, the Red Dwarf fansite once described as “a crock of shit” by Iain Lee. That piece was Hancock’s Half Hour: The Tycoon, and is all about the similarities between the Hancock episode The Tycoon, and the Red Dwarf episode Better than Life. It’s (nearly) everything I’d like my writing to be, but don’t always manage.

Back to Dirty Feed. Last year ended up being a bit of a mixed bag for the site. Sadly, I didn’t manage to get back to doing this, or finish this. On the other hand, I did publish more pieces on the site than any previous year, and for various reasons the year didn’t really lend itself to bigger projects in the end.

Thanks to everyone who has said nice things about the site over the past 12 months – I really do appreciate it. And I have lots of plans for the upcoming year. I may even finish the article I teased at the end of my Best of 2015 piece. Who knows?

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“Free and Open Access to Information, Forever”

Published 31st December 2016

Internet / Meta

I don’t ask for any money for writing Dirty Feed. I don’t have a Patreon. I haven’t run any kind of Kickstarter. I don’t have a tip jar. I don’t have Amazon referrals, or an Amazon wish list. Call it keeping the site pure, or call it not wanting to have any kind of obligations around here. Either way, if you’ve enjoyed anything on here over the past 12 months, you’ve enjoyed it for free.

This year, I’ve written quite a lot about the history of the web. (And I’m currently in the middle of a new piece to publish at the start of next year.) Those pieces include:

Not forgetting this piece I wrote over on Ganymede & Titan, about Red Dwarf fandom mid-2004.

Some of these articles might not be your favourite things I’ve written this year. I generally get a lot more positive feedback for stuff I write about the telly, and my internet archeology pieces go rather unnoticed. But that’s fine. I write Dirty Feed for myself as much as for anyone else, and the important thing for me is to have a mix of different kinds of stuff here. (Though, of course, there are plenty of parallels with the kind of internet archeology above, and the kind of thing I do with old sitcoms.)

Still, the important thing about all the above articles: they all relied on the Wayback Machine in order to research the web of the past. And perhaps it’s easy to get blasé about its existence, now it’s been around for so long. But if you step back and just think about it: typing in a URL, and being able to visit (most) websites at (nearly) any point in their existence, is absolutely damn incredible. And is vital to maintaining a record of the history of the web. My silly articles are nothing compared to how important the Wayback Machine is for everyone – and, indeed, the Internet Archive as a whole.

So, here’s my request. The Internet Archive is currently fundraising, and is well short of their goal. If you’ve enjoyed anything I’ve written over here over the past year, and can comfortably afford it – and that latter part is crucial – please consider giving them a small donation. It would mean a lot to me, and is the most relevant support you could give this site.

Thank you. Serious message ends. I’ll be back tomorrow with a round-up of all my nonsense over here from the past year. I didn’t half write some shite.

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@dirtyfeed

Published 25th November 2016

Meta

A quick piece of housekeeping: if you follow me on Twitter, I’m currently taking a little leave of absence. So if you want to keep up with what’s going on with this site, make sure to follow @dirtyfeed instead. Unlike my main account which had all kinds of rambling nonsense, this new account1 will only have links to site updates, and nothing else. (For now, anyway.)

I’m certainly not leaving Twitter because it’s merely “quips and outrages”, and I expect I’ll be back properly again next year. For now though, I need some time where I’m not bombarded with things which are a bit much to deal with at the moment.

  1. Well, I say “new”. I grabbed the name back in 2010, in a bit of uncharacteristic long-sightedness. ↩

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Dirty Feed: Best of 2015

Published 1st January 2016

Meta

2015 • 2016 • 2017 • 2018 • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • 2022 • 2023 • 2024

Happy New Year, everyone. And another year, another opportunity to be self-aggrandising and pretend it’s all in the spirit of “reflection”. Nevertheless, here are some of my favourite articles on Dirty Feed from the last 12 months. ENJOY IT YOU SCUM, ENJOY IT OR I WILL HAVE YOU KILLED.

On Automation.
Specifically, why automation isn’t to blame when a TV channel falls off air. Mainly written so I can smugly point to it when someone randomly complains about TV automation on Twitter. Yes, I am a complete cunt, why do you ask?

11 Things Wrong With Fawlty Towers
By far my most popular article all year in terms of hits… mainly because most of the words are John Cleese’s, not mine. My main aim was to prove to everyone that the John Cleese commentaries on the Remastered boxset are absolutely glorious, and well worth repurchasing the show for alone.

Acorn Fools’ Day
A trek through some fun April Fools gags in Acorn computer magazines of the 80s and 90s – and one of those articles I’ve been meaning to write for years, and then finally got round to. I’d love someone to write something similar about magazines for other platforms. Please?

Duncan Newmarch: “The Jingles I Grew Up With”
A chat with BBC continuity announcer Duncan Newmarch about why he loves radio jingles so much… and why he put together a montage of them which lasts two hours. I really must do more interviews, as “somebody else talking instead of me” is usually a relief to everybody.

24 Hours in Channel 5 TX
Probably the best thing I wrote all year, about a topic which really isn’t talked about much: how a television channel these days is actually put together. (I promised a follow-up piece answering all your questions which has yet to be published: hopefully it’ll be finished this month.)

One Foot in the Grave: Hearts of Darkness and The Thrilling Conclusion
Finally, the answer to a question I’ve been wondering for years – exactly what was cut out of the One Foot in the Grave episode Hearts of Darkness when it was released on DVD? It was extremely satisfying to finally get to the bottom of the mystery… especially when the answer was one nobody could have predicted.

‘The Quatermass Experiment’ Experiment
A piece ostensibly about the differences between the original broadcast and DVD release of the live 2005 version of Quatermass… but which turns into musings about the nature of live television drama about halfway through. This just nipped in right at the end to be my second-most popular piece of the year, which is nice, as this is the main reason the site quietened down for the last few months – it was an absolute bitch to research and write.

And bringing up the rear: why Comedy Central are IDIOTS, the history of jingles, how journalism works, and a look at edits made to The Fast Show on DVD. Oh, and this site hasn’t updated since I slagged it off, which is amusing.

So, a little self-indulgent ramble. Whilst I don’t sit obsessing over stats, “Are people reading your stuff?” in a general sense is always nice to know. 2015 has been the most successful year yet for Dirty Feed in that regard, with more readers than ever – in fact, slightly more than 2013 and 2014 combined. This is mainly down to a few pieces being shared rather more than usual, so thank you if you’ve retweeted, linked to, or written about one of my bits of nonsense over the past year. I really appreciate it.

In terms of the writing, I’m never happy that I’ve written enough, and I certainly didn’t write as much as I planned to. On the other hand, some of the pieces I did get round to writing are some of my favourites I’ve ever done. It feels like Dirty Feed has established its own voice more than ever, and hopefully that voice is “Things most people wouldn’t bother to write about, but you’re vaguely glad that somebody has.”

Sadly, my planned redesign and relaunch of my podcast didn’t happen, and in 2016, the lack of a proper responsive, mobile-friendly design is nothing short of ludicrous. These are my two priorities for the forthcoming year. No excuses.1

And that’s quite enough of that. Happy 2016 everyone. I hope you’ll join me for more nonsense this year. Right, I’m off to research old Buffy fansites which disappeared off the net ten years ago.

I’m not joking. That is literally what I am doing.

  1. There might be excuses. ↩

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An Archive of Mediocre Television Reviews

Published 25th August 2015

Meta / TV Comedy / TV Drama

Having gone on yet another explosive rant about Sam Wollaston recently, I am reminded that I’ve never linked to any of the TV reviews I’ve written for other sites on here. Part of me, to be honest, is disinclined to do so; some of the pieces I’m not very proud of at all. But there’s some good stuff amongst the dross, and besides: I’m cursed with a bizarre sense of fair play. If I’m going to be slagging people off on Twitter, or writing about poor journalism on here, it only feels fair to actually link to some of the stuff I’ve done which I’m not that keen on, rather than pretend it never existed.

So, here is a full archive of television reviews I have written elsewhere. These are mainly from the now-defunct media blog Noise To Signal, although there’s a couple from still active Doctor Who site Unlimited Rice Pudding!, and one from Red Dwarf fansite Ganymede & Titan. It doesn’t include anything lurking in Dirty Feed’s archive, or reviews of anything which isn’t strictly a television episode.

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Dirty Feed: The First Five Years

Published 1st January 2015

Meta

5 years • 10 years • 15 years

BBC Master startup screen, with Dirty Feed instead of BASIC, because I'm hilarious obviously

Exactly five years ago today, Dirty Feed came into being. (Actually, that’s strictly not true – it was called Transistorised for most of that first year – but let’s ignore that, as it was a rubbish name.) After Noise To Signal closed, I wanted a place of my own to post my nonsense. No real plans, no ambitious proposals: just “let’s talk about stuff I’m interested in and see what happens”.

I rarely do navel-gazing posts here – in fact, bizarrely, even the change in name from Transistorised to Dirty Feed wasn’t actually noted on the site. But I thought I’d allow myself something just this once. What follows is a list of some of my favourite things on the site over the past five years. I ORDER YOU TO ENJOY IT.

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