[HN Gopher] Digging through the archives of Scarfolk
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Digging through the archives of Scarfolk
Author : worik
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-05-01 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| mattkevan wrote:
| Scarfolk is amazing. It's just so beautifully done.
|
| If you want to go further, I'd very much recommend exploring
| artists like Belbury Poly [0] and Pye Corner Audio [1] and labels
| like Ghost Box [2] and Castles in Space [3].
|
| They mine a similar mix of BBC Radiophonic Workshop-style sounds,
| 60s/70s public information films, vintage library music, TV
| themes, pagan folk horror and existential dread.
|
| Wonderful stuff.
|
| [0] https://ghostbox.co.uk/artists-page/belbury-poly/
|
| [1] https://m.soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/pye-corner-audio-
| sle...
|
| [2] https://ghostbox.co.uk/
|
| [3] https://www.castlesinspace.com/
| blowski wrote:
| This is unusally Buzzfeed-esque for Atlas Obscura. A funny page
| but nothing that you'd call obscure.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Eh, weird internet subculture things seem broadly within their
| remit. Actually somewhat surprised they haven't done SCP.
| daitangio wrote:
| Very nice idea, with bkack comedy humor inside. As Italian, I
| find my Country burocracy a step behind but it can cope with that
| mhh__ wrote:
| Scarfolk is one of my favourite things, full stop.
|
| It's not just a funny series of posters but also some often
| fairly successful satire of British council politics and 1970s
| doom and gloom. The books are fun, and much more morbid than you
| see on the web. Lots of nice touches like the library stamps
| saturating at the end of 1979 (scarfolk is stuck)
|
| "Guilt is good for you"
| taylorius wrote:
| I grew up in rural England in the 70s. Scarfolk is basically a
| documentary. I remember posters in our tiny local post office
| warning locals about rabid animals, and farmers about the
| Colorado beetle. My favourite touch is the blue tint to the
| posters. Sunlight will bleach inks, but blue ink was more
| resilient, so posters left on sunlit walls would take on a bluish
| tinge.
| rsynnott wrote:
| When was this sort of terror-based public information messaging
| abandoned, anyway? I grew up in late 80s/early 90s Ireland, and
| there was still some of it around (I'll never trust a chip-pan,
| which I suppose was the point), but it seems to be almost
| entirely gone now.
|
| I'm kind of curious if people who grew up either before or
| after the period when it was common _get_ Scarfolk.
| ale42 wrote:
| See also the original blog page: https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/
|
| And wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarfolk
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Scarfolk_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21789679 - Dec
| 2019 (23 comments)
|
| _Visiting Scarfolk, the Most Spectacular Dystopia of the 1970s_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11334436 - March 2016 (29
| comments)
|
| _"Scarfolk is a town in North West England that did not progress
| beyond 1979"_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10389497 -
| Oct 2015 (21 comments)
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm convinced that these kinds of sites are why the internet was
| created. The fact that they are so rare shows that we are not
| fully deserving of the internet. Since we have subverted the
| intended use of the internet and made things like Facebook, we
| should be sent to our rooms without supper and have our internet
| priveleges removed for 2-weeks so we can think about the
| decisions we've made.
| jen20 wrote:
| Another one you may enjoy is the Framley Examiner [1].
|
| [1]: http://www.framleyexaminer.com
| mattl wrote:
| New compilation of Framley stuff.
|
| https://unbound.com/books/framley/
| dylan604 wrote:
| Thanks! This sounds a lot like GPT3 output. I know it's not
| as it is dated well before GPT-# was available.
| christophilus wrote:
| I've been sick with some kind of respiratory thing, and that
| link just sent me into a fit of coughing. True story.
| emmelaich wrote:
| The MV Police Blotter on Twitter is a little similar but much
| more light-hearted.
|
| https://twitter.com/mvpoliceblotter
| kingofclams wrote:
| People who like this might also like Welcome to Night Vale [0], a
| podcast with a similar vibe that takes place in the American
| Southwest. [0]: https://www.welcometonightvale.com/
| gerdesj wrote:
| "Littler grew up in the 1970s, in suburban Manchester, where he
| remembers being "always scared, always frightened of what I was
| faced with.""
|
| I lived in Manc in 1977 - Wythenshawe to be a bit more precise. I
| was seven so a little young to be scared about much that I could
| articulate coherently. It was the Queen's Silver Jubilee year and
| summer seemed to last forever. I loved going to school (!)
| "Button Lane Infant's". The mums in our area organised a rota of
| four mums at a time to walk around 20-30 odd kids to school -
| about three miles or so for me and my brother. On the walk we
| whittered on endlessly and I remember we played a game where the
| world was made of sweets and discussed it. You'd be surprised
| what interests a seven year old to the point they can recall it
| aged 52.
|
| Manc in the 1970s was a bit of a grey place. I do remember a lot
| of concrete and a lot of dog shit. However, where we lived there
| was lots of impromptu footie on the field near the allotments,
| behind some really crappy concrete garages, lots of bike riding
| and generally having a great time. I spent a few days in
| Wythenshawe hospital, to have the grommits removed from inside my
| ears that were put in by army surgeons in Rinteln (West Germany).
| Forty odd years later, I read in New Scientist article that "glue
| ear" is a bit of a dodgy diagnosis. I do have tinnitus probably
| due to surgery but it isn't that bad. I recall a smell of boiled
| cabbages and the walls being green. The nurses were lovely.
|
| I could go on but that's more than enough.
|
| Anyway, Scarfolk isn't really that much of a pastiche. My main
| complaint is with the name! It combines two English town naming
| parts but Scar- is mostly seen in the north and -folk is mainly
| seen in the south. Scarfield, Scarthorpe or Grenfolk or do the
| job properly and go for a really weird English name: Ryme
| Intrinsica, Hatch Beauchamp, Chew Magna and Curry Rivel are all
| near me. The name Scarfolk is quite obviously wrong Even so I can
| tell you how to pronounce it, if you are not too familiar with
| English place names. It is a bit like "Skaffuck" - you run both
| syllables into each other and folk loses the l sound. The final k
| sound is softened too - I put fuck in because it is a fairly well
| understood syllable.
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(page generated 2022-05-01 23:00 UTC)