Wordshore's profile

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Name: Wordshore
Joined: May 29, 2012

About

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

For social media, I'm often on on Bluesky nowadays, dipping in and out of MetaFilter occasionally. Some other MeFites - current, and former/given up - who are on Bluesky are in this starter pack, and more are in this one.

Pictures of (mainly) places I've lived in or visited, or foods eaten, between 2005 and now are on Flickr. This album has the better pictures, though if you want more geographically-oriented snapshots, best go through the ordered collections.

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A few of the comments, posts, and general unedited ramblings I've made since joining MetaFilter...

Pick of the barrel
:: The original, and several covers of, Olson by Boards of Canada: Olson.
:: What bizarre shit are they finding in your manifesto after you're finally apprehended?: The manifesto of the MeFite.
:: Question, and explanations revealed some way down the comments: 18 pounds of stolen cheese.
:: The games MeFites play.
:: Comment: A eulogy for Nutkins.
:: Post: One sandwich to rule them all.
:: NSFW comment: The vicar who loved horses.
:: Post (mod deleted): Minimalist - note you can still 'favorite' Huffy Puffy's comment.
:: Audio project: Wordshore speaks some words.
:: Nocturnal trauma: Owl problem.
:: Sexy posts: Penis beaker for the comments, and “Eichhörnchen!”

I gotta mention on the podcast!
Words were written or spoken which, for whatever reason, made podcast number 177, 166, 146, 145, 136, 132, 131, 126, 125, 124, 120, 115, and 93 (twice).

Life
2026
April: Yes.
March: In which I, again, reminisce about the early and mid 1990s and the World Wide Web in UK academia of that time.
February: The current course takes up time as winter fades away.
January: I return to the orchard for Old Twelvey.

2025
December: A personal review of the year.
October: Three methods which help me get to sleep, and I take a break from MetaFilter.
September: The tote bag vegetable garden, remembered.
August: Some reminiscing about the telephone number when I was growing up, and some reminscing about working with the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s.
June: A visit to Lidl in Worcestershire, England, during American Food Week.
April: I went for yet more walks, but then had a lot of reading to complete.
March: I was once a bit late for a wedding. And remembering sauna experiences and my favourite book.
February: Being a student yet again.
January: Where I have some hopes, but also some realism, about the year ahead.

2024
December: A final(?) change in research direction.
August: As the walks continue, summer is ending, and of swans, crows, and getting a ring made.
July: The month of peak tombola. And I go to meet a moth collector and discover how he collects moths. The music moments which stand out belong to Frankie and Kate.
June: Being in Worcestershire, and surviving an English summer, and remembering an American one.
May: Being a student again.
February: Lost in Lidl.
January: Besties.

2023
October: Winter is coming.
September: On talking to the bees.
June: I return to rural Worcestershire, for a while, and enjoy a different life here.
May: Perseverance.
March: Progress is slow.
February: The good start continues.
January: A good start to a new year.

2022
December: Moving honey across Worcesteshire because, and the swans of Christmas Day.
June: My role model is Sunbathing Cone Cat.
May: It is Oak Apple Day, I have been a member of MetaFilter for exactly a decade, and there is a lot of writing to be, um, written. And, apart from writing content of variable quality, this is the other thing which has occupied me for much of those ten years.

2021
November: Back in the Shire, but looking at the possibilities of being further afield.
October: And everything goes back to the beginning as I aspire to return north.
September: Why I don't like zebras, and the school trip where we didn't really do the school proud, a formative influence, and a ferry ride on the Sabbath, and looking back and looking forwards.
August: On nearly killing a Royal corgi, a previous purchase, and being critiqued in Dublin.

2020
December: The magic of Avebury.
October: Drinking tea with another MeFite, and the endurance of cricket.
September: More on the late summer / early autumn road trip.
August: How to get cheese, for free, in rural England, on rescuing cats, and the road trip begins.

2019
September: A cake picture roundup.
August: Still here, alas.
June: There were stones and stoners.
April: "This, in a way, is similar to the prisoner's dilemma, but with cock." and I wandered and ate cake.
March: I went on a date and MeFites helped in a way and the date has been immortalised in a blockchain, a new bakery for a new day, and books > lies, the worst person to solve relationship problems, and my explanation for the current state of England.
February: Totoro the robin and hygienic toilet use and I gave a speech at a wedding.
January: Milk and wassailing and it is perhaps time to travel to the gray havens...

2018
December: Ash and stiricide, preparations are done and Christmas day foods, and it is time to go outside and celebrate.
November: I was Santa but then I wasn't.
October: The bluebell service (from last May).
September: The first village show of the autumn, noticing things, some questionable judging, my "local" village pub, two pumpkins, and the month of cake.
August: With the local Druids, eating and celebrating, remembering the uses of a flask of tea and more detail, and cakes at the end of summer.
July: Some church cake and an associated sudden storage predicament, and potatoes, the annual church fete was caketastic but evensong was too loud, the vicar who liked horses (and basic education), when Heathens squabble, and more rural foods of which George is a fan.
June: An afternoon of stained glass windows and cake, a summer fete at a cricket club, and the Summer Solstice.
March: Some local women, and another with a poker.
February: My vicar is cold, and badger problems and the AskMeFi behind it, resulting in patrols.
January: Stumpy from back in the day, thrice bitten and a further explanation. Also, melon.

2017
November: "Would you like some cake?", a chocolate sponge cake supplier and some further detail.
October: Autumn, and some random notes.
September: The Autumnal Equinox, some rural village marrow entendres, scrumpy from back in the day, and the poo in the pencilcase.
August: My favorite walk, an unhygienic rural-dwelling friend and a neighbour, the chip van cometh, a post about rural English pastimes that are not The Hunting of the Earl of Rone, and forever cheese.
July: An owl theft and how it will be solved, the tediousness of the streaker, and Gerald and the cream scone. Also, 45 bars of Cadbury chocolate suddenly appear.
June: A strange village fete, some cow sitting, and a few facts.
May: A busy Sunday morning.
April: Nutkins the squirrel and the end times of same and an observation, and some Maypole dancing and villager observations.
February: In the woods with Druids and in a church on a hill.
January: The uses of a goldfish bowl.

2016
December: Some Christmas Day port.
November: I won the tombola and everyone hated me, and afterwards, and a free mince pie.
October: A regretful purchase..
September: Listening to a description of cheese while eating cheese, and a post about rural English shows.
August: What has become known as the cheese heist. Friend acquires a lot of cheese - what to do with it, why Andy had the cheese, more on Fred, a photograph, and an associated MetaTalk. Also, the local church organist went rogue, and a typical week.
March: It is Spring.

2015
October: Proper cider.
April: A post about the eeriness of the English countryside.

2014
September: Rural island life.

2013
May: A post about the cheese rolling on Cooper's Hill.

2012
November: One sauce to rule them all.

Some posts, grouped by theme
"Ooo, I say, matron!"
* Penis Beaker.
* Hedge Fucking.
* Lick your own cat and how to say the instructions.
* Sweatily working hard on his balls.
* The Great British Dildo Heist.
* Something is longer in the state of Denmark.
* “Soon, you can log in to MetaFilter using your analprint.”
* “Bonjour! Mon anus est plein d'artillerie.”
* Poopcase.

Cakes and desserts
* “...the server suggests the £45 vanilla flower: a hefty, towering tart”
* Soon, a plate of beans will be created by a 3D printer.
* Christmas Cake.
* The Tunnocks Tea Cake.
* Chocolate latest.
* “Turn it upside down after baking so the lard can soak through.”
* Cake update.
* Look, it's just a vicar eating cake. What could go wrong?
* Carb loading day is here!
* All the cake news that's fit to eat.
* The great British Jaffa Cake bait and switch.
* There is cake. And there is Victoria sponge cake.
* The contrition and shame of inappropriately creaming your scone.
* No finer tart. (Bakewell tarts)
* I am sick of half-hearted desserts. Bring me a proper pudding.
* Cake village.

Cheese
* Important news you may have missed.
* It's fondue. Made of cheese.
* Gouda: one cheese to rule th... oh. Not statistically, it doesn't.
* 22 tonnes of stolen cheese.
* A splendidly meat-free upgrade to the boringly traditional cheeseburger.
* “CHEESE! CHEESE! CHEESE! CHEESE! CHEESE! CHEESE! CHEESE!” (the annual cheese rolling races)
* “The fatty cream is its secret....”
* Mascarpone Monday.
* “The cake to cheese ratio is all important....”
* My cheese toastie brings all the boys to the park.
* One sandwich to rule them all.
* People often ask me, ‘Do you like cheese?’
* “Grated cheese to be renamed Pulled Cheddar.” (2017 British cheese news)
* Edible uses of cheese.
* I should have just eaten the 18 pounds of Red Leicester. (cheese is allegedly good for you)
* I want to make cheese.
* Scrape it off, I scrape it off... (Raclette, or roasted cheese)
* Maybe we need to find more non-edible uses for it. (cheese mountain)
* The librarians are freaking out about this.
* ...and a comment.

Other foods and drinks
* “Should I eat this ... Christmas tree?” - Belgium edition
* Man steals 200,000 eggs, is caught.
* Linda Skeens is too busy WINNING, for all your social media nonsense
* “Earth people peeled their own potatoes with their metal knives...”
* The Diablo sandwich.
* “This is their best? Oh.”
* The Green Nectar of the Gods.
* "Like a greasy chip butty, oh Sheffield United, come thrill me again"
* Biscuit news.
* Consider the potato.
* Carb loading day is here!
* “Ribbed with bacon.”
* Tea. Noises occurring from the drinking of. Especially slurping.
* “I have no compunction about filling my pockets with croissants.”
* Smörgåstårta.
* “I bloody love a pork pie.”
* “...and something called coconut bacon, which you just know isn’t.”
* Its fans call themselves "potheads" and accessorise their pots. (Instant Pots)
* Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence. (gin-flavoured foods)
* A little piece of toast.
* The Food of the (Northern) Gods. (cuisine of Northern England)
* Bring Your Own Pie.
* My lips purse, like a cat’s arse that’s brushed against nettles. (fine dining, that was not, review)
* Tea comes out of a teapot.
* Turkey Twizzlers, cornflake tart, jam roly-poly, and spotted dick. (British school dinners)
* Decline and Fall of the British Empire, Episode 7,219 - the Walnut Whip.
* Beyond the cheesy fried enchilada funnel cake: 2017 state fair foods.
* Blimey! Beyond Buckinghamshire bacon badgers: British bites... (British cuisine in 2017)
* Let's talk about pies.
* One herring to bring them all, and in the darkness fry them. (fish and chips)
* Deep-fat fryers and dunking Jaffa Cakes: a nation further divided.
* Step aside Nutella; there's a new spread in town.
* End of Empire. End of Days. End of Everything. (Cadbury Creme Egg recipe changes)
* Cookware does not emit sounds or illuminate.

Tech
* AOL ending dial-up access to the Information Superhighway.
* Advanced Lawn Mower Simulator, and other deliberately crap games.
* Now how will we explore the Internet?
* Exit through the gif shop.
* Apollo 11.
* “Sega Dreamcast at 20: the futuristic games console that came too soon.”
* 10 PRINT "Hello MetaFilter" ..... 20 GOTO 10 .... RUN.
* "Um..." {taps chunky BBC Micro keys} "180 ... GOTO 30 ... and ... RUN!" (the Computer Literacy Project)
* Online communities reach middle age. (the CBBS: Computerized Bulletin Board System)
* Internet -> internet. (capitalisation)
* How to use a modem.
* Ello is soooo summer of 2014. Autumn is tilde.club

Culture
* She Moved Through the Fair, sung by Ruth Cahill
* “Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat”
* Olson
* 1980s gritty northern drama to be rebooted as a TV series
* “Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy.”
* https://www.metafilter.com/207768/Were-going-to-take-a-sauna-sauna.
* It means 'singing'.
* “And to that, I scream out loud, 'I'm coming'”
* “No stresso, no stresso, no need to be depresso”
* “I'm from Bosnia, take me to America”
* Obrigado, Arigato, Tinky-Winky Terminator, Duolingo on acid [trumpets]
* “Is that an icicle in your pocket or...”
* “Ich lieb dich nicht, du liebst mich nicht.” (Da Da Da, by Trio)
* “You're all corrupt, you're all depraved...” (Einstein a Go Go, by Landscape)
* A badminton rally.
* “Should Christian Women Be Allowed to Have Butts?”
* “Excuse moi? Quoi? Excuse moi? Quoi?” (the French version of Chaise Longue by Wet Leg)
* “Boogie with a suitcase.” (Pop Muzik by M)
* “In England, no-one can hear you scream.” (Sleaford Mods)
* “If they fail to see it, are they even human?”
* Boards of Canada vs Deforum Stable Diffusion.
* “Honda Honda Honda Honda.” (Madness advertise the Honda City in the 1980s)
* Daisy Boo Biscuit Potter (cat obituary by Ned Potter)
* Everything happens so much. (10th anniversary of this @horse_ebooks tweet)
* Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush.
* “Just like you have a lot of different you's.”
* Struggle for Pleasure / Café del Mar.
* “Distant sound of thunder, moving out on the moor.”
* Together in Electric Dreams.
* “So jump in the river and learn to swim...”
* Squid Game.
* From Shitterton to Bell End, via Titty Ho.
* Make your cat the centre of attention during family meals.
* "God only knows what I'd be without ewe"
* “Wonder what's cooking at the house tonight; stew and beans”. (Waiting for a Train, by Flash and the Pan)
* "Quiet, seething resentment, dressed up in a cheap paper hat"
* “Stick that gorgeous vaccine in my eyes and up my arse...”
* I should buy Björk a boat.
* Getting it Hobbit-on.
* The Clangers.
* Hoo-rah hoo-rah hoo-rah-yay...
* Bobby Banas and The Nitty Gritty.
* The sweaters, the dancing in socks, the keyboard guitar...
* The conviviality of niche Twitter.
* Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold.
* Lies your parents told you.
* “He’s probably in his room right now, stuffing Lego in the hole.”
* ♪ ♫ “This means nothing to me...” ♬♪ (Vienna, by Ultravox)
* Wings Of A Dove. (by Madness)
* Stop and be friendly. (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
* Wave your hands in the air like you don't care (Word Up!, by Cameo)
* When Scottish islands blogged.
* The arsonists who stare at goats (the annual goat at Gävle, which may or may not be burned to the ground).

Other

* Big numbers and the ulterior motive for this post.
* The correct way to wash the dishes is
* MetaClean: “How often should you...”
* “Dominic Cummings ... has the air of a startled testicle ...”
* Saying it as it is.
* Not a West Country furniture guide.
* Silenced all my life, and an explanation stretched over several comments.
* “I went in for a chicken. Came out with a bench grinder.”
* Ten years ago today. (on the election of Barack Obama on November 4th 2008)
* Psithurism is the best ism. (the sound of wind in the trees)
* Should you wash your pyjamas every day?
* The UK and USA: two proud nations divided by damp, grey underwear. (the inadequacies of British combo washer-dryers)
* God's Own Country: the nation of Yorkshire.
* The Typewriter at the Gates of Dawn.
* The wheels on the bus go meow meow meow... (Cat Bus)
* “A bath is not an alternative to a shower: it is a hot lie-down.”

Projects
* Wordshore speaks some words - where I recite some short texts and messages submitted by MeFites, as well as some popular MetaFilter culture phrases and a few usernames.

A sample of AskMeFi questions
* What things can you do with a potato other than eat it?
* “Y'know, this stuff is kinda wasted on just ponies...”
* Best (UK) lard to give as a present.
* What is cake?
* A bit of Oooo, Matron? Bedroom gymnastics? Rumpy van Humpy? (Fetch the smelling salts! Features a few off-question replies from horrified, pearl-clutching MeFites.)
* Is/can a cinnamon roll also/also be a donut?
* Do you let your cat see you naked?
* How do you make a splendid cup of tea?
* Can blockchain improve my sex life?
* Poo vs Gravity.
* Owl problem.
* Things you were never told about approaching 50.
* Is Suet not a major ingredient in US cooking?
* The outcome of a few previous AskMeFi questions, and a further update.

Libraries
* Some reasons for using libraries.
* Librarians are organized.
* "I couldn't afford to go to film school; I learned from the library".
* No matter where I am, the public libraries belong to me. I’m the public.
* OCLC consciously uncouples from catalog cards.
* A new library for an old city.
* The challenges facing today's libraries and librarians (a fifty minute interview with Jessamyn)

A sample of MetaTalk posts
* What is the MeFite meeting signal?
* Four MetaTalk posts about aspects of writing FPPs (Front Page Posts): The Joy of FPPing, Insert Title Here, Getting good at writing FPPs, and How do you decide which tags to include?
* Were you the nearly megafamous MeFite?
* Sock sock shoe shoe versus sock shoe sock shoe (the order in which MeFites put them on)
* This needs to be a ten hour YouTube video loop (deeply satisfying art)
* Is masturbation allowed on MetaFilter? (about being King of your Internet Domain)
* Sometimes, it's good to celebrate the wins.

Proudest MetaFilter moment
* Having the last word in this comment thread was satisfying...