4 ms·

Digging through the archives of Scarfolk

109 points by worik 5y ago

daitangio 5y ago
Very nice idea, with bkack comedy humor inside. As Italian, I find my Country burocracy a step behind but it can cope with that
blowski 5y ago
This is unusally Buzzfeed-esque for Atlas Obscura. A funny page but nothing that you'd call obscure.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  Eh, weird internet subculture things seem broadly within their remit. Actually somewhat surprised they haven’t done SCP.
ale42 5y ago
See also the original blog page: https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/ https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/ And wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarfolk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarfolk
dylan604 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Another one you may enjoy is the Framley Examiner [1]. [1]: http://www.framleyexaminer.com http://www.framleyexaminer.com
  - mattl 5y ago
    New compilation of Framley stuff. https://unbound.com/books/framley/ https://unbound.com/books/framley/
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Thanks! This sounds a lot like GPT3 output. I know it's not as it is dated well before GPT-# was available.
  - christophilus 5y ago
    I’ve been sick with some kind of respiratory thing, and that link just sent me into a fit of coughing. True story.
  - twic 5y ago
    I still love this. In particular: the placenames, which are wonderful parodies of odd little East Anglian village names; "we deliver FREE absolutely anywhere in the world (except Whoft)"; and the surreal property listings ("Superb new development of 0-bedroom flats. Reduced to clear due to planning error. Garden.").
- emmelaich 5y ago
  The MV Police Blotter on Twitter is a little similar but much more light-hearted. https://twitter.com/mvpoliceblotter https://twitter.com/mvpoliceblotter
kingofclams 5y ago
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/ https://www.welcometonightvale.com/
mhh__ 5y ago
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"
dang 5y ago
Related: Scarfolk - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21789679 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10389497 - Oct 2015 (21 comments)
- jenscow 5y ago
  For more information, please reread.
taylorius 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
  - taylorius 5y ago
    There was a definite change in the wind in the 80s. Oddly I remember feeling that the newer, pastel coloured 80s offerings were a bit weak. I'd grown to quite like being terrified. Around 1979 our teachers showed us a public safety film, called 'Apaches'. I was about 8 years old, at primary school. It was a film chronicling the gruesome deaths of a group of children who were playing on a farm. It genuinely traumatised me well into my teenage years, it was really bad, and showing it to kids would be unthinkable today. Anyone else remember it? :-)
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      I think I'm a bit too young to have seen this, and I'm not sure I want to. "Central Office of Information" sounds like a parody itself. http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1402624/ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1402624/ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1_J6_O4bn0s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1_J6_O4bn0s
- euroderf 5y ago
  It seems like blue outlasts red in ANY ink on ANY printed material left in the sun, even thru window glass. But I've never seen this phenom explained.
gerdesj 5y ago
"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.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  I'm just getting started on how we pronounce place names! A few years back I went skiing in Banff (Alberta, Canada). Near there is Norquay which I pronounced as Norkey as in Torquay. Nope it's: Norrkway or perhaps Nork-kway. That's fair enough - the locals can call their place whatever they like and I can damn well like it or bugger off. The thing is that the place was clearly named by people from these parts but the language has changed and moved on. Here in the UK, Norquay means North Quay. I have no idea what Norquay means in Canada - is it just a legacy name. Here in the UK we have legacy names too. For example River Avon - Avon means river in several Brythonic languages (Afon). The land that contains the modern UK has been done over quite a few times by all sorts of well organised interlopers - Vikings (lads doing the vik), Romans (Senatus PopulusQue Romani), more viking types now called Normans and with a thin veneer of respectability thanks to duffing up Normandy and settling.
mattkevan 5y ago
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/ https://ghostbox.co.uk/artists-page/belbury-poly/ [1] https://m.soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/pye-corner-audio-sleep-games-1 https://m.soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/pye-corner-audio-sle... [2] https://ghostbox.co.uk/ https://ghostbox.co.uk/ [3] https://www.castlesinspace.com/ https://www.castlesinspace.com/

109 points by worik 5y ago

Very nice idea, with bkack comedy humor inside. As Italian, I find my Country burocracy a step behind but it can cope with that

blowski 5y ago

This is unusally Buzzfeed-esque for Atlas Obscura. A funny page but nothing that you'd call obscure.

rsynnott 5y ago
Eh, weird internet subculture things seem broadly within their remit. Actually somewhat surprised they haven’t done SCP.

ale42 5y ago

See also the original blog page: https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/ https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/ And wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarfolk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarfolk

dylan604 5y ago

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 5y ago
Another one you may enjoy is the Framley Examiner [1]. [1]: http://www.framleyexaminer.com http://www.framleyexaminer.com
- mattl 5y ago
  New compilation of Framley stuff. https://unbound.com/books/framley/ https://unbound.com/books/framley/
- dylan604 5y ago
  Thanks! This sounds a lot like GPT3 output. I know it's not as it is dated well before GPT-# was available.
- christophilus 5y ago
  I’ve been sick with some kind of respiratory thing, and that link just sent me into a fit of coughing. True story.
- twic 5y ago
  I still love this. In particular: the placenames, which are wonderful parodies of odd little East Anglian village names; "we deliver FREE absolutely anywhere in the world (except Whoft)"; and the surreal property listings ("Superb new development of 0-bedroom flats. Reduced to clear due to planning error. Garden.").
emmelaich 5y ago
The MV Police Blotter on Twitter is a little similar but much more light-hearted. https://twitter.com/mvpoliceblotter https://twitter.com/mvpoliceblotter

kingofclams 5y ago

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/ https://www.welcometonightvale.com/

mhh__ 5y ago

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"

dang 5y ago

Related: Scarfolk - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21789679 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10389497 - Oct 2015 (21 comments)

jenscow 5y ago
For more information, please reread.

taylorius 5y ago

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 5y ago
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.
- taylorius 5y ago
  There was a definite change in the wind in the 80s. Oddly I remember feeling that the newer, pastel coloured 80s offerings were a bit weak. I'd grown to quite like being terrified. Around 1979 our teachers showed us a public safety film, called 'Apaches'. I was about 8 years old, at primary school. It was a film chronicling the gruesome deaths of a group of children who were playing on a farm. It genuinely traumatised me well into my teenage years, it was really bad, and showing it to kids would be unthinkable today. Anyone else remember it? :-)
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    I think I'm a bit too young to have seen this, and I'm not sure I want to. "Central Office of Information" sounds like a parody itself. http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1402624/ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1402624/ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1_J6_O4bn0s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1_J6_O4bn0s
euroderf 5y ago
It seems like blue outlasts red in ANY ink on ANY printed material left in the sun, even thru window glass. But I've never seen this phenom explained.

gerdesj 5y ago

"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.

gerdesj 5y ago
I'm just getting started on how we pronounce place names! A few years back I went skiing in Banff (Alberta, Canada). Near there is Norquay which I pronounced as Norkey as in Torquay. Nope it's: Norrkway or perhaps Nork-kway. That's fair enough - the locals can call their place whatever they like and I can damn well like it or bugger off. The thing is that the place was clearly named by people from these parts but the language has changed and moved on. Here in the UK, Norquay means North Quay. I have no idea what Norquay means in Canada - is it just a legacy name. Here in the UK we have legacy names too. For example River Avon - Avon means river in several Brythonic languages (Afon). The land that contains the modern UK has been done over quite a few times by all sorts of well organised interlopers - Vikings (lads doing the vik), Romans (Senatus PopulusQue Romani), more viking types now called Normans and with a thin veneer of respectability thanks to duffing up Normandy and settling.

mattkevan 5y ago

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/ https://ghostbox.co.uk/artists-page/belbury-poly/ [1] https://m.soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/pye-corner-audio-sleep-games-1 https://m.soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/pye-corner-audio-sle... [2] https://ghostbox.co.uk/ https://ghostbox.co.uk/ [3] https://www.castlesinspace.com/ https://www.castlesinspace.com/