Laments on Gazzetta Della Grog - Part 2

As you probably gathered from my previous entry I was mainly describing the paper edition of GDG but that's only the half of it ... you probably also realised that both versions were written in my juvenile and pre-Christian days. I feel like putting one of those kind of “the views expressed by the author are not those expressed by the present day Greg Sammons” disclaimers in.

The same motley crew that were behind the newsletter stayed on for Sixth Form and decided, for some unknown reason, that we should embrace the 21st Century (which had only just started then of course) and do it online. The thinking being that no busy-body teacher could stop us from ranting about pointless gubbins and swear for no obvious reason.

I didn't have the html skills to start up the website so a wonderful Canadian gentle giant who happened to also be called Greg helped set it up and edited the web side of the things for the first few months. A small group of regular and occasional contributors kept the website ticking along nicely for a decent period of time until girlfriends and A-levels got in the way. It was the end of sixth form that was the final death knell as it saw us go our separate ways and as such the website quickly fell into stagnation, despite another gentle giant (Dan) offering to take over the editor's role.

In terms of highlights well as you head to the homepage you'd want to click on 'Classic GDG' to get to the really good stuff. If you're a teenage male (as we were back then) you may wish to check out our definitive list of names for the male phallus. As for other highlights, well quite frankly it's a lot of in-jokes (some in the form of poetry) and nostalgia that would only make sense to a small circle of old college/school friends. If you went to Tavistock then the review might bring back some memories, apparently Heaney has finally put his camcorder footage on DVD but I've yet to see it. At the time it was generally considered that the best column was written by a very bitter and remarkably twisted Nick McMullen. This link will get you to his last one with links from there to previous ones if you're not easily offended. As with me it may be advisable to remember that his views now may not be the same as those expressed then ... although knowing Nick as I do he's probably still as perverse as ever.

I was one very strange teenager (some things don't change I guess), as well as feeling the need to write the newsletter and website I also used to bring a dictaphone to sixth form and record mine and various other people's inane thoughts. I feel a tape listening session coming on...