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...
Showing posts with label Gazzetta Della Grog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gazzetta Della Grog. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Laments on Gazzetta Della Grog - Part 1
If any of you might think I'm still a little immature I'd like to offer the below link as proof that I am improving, slowly.
http://www.geocities.com/gazzetta_della_grog/
I'll give you some pointers as to what is especially worth a butchers in the second part but for now let me give you a brief history of how Gazzetta Della Grog came about ... and you can humour me by nodding and going “yeah, yeah ... oh really? ... how interesting ... fancy that” and suchlike.
So it's 1997 and Tony Blair is still ace, in fact he's still got that Obama-esq 'anything is possible' glow about him, but some teenagers in Staffordshire are thinking, “this is all fine and dandy but where can I read some badly worded made-up gossip about my teachers and libel my fellow pupils?” Meanwhile I, Greg Sammons, was going through a phase where my friends would insist on giving me a different nickname each week – many of them had the same root, Grog. Being a bit weird I decided that I'd waste my parents inkjet cartridges and create a newsletter for my mates using Microsoft Publisher 95. Being even weirder I decided it paraphrase the name of an Italian football rag and call it Gazzetta Della Grog.
It snowballed. For every one copy I sold to my mate for less than it cost in ink to print another 5 or 6 people would read it on the school bus or between lessons. Even some of my teachers read our efforts and a number of my mates became regular contributors.
However one fateful evening I was typing up the latest issue and my mum decided to lean over my shoulder and read the handiwork. She wasn't particularly impressed that I'd once again ripped into the school scapegoat, an unfortunate 'friend' of mine called Matthew Pickford, and in the next sentence cast aspersions over a number of my teachers. Being a crazy mad woman (when you start to realise how bizarre my mum is you start to better understand how I turned out as I did) she grassed me up to my head of year.
The next day three friends and I were escorted into the head of year's office and asked to explain what we'd been up to. After a passionate missive on the right to free speech the poor teacher had no idea what to do with me ... other than hate the fact that a pesky thirteen-year-old had beaten him in a debate. Hence why later that day we're called into the Head Teacher's office. He makes up some gubbins about copyright, libel and various other things that were designed to scare and confuse four cheeky youths, with the bottom line being that we can't continue to let copies appear on school grounds.
And with that a silly little newsletter died and a legend was born.
http://www.geocities.com/gazzetta_della_grog/
I'll give you some pointers as to what is especially worth a butchers in the second part but for now let me give you a brief history of how Gazzetta Della Grog came about ... and you can humour me by nodding and going “yeah, yeah ... oh really? ... how interesting ... fancy that” and suchlike.
So it's 1997 and Tony Blair is still ace, in fact he's still got that Obama-esq 'anything is possible' glow about him, but some teenagers in Staffordshire are thinking, “this is all fine and dandy but where can I read some badly worded made-up gossip about my teachers and libel my fellow pupils?” Meanwhile I, Greg Sammons, was going through a phase where my friends would insist on giving me a different nickname each week – many of them had the same root, Grog. Being a bit weird I decided that I'd waste my parents inkjet cartridges and create a newsletter for my mates using Microsoft Publisher 95. Being even weirder I decided it paraphrase the name of an Italian football rag and call it Gazzetta Della Grog.
It snowballed. For every one copy I sold to my mate for less than it cost in ink to print another 5 or 6 people would read it on the school bus or between lessons. Even some of my teachers read our efforts and a number of my mates became regular contributors.
However one fateful evening I was typing up the latest issue and my mum decided to lean over my shoulder and read the handiwork. She wasn't particularly impressed that I'd once again ripped into the school scapegoat, an unfortunate 'friend' of mine called Matthew Pickford, and in the next sentence cast aspersions over a number of my teachers. Being a crazy mad woman (when you start to realise how bizarre my mum is you start to better understand how I turned out as I did) she grassed me up to my head of year.
The next day three friends and I were escorted into the head of year's office and asked to explain what we'd been up to. After a passionate missive on the right to free speech the poor teacher had no idea what to do with me ... other than hate the fact that a pesky thirteen-year-old had beaten him in a debate. Hence why later that day we're called into the Head Teacher's office. He makes up some gubbins about copyright, libel and various other things that were designed to scare and confuse four cheeky youths, with the bottom line being that we can't continue to let copies appear on school grounds.
And with that a silly little newsletter died and a legend was born.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
