Hi everyone. Short-ish newsletter this month. Don’t worry, I’m not going to force Sabrina Carpenter on you all again.1 Although I would like to point out that writing a song called “Busy Woman”, and then including the line “My openings are super tight” is essentially as funny as it’s possible to be.2
This Month on Dirty Feed
Some fun stuff this time round, where for some reason I decided to write a fair amount about film. I mean, I presume Carry On Girls counts as a film.
“And What About the Vegetables?” - The history behind a famous Spitting Image sketch… or, at least, as far back as I could get. This is one of those pieces where one single comment giving extra information could blow the gaff WIDE OPEN.
Not in My Paper - Carry on Girls, and prop newspapers. No, I’m not turning into a parody of myself, now leave me alone.
SWTV - Carry on Girls, and prop cameras. OK, maybe I am turning into a parody of myself, now leave me alone.
Great Brain Robbery - A short piece about The Big Job, which I’m linking to mainly because I think you should all watch The Big Job. It’s one of the lesser-known Carry On-adjacent films, but loads of fun.
The eagle-eyed of you will note that I’ve been away from posting on all social media since the end of July, and right now I don’t intend to go back to it for a good while at least. This is a) extremely good for my mental health, and b) extremely bad for my stats. So if you like any of my stuff, I’d love it if you’d let others know. You don’t even have to post it publicly; a single email to a friend who might like something I’ve written would be lovely.
Not on Dirty Feed
A bumper crop this month, to make up for the slim pickins3 last time.
The Museum of the Broadcast Television Camera - How did I not know about this site before now? I could spend years here.
Shirley Chisholm: Unbought and Unbossed - Some absolutely beautiful graphic design, made for the first Black woman elected to Congress. (And a clear influence on the Harris-Walz logo.)
I Watched Footage of Jerry Lewis’s Unreleased 1972 Holocaust Film - Benjamin Charles Germain Lee, in a particularly thoughtful piece on The Day the Clown Cried. I especially liked the critiques of other holocaust films, which shows that the author has clearly thought through the full implications of their point.
Missing, Believed Swiped! (Part 1, Part 2) - Oliver Wake, on long-forgotten missing episode rumours in Doctor Who fanzines. Fanzines of all descriptions are given an incredibly short shrift online; there’s tons of fascinating Red Dwarf material in early issues of Better Than Life which never got out to a wider audience.
There’s Somefink Hidden Here - Doc Wallace, on an OUTRAGEOUS hidden message in Batfink. PROTECT YOUR KIDDIES FROM THIS OUTRAGEOUS PROPOGANDA. See also: hidden messages in Rainbow.
Adventures (1974-1982): Lost Media and Otherwise Unplayable Games - Jason Dyer, on early adventure games we know of, but can’t play. This probably won’t make much sense unless you already follow his blog avidly, but then you all do by now, don’t you?
Departure Mono - A beautiful new monospace font by Helena Zhang.
‘Trouble’ and the Mysterious Third Member of Shampoo - Bernard O’Leary with exactly the kind of story I love: tracking down information about people who don’t want to be tracked down. Erm, that sounded less creepy in my head.
A Brief History of Barbed Wire Fence Telephone Networks - Lorie Merson on that most fascinating of topics: signals being transmitted in an unusual way. I’m not kidding, there’s a book in that topic somewhere. (via Tom Scott)
On the Trail of the Lirpa Loof - Bob Fischer, about a wonderful April Fools joke I’d never heard of before. And what a brilliant set of interviews with which to tell it. I wish most of my stuff was half as good as this.
History of Wales Today Theme Tunes 1962-2024 - From Al Dupres. The one thing which could stop me listening to Sabrina Carpenter all day. 4
Cartoons About Cartoons (Part 1, Part 2) - I absolutely love Cartoon Research, which should be read avidly by anybody who cares about cartoons. This series of pieces, by Charles Gardner, is particularly great. (Though some of those long paragraphs hurt my eyes a little.)
The Web We’ve (Never) Lost - Jan Vlnas with an adaption of their talk on the current state of the web, which very kindly references something I wrote earlier in the year.
Worst to Best: Fast Friends - The Anorak Zone on the long-forgotten Les Dawson quiz. An article which you never thought you needed, but now you know YOU DID.
That was a bit of an early newsletter for this month, and conversely expect October’s to be quite late. I have a trip to LA planned, and not even I think writing about Keeping Up Appearances is as exciting as a Warner Bros studio tour. See you next time.
Seeing as I’m not going to find anywhere else to rant about this, I might as well do it here. It seems to me that certain people have literally stopped being able to interpret albums, and the interplay between songs. Take, for instance, the complaint I’ve read in more than one place, that Espresso sticks out awkwardly in Short n’ Sweet. I don’t think it does at all. It’s surely very deliberately placed after Bed Chem; you have the excitement of the sex with someone new, and then you have the vague sense of ennui once you’re used to it. “I guess so / I know…” The song gains a whole new meaning from its placing within the album.
Or how about Don’t Smile, which I’ve read certain people criticise as not being a rousing album closer, and suggesting that Lie to Girls would have been better. Quite apart from Don’t Smile’s thematic links to the album opener, Taste, Don’t Smile is surely meant to be a woozy coda to the album. Drift off to sleep, exhausted, as you’ve just lived through a few years of Sabrina’s life in half an hour.
Speaking of people being unable to interpet songs, the line “If you don't want me, I'll just deem you gay” in Busy Woman has caused mild consternation in certain places online. Consternation which completely ignores the fact that the song starts with “I'm so mature, collected and sensible / Except when I get hit with rejection…”, and continues with the theme of Sabrina being unreasonable for the rest of the song. It’s not meant to be a line to celebrate; it’s a spat out piece of bile. Just look at what the word “deem” is doing there: in this context, it’s not a wise proclamation. It’s meant to be dismissive and unpleasant.
If you’re listening to current Sabrina Carpenter material with the idea that she’s always attempting to paint herself in the best light, you are very wrong.
Oh, regarding Slim Pickins: you’ve got to love the album review of Short n’ Sweet which describes much of the songwriting as “actively bad”, and goes on to describe that song as “a bizarre anthem/admission to settling and/or leading on someone who is below your personal standards”. I’m not sure a woman settling for various men they don’t really like that much in order to have some sex is that bizarre. It happens every single minute of every single day.
Mind you, the same review also calls the album “almost unanimously hookless”, despite it containing Juno, a song which is nearly as generous with hooks as The Archies and Sugar Sugar, so what do I know?
I mean, I could go on.
STOP GETTING SABRINA CARPENTER WRONG