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FT418

Interesting they say in the Editorial that because of rising costs there are fewer pages per issue from now on. Not too bothered if it's the advertising that's pruned, though I do hope they're still able to fund the mag!
 
Interesting they say in the Editorial that because of rising costs there are fewer pages per issue from now on. Not too bothered if it's the advertising that's pruned, though I do hope they're still able to fund the mag!
I was listening to a podcast recently where the people from Haunted Magazine explained it was no longer cost productive to produce a Hard Copy/Paper magazine. They went digital only but eventually the re-demand for printed copies led to a resurgence and they now send out paper copies to subscribers
 
well, if the advertising burden is switching to insert adverts and promotions in with the packaging with the mag, that's fine; you can chuck them away with the envelope. But "how to claim your £10 of bitcoin". I mean. Really? Who's biting?
 
And the six pages on the ethos of Russia and what it is to be Russian. That was dense but also incredibly fascinating. We need to be reminded that a people can at the same time be as European as the British or the French or the Italians - and have a very different mind-set and way of looking at the world. "Rodina'mat" and all that.
 
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I like that Nigel Kneale would have HATED being a feature in the FT!
 
For possibly very good reasons it's all about Russia this month.

An observation: the semi-mythical Prince Vladimir kept popping up, a legendary founder of Russia who has more historical solidity than King Arthur but around whom a sort of a mythos appears to be coalescing. Especially now, as the SD Tucker article points out, at a time where a strong leader called Vladimir is in charge of Russia.

Readers might be interested in knowing that in 2006, the mythologised history of Prince Vladimir became a big-budget animated film: it's actually rather good. I'm wondering if this was done with one eye on establishing the mythological underpinning of Rodinia'mat, Mother Russia, as envisaged by the current management. After all, a spectacular animation with good visuals and a strong emotionally-based story will bypass the reasoning centres of the brain and go straight to the gut. (Look at Disney).

This is the first part of the film split into episodes with English subtitling:


This is the whole thing in the original Russian:




And this is worth adding in the light of FT418. These are selected scenes from the movie, set to a nationalistic song about the need for Russia to arm itself, show its strength and vitality, and use very sharp swords to chop the living govno out of anyone presenting a threat. This song tends to crop up a lot as accompaniment to displays of Cossack sabre-skills and sword-dancing.

 
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I was listening to a podcast recently where the people from Haunted Magazine explained it was no longer cost productive to produce a Hard Copy/Paper magazine. They went digital only but eventually the re-demand for printed copies led to a resurgence and they now send out paper copies to subscribers

I think the ephemeral nature of the digital world has lead to a greater appreciation of the physical. A friend worked for a major publisher and they experienced a massive uptick in sales of ebooks and ereaders, which quickly plateaued, I don't know if it then retreated. He then moved to "apps" then "apps" were "a thing", I think that basically just lost money.

At the end of the day I think a substantial quota of passionate readers will always want physical media to read.
 
I think the ephemeral nature of the digital world has lead to a greater appreciation of the physical. A friend worked for a major publisher and they experienced a massive uptick in sales of ebooks and ereaders, which quickly plateaued, I don't know if it then retreated. He then moved to "apps" then "apps" were "a thing", I think that basically just lost money.

At the end of the day I think a substantial quota of passionate readers will always want physical media to read.
Also, it is very much harder to sell online stuff to impulse buyers. They have to already know it exists in order to download it. Whereas a physical copy in a bookshop or newsagent or even just sitting on someone's shelves can tempt a browser to purchase a copy. This is the argument against publishers who only publish ebooks and never branch into paperback. Ebooks (and magazines) are great, easy to read, quick to download and always with you. But if you don't already know about them, you will almost never find them (unless they crop up in an Amazon page as 'you liked this, so you may like this').
 
Also, it is very much harder to sell online stuff to impulse buyers. They have to already know it exists in order to download it. Whereas a physical copy in a bookshop or newsagent or even just sitting on someone's shelves can tempt a browser to purchase a copy. This is the argument against publishers who only publish ebooks and never branch into paperback. Ebooks (and magazines) are great, easy to read, quick to download and always with you. But if you don't already know about them, you will almost never find them (unless they crop up in an Amazon page as 'you liked this, so you may like this').
Or unless someone says, for example, on the Poltergeist thread, that an ebook about the Sauchie Poltergeist is available for £1.99... Speaking as someone who immediately after reading the aforementioned post, lost all self-control and immediately added a new poltergeist book to his Kindle collection...
 
The simulacrum photo on page 63 from Russell Townshend, depicting a rock formation that looks like a frog in the Peak District.

The location is given as Ramshaw Rocks. It's a higher class of simulacrum: you see it, without needing to squint, to cross your eyes or to keep studying the photo to make out what the Hell it's meant to be. There's one enormous frog emerging from the ground. It's there, straight away. It needs no wishful thinking. Straight away - frog.

That name grabs attention. Ramshaw.

""Shaw" has lots of meanings as a placename, but in this context is likely to mean "rough, wild, uncultivated place, moorland". (It can also be "thicket or coppice of trees" or "cultivated field used for vegetables" - they can't be all right at once...)

It's the "ram" part that interests. Need to look it up, but isn't something like "rama" or "rana" the Latin word for "frog"? And of course the Romans were here two millennia ago; they garrisoned and patrolled the Peak District and the Pennines, mindful that the unfought Northern tribes could be as big a menace as the Iceni. They even built a military road up here, signifying they were up there for some time. So what if they saw the frog in the rock too and gave it a name, which stuck? "The wild remote place of the Frog" or something.
 
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