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Giving Up On FT

Every few years I feel like FT is becoming boring but then there will be a run of issues that I love and I'm hooked again.
I never read Classic Corner or the priest's movie reviews or articles about long beards or "hyperpedestrians" etc and I agree the overall tone is getting too skeptical but....
I still enjoy the majority of the articles.
Besides, my mum buys me a gift subscription!
 
BTW, did ANYONE read that article about the long beards? I imagine people looking for articles on UFOs, ghosts, conspiracies, OOParts etc finding that and wondering what the hell was going on.
Sometimes FT amazes me but not in a good way.
 
I read it!

There's always one. ;)

Ah-hah! But....do you HAVE a beard? I notice that people with beards seem to think they're the best things ever. Like a guitar player on Youtube calling his channel "Riffs, beards and gear" for example.
I suspect men with beards would enjoy reading an article about beards much more than someone who's clean shaven.
:fetish:
 
I suspect men with beards would enjoy reading an article about beards much more than someone who's clean shaven.

and also the lovers of men with beards! :p
 
I guess you have to have experienced a beard to understand the mindset of someone who would grow one that ridiculously long. Mine is short and trimmed and it's enough effort to keep that clean and tidy - imagine one metres long....
 
I just found Fortean Times on instagram - is that the official page? Digital downloads of mags & a great looking mug!

Looks like the FT has been hashtagged over 1,000 times - there's an interest in this sort of thing for sure (whispers about ghosts and the like rush around my office from us girls, none of whom you would think are fortean but everyone seems to be interested in a closet sort of way i find!)
 
was that the guy who was mentioned on the Facebook FT group earlier this year, Stu?
 
I do remember something about there being a fake ft Instagram page
 
In the thread known only as Evidence Proving the Validity of Astrology, Indrid Drood made the following observation:

If a person were sufficiently intrigued by the phenomenon to have the motivation to explore it in greater depth than is expressed in the words, "Oh, that's interesting; I wonder what it's all about!" (in my experience this generally only comes about through having personal contact with someone who makes some very precise statements about events in one's life via the birthchart, leading one to wonder, "How the hell could s/he know that!"), and they had a scholarly approach, they would of course first perform an exhaustive search of the literature, and discover that all the kinds of studies proposed in this thread have already been done. To ask for evidence of the validity of astrology in a forum such as this, however, while remaining ignorant of (and seemingly disinterested in) all that prior research and discussion, shows a lack of seriousness that cannot be productive of anything except confirming one in the correctness of one's belief (in the invalidity of astrology).

Of course, given the difficulty in tracking down a lot of these research materials (many only in specialist journals that are, obviously, not held in academic library collections), one would have to be highly motivated – and probably on the spectrum like you and I – to even come to learn of their existence. I would even argue that unless you are such an atypical case, ready to go to the ends of the earth to get to the bottom of it, and willing to suffer mockery, ridicule, and ostracisation in that single-minded pursuit, then it is much better indeed to just write it off as a load of rubbish (while perhaps maintaining in online forums that one is "open to looking at the evidence" and then taking it from there...).

My point in participating in this thread was not to advance arguments in favour of astrology, but simply to point out that the obvious historically-unaware, "hard science" approach would yield nothing of value (apart from supporting the prejudicial beliefs of those already convinced that it's all a load of rubbish).

For the record, my own association with astrology has been almost entirely historical for over a decade, and I have no urge to convince anyone of its "truth-fiction" (unlike some devout materialists, here and everywhere, who – plainly or otherwise – are all too eager to point out at every opportunity that hard science = unhyphenated truth, and things like astrology = unhyphenated fiction).

I just wanted to quote this bit, because I think this explanation does a good bit towards what I feel is lost in the more skeptical bent of the current Fortean Times magazine.
 
This is from David Sutton via stu neville, May 12, this forum:

"It has come to our attention that someone is running a fake Fortean Times Instagram account, and has been doing so for some time. We would like to make it quite clear to readers that while the account may look genuine, it is not administered by us or by our publisher. We have no idea why someone would pretend to be Fortean Times, but if you're reading this, then we would politely ask you to stop before it becomes matter for Dennis Publishing's legal team. We'd also suggest that any of the 500 or so people following the 'fake FT might want to stop doing so, just in case there is something more nefarious than impersonation and infringement going on. "
 
This is from David Sutton via stu neville, May 12, this forum:

"It has come to our attention that someone is running a fake Fortean Times Instagram account, and has been doing so for some time. We would like to make it quite clear to readers that while the account may look genuine, it is not administered by us or by our publisher. We have no idea why someone would pretend to be Fortean Times, but if you're reading this, then we would politely ask you to stop before it becomes matter for Dennis Publishing's legal team. We'd also suggest that any of the 500 or so people following the 'fake FT might want to stop doing so, just in case there is something more nefarious than impersonation and infringement going on. "
Correct - but there are more than one. Still waiting on conformation that they're all fake (I suspect they are.)
 
The one i've followed seems to tag one of the writers i think (P Laws?) so i'm hopeful it's real, it's quite good as well, will be a shame if it's fake
 
Val Stevenson has stepped down as Reviews Editor, the end of an era. David Barrett has taken over the post.
 
I'm actually writing the FTMB story, albeit a year late.. had a lot on...
Has there been any progress on this? I envision an MGM musical review for The FTMB Story... singing and dancing everywhere... laughter and tears... two fisted action... love flourishes... family feuds...
 
I was recently given a re-subscription to FT due to being reasonably well-off and my wife not having an idea what I wanted as a present. We'd had money issues and FT was cut with no sense of loss a few years ago. So I'm back again - I'm 3 or 4 issues in.

I'm still very angry with the magazine ditching the forums. This sort of cost-cutting was shocking.

The magazine? I actually cannot see it surviving in the next 10 years as it has completely failed to move with the times via the internet.

The content, at least half of it is outdated when you get. Strange Days was one of my favorite parts of the magazine but it's obsolete. The articles are ok. I think the reviews need a better editor too - it's just not right since I've started reading it again.

From being a "must-have" for 20 years or more of my life it's now 5 out of 10.

There have been major cultural changes and the rise of Skepticism and my own sad realization that stuff which was strange and Fortean is actually explainable has led to this.
 
I was recently given a re-subscription to FT due to being reasonably well-off and my wife not having an idea what I wanted as a present. We'd had money issues and FT was cut with no sense of loss a few years ago. So I'm back again - I'm 3 or 4 issues in.

I'm still very angry with the magazine ditching the forums. This sort of cost-cutting was shocking.

The magazine? I actually cannot see it surviving in the next 10 years as it has completely failed to move with the times via the internet.

The content, at least half of it is outdated when you get. Strange Days was one of my favorite parts of the magazine but it's obsolete. The articles are ok. I think the reviews need a better editor too - it's just not right since I've started reading it again.

From being a "must-have" for 20 years or more of my life it's now 5 out of 10.

There have been major cultural changes and the rise of Skepticism and my own sad realization that stuff which was strange and Fortean is actually explainable has led to this.
The publisher ditched the forum not the magazine.

What don’t you like about the reviews? It is a new reviews editor since you last read it.
 
The publisher ditched the forum not the magazine.

What don’t you like about the reviews? It is a new reviews editor since you last read it.

The reviews are just a bit meandering and a bit dull. Yes, I get that the publisher did that and commented about it at the time.

Also, we can keep a thread going about Kayne West running for president but we lock a thread asking about federal involvement in certain cities in the US? A thread that involved no politics and was asking for clarification as I'm not a US citizen?

Yeah threads about crazy blacks guys are ok but threads asking about WTF is going on when mayors get tear-gassed are locked?
 
The reviews are just a bit meandering and a bit dull. Yes, I get that the publisher did that and commented about it at the time.

Also, we can keep a thread going about Kayne West running for president but we lock a thread asking about federal involvement in certain cities in the US? A thread that involved no politics and was asking for clarification as I'm not a US citizen?

Yeah threads about crazy blacks guys are ok but threads asking about WTF is going on when mayors get tear-gassed are locked?
If the reviews are meandering and dull then that is down to the writers, most of home are the same as the previous reviews editors writers.

You literally said
I'm still very angry with the magazine ditching the forums. This sort of cost-cutting was shocking.
If you have issue with something on the board please use the PM function.
 
If the reviews are meandering and dull then that is down to the writers, most of home are the same as the previous reviews editors writers.

You literally said

If you have issue with something on the board please use the PM function.
??
 
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