The 20 most popular currybetdotnet posts of yesteryear in 2008 - part 1
Over the last couple of days I've posted a list of the most popular content that I've published on the blog in the last year. That is only half the story, however, as I still get a great deal of traffic on pages that are more than a year old. Over the next couple of days I'm going to list the top twenty posts from yesteryear that have continued to draw people to visit the site.
20: Haunted Malta - July 2005
One of the further afield entries in my occasional ghost walks category, this post has become a bit of a focal point for people swapping stories about hauntings on the Mediterranean island.
19: 'Faked' Bargain Hunt the final straw - August 2007
It was the 'revelation' that some bits of Bargain Hunt did not depict true life exactly as it was that forced me to rant about press coverage of TV fakery. I thought the TV industry should consider a day where all the channels agree to show programmes that have been made with no make-up, lighting, editing etc, and then ask the public if that is actually what they prefer. And it isn't as if newspapers don't ever deceive their readers and then never admit it, is it?
18: The curse of annoying Windows XP speech bubble system alert pop-ups - June 2007
I didn't actually have an answer for the problem of Windows XP spouting continuous warning signs at me, but a few people stepped into the comments with some help on how to switch them off. Don't know if it worked, mind you, as 18 months later I still haven't got round to doing the necessary tinkering.
17: Reckless Records RIP - Part 9: Keep The Customer Satisfied - August 2007
Last year I wrote a long series about the time that I had spent in the nineties working for the London branches of second-hand record shop Reckless Records, which at the time had sadly recently closed.
This ninth part of the series looked at the shop's attitude to customer 'service', which wasn't, how shall I put it, perhaps as focussed on the user as I would now insist if I was designing a web application. It included a tale of the time I upset Mark Lamarr, and various disputes between staff and 'custies' that occurred over the years.
16: Too much Big Brother nipple for the Daily Mail - June 2007
One of the interesting editorial differences for me between the print and online editions of the Daily Mail is that online they seem to go much further with their celebrity paparazzi shots, and publish material that would never make the actual paper. The series of topless pictures of Amy Winehouse is a recent example. In June 2007 I noticed that they published topless pictures of one of the Big Brother contestants, and then changed their minds and removed them from the site.
Of course, nowadays, all of the visitors to my page come from people typing 'big brother nipple' into Google. Looking at my search logs I despair sometimes, to be honest.
15: Apple iPhone hits Greece ahead of the O2 deal in the UK - September 2007
This was a simple post after I spotted a Greek blog post about an Apple iPhone advert in Greece long before there was any official announcement that the handset was coming to the country, or indeed had reached the UK. Thanks to the search engine traffic it continues to generate, it is one of those URLs that, if I had any commercial sense, would now just be full of affiliate adverts for iPhones in Greek.
14: Haunted Walthamstow and Chingford - September 2005
I'm very pleased to see that this post continues to do well after 3 years. Most of the ghost walks that my wife and I have been on in London were taken from Richard Jones' book "Walking Haunted London". For the area where I grew up, however, I did the research to gather the stories and put the route together myself. The post has subsequently had several people add their own local ghostly stories to it - some less serious than others...
13: BBC iPlayer search plugin for Internet Explorer and Firefox, and an iPlayer Google Toolbar button - August 2007
Basically did what it said on the tin - allowed you (and still does) to search the BBC iPlayer directly from your browser or Google Toolbar.
BBC iPlayer [Add this search to your browser]
BBC iPlayer custom Google Toolbar button [Add this button to your Google Toolbar]
The version on Mycroft has subsequently been updated by someone whose only major change seemed to be to make the icon crap. No idea why.
12: It was twenty years ago today...The Beatles CD reissues from 1987 - April 2007
This post looked at the fact that Beatles fans have been rather short-changed by the poor mastering and packaging of The Beatles CDs. The original albums were issued as CDs during 1987, and although projects like the Anthology series and 'Love' have added to the available Beatles repertoire on CD, the proper studio albums have never been remastered, repackaged or revisited.
11: Reckless Records RIP - Part 8: Future Sound Of London - August 2007
Another part from my series of posts about Reckless Records that continues to deliver visitors to the site. This one looked at the time I spent working in the 26 Berwick Street flagship store, where, on my first day, I was threatened with a stabbing for not wanting to buy some skanky old soul albums. I also got to work at the location for the cover shot of the Oasis "(What's The Story) Morning Glory" album, and haggle with Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood over the price of a vintage album.
Next....
Tomorrow, normal people in the UK will be tucking into their turkey and enjoying Christmas. I, on the other hand, will be blogging about my ten most popular posts from yesteryear according to the 2008 stats.