NEWSLETTER: "B3TA NEWSLETTER 1001. THAT'S ISSUE 9 IN DECIMAL."
* TINY AWARD WINNER - not tiny wiener awards
* BEN WHEATLEY - make films, position portaloos
* PRETEND IT'S 1996 - you've just bought a scanner
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're saving the web by
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | sellotaping the good web
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| sites into a scrapbook"
B3ta loveletter 1001, 9th Oct 2026
Read this issue to your mum in a "1970s" voice:
https://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue1001
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK
Other than making snot stains in their y-fronts
* TINY AWARD WINNER - Matt Muir writes, "We have
a winner. Having counted up thousands of votes,
the Tiny Award 2026 goes to Cursor Camp by Neal
Agarwal. Now keep making fun websites so we can
have another award next year and don't have to
award it to fucking Claude." Next week, it's the
large website awards, because we're not
size-shaming HTML here.
https://tinyawards.net/2026/
* BUY BEN WHEATLEY'S GUIDE TO MAKING FILMS -
one-time b3tan Ben Wheatley has compiled "Ben
Wheatley's film & television thoughts & notes -
the book". We poked Mr Wheatley for a quote:
"Scribbly bollocks from the inside of
filmmaking; serious stuff about script writing
and horror genre and other stuff about where you
should put the portaloos when you are 50+
director." This is great and you'll end up so
inspired you'll want to make your own films. OUR
TIP: Don't listen to anything the B3ta
newsletter says about movie production as we've
never made a film. We could give you good tips
on how to make influential friends though, and
it's largely about knowing them before they were
famous.
https://rookfilms.co.uk/products/ben-wheatleys-f-t...
* BEST OF BRITISH DESIGN - Aristidis Catsambas
tells us this is "showcasing the best of British
creativity and craft, from fashion to
architecture." Probably vibe-coded but the best
of the vibe-coded submissions this week as it
actually is about something: asking you to vote
on which British design is any cop, using a
World Cup play-off format.
https://best-of-british-design.vercel.app/
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: SPONSORED SLOT - SHORT RUN DESIGN
They're back for more, hooray
Brant writes, "Just to say that the newsletter
promo has gone really well." Look at that,
buying ads in the B3ta newsletter is stupendous
value. So now on with the spiel: Short Run
Design specialise in working with small creators
who sell limited quantities of products. For
example, James Brown of Loaded magazine fame has
made a 'best of' magazine of his history. Brant
himself is selling hoodies that are designed to
be not annoying. Also, there's tinned fish. Yes,
it does all make sense. Leap in, grab some
presents and support the people who make B3ta
possible. It's time to get affordably spendy:
https://shortrundesign.com/
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: IMAGE CHALLENGE
Unlikely Endorsements
Celebrities often get thrown money to wang on
about a product. But what things would you like
to see stars shamelessly advertising? Suggested
by stephenmleigh.
https://b3ta.com/challenge/unlikelyendorsements/po...
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: FESSHOLE
Fes(s)tival of fesses in your fetid inbox
Fesshole largely exists because the B3ta
Question Of The Week died on its arse so long
ago that we can't even fully remember the
reasons why. Probably Elon Musk was to blame, as
he's to blame for most bad things, like your
joystick smelling of supermarket ham. Anyway,
some tolerable fesses this week include:
* PURPLE PAIN - "Got a bit concerned that my
piss was purple this morning. Called 111 to ask
for medical advice. They asked me to go to the
bathroom and open the cistern. Turns out my
husband added one of those toilet-cleaning pucks
in there. God bless the NHS and their infinite
wisdom."
* GIRLS ON FILM - "Whilst at uni, a few of us
lads went out dressed as Girls Aloud. I recently
found the photo and realised how healthy I
looked. I have since used this as my inspiration
to lose 3 stone. Unfortunately, I can't tell
anyone my weight loss is due to the desire to
look like Cheryl Cole."
* RAILING YOUR WIFE - "I have a model railway in
the loft. Whenever my wife annoys me, I withdraw
services to the station named after her."
Follow Fesshole on Facebook, the version of the
account where Meta refuses to show it to anyone
because it's "not original content". Their
stupid bastard AI system has noticed the same
fesses are on other sites. Yes, of course they
are. We publish them on Mastodon too. Gah.
https://www.facebook.com/fesshole/
Buy the books that readers say... actually,
let's look this up, let's find a buyer on Amazon
and see what they've said: "I felt bereft from a
lack of laughter after this book was finished,
so I bought the next one (the yellow cover).
Please keep producing them. I've never laughed
so much in my life." Who knew our mum's Amazon
account is called 'Nostalgic79'?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s
Next week, your editor emails people selling the
Fesshole books on eBay and asks them, "What the
fuck? Didn't you like it or something?"
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: READERS' LETTERS
The b3ta mailbag pulsates with your missives
* HOW TO FIND YOUR GLASSES "A GUIDE" - Potatan
writes, "I've solved the glasses conundrum by
purchasing seven identical pairs from 'the
internet' and stashing one in every room in the
house. I have to be careful to remove each pair
when I leave a room though; otherwise they all
end up in the downstairs loo. I've developed a
Pavlovian response whereby I touch my head every
time I pass through a doorway to check for specs
propped up there."
Better than our solution, which is to spend 15
minutes walking around the house checking in the
same places until Mrs B3ta gets fed up and tells
us where she last saw them.
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: SITES IN BEEF
Your guide to the non-b3tan internet
* INTERVIEW WITH JOHN "DIARRHOEA MAN" WELDON -
enjoyable clip and promo for a longer podcast
episode should you be bothered to pop that onto
your iPod by syncing it via your FireWire cable
to listen to on your commute to your dotcom job.
https://youtube.com/watch
* REALISTIC "YOU'VE JUST BOUGHT A SCANNER IN
1996" SIMULATOR - dick around with pictures in a
virtual scanner like you're Jean-Paul Goude on a
budget. Could do with the sounds, but you can't
have everything.
https://letsscan.club/scan/
* DRAWING THE KIDS IN - Walzr's taken another
data dive and tried to find trends in what kids
have been drawing over the last 20 years.
Scraping feels a bit iffy, but that's the
bot-infested modern internet for you.
https://walzr.com/kids-trends/
* WHAT TIME IS LOVE? - W****e of the week is a
simple guess-the-year game based on pop videos.
Thankfully, no attempts to be cool in their
choices, so we can have fun guessing when
Haddaway was instead.
https://yeartobeat.com/
* TRANSMIT YOUR DATA WITH BLEEP-BLEEP AUDIO -
Quirky little web app to send data via audio,
because the dev wanted a way to transfer files
between computers without the data going through
the cloud. Bleeping great.
https://vrugtehagel.nl/transmit/
* B3TA NEWSLETTER 1000 GETS A MENTION ON REDDIT
- honestly, your editor found this difficult to
read. It's deffo positive at the top, but then
we stopped reading in case we'd get annoyed by
one snotty comment that might rattle around our
head for ages.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/s/Cmqs3NzLEv
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: FOLLOW UPS
Snippets of news, what happened next etc
* KUNT AND THE GANG IS MAKING A "TV" SHOW - we
had a lovely long chat with the dreadfully
clever Kunt on the telephone the other day. He
told us all about his latest project to make a
parody TV show called "Murder On Thames". He's
filling in a few details on social too, where
you can find out more. We love the man and we're
not afraid to say it.
https://bsky.app/profile/kuntandthegang.bsky.socia...
* BUY CHRIS BARKER'S CALENDAR FOR 2027 - the
Barker barks, "Lost Films is BACK! (Even though
it never really went away) with a calendar for
2027 featuring ALL-NEW posters. If you want to
see it happen there's a notify button on the
site and literally when this baby hits 88 you're
going to see some serious shit."
https://lostfilmsbook.store
* MORE CALENDAR STUFF - Captain Howdy writes,
"Thank you for including my calendar in the
newsletter. I have now sold a grand total of
12." This is an improvement on last year's four,
so if you continue at this growth rate of
tripling every year, by newsletter 2000, you'll
sell 1,129,718,145,924 calendars. Hooray.
https://www.lulu.com/shop/captain-howdy/cover-stor...
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: BEST OF ANON OPIN
If you like opinions, we've got a surplus
Asking people for opinions is easy; bothering to
read every single one sent in and only
publishing the ones that make us hate ourselves
is the tough bit. Still, here are a few where
the replies were moderately entertaining this
week:
* MEN - "You can't outsource parenting and
general adulthood to your wife and expect her to
find you a sexy man." Best reply? "I'm capable
of finding a sexy man myself." (thx Alex)
* FOUL - "The best poultry I've eaten was a
peacock. It had a flavour and texture that
chicken and turkey farmers could only dream of.
We really ought to industrialise peacock
production so more people can eat this wonderful
bird." Best reply? "Ok, Henry IV" (thx
numberses)
* CODE - "Vibe coding replaces the interesting
bit - writing code to solve a problem - and
replaces it with the boring bit - reviewing
someone else's code to see if they've done it
right. It's a shit swap." Best reply? "To the
tune of Jive Talkin': Vibe codin', You code with
AI, Vibe codin', Your CV's a lie." (thx John
Appleton)
Follow the Anon Opin account on Mastodon,
because those poor ZX81-coding furries get
lonely.
https://mastodon.social/@anon_opin
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Some ideas, do NOT use them as AI prompts
* REALISTIC NOVEL WRITING SIMULATOR - Day 51:
Sat at my desk and played Windows Solitaire all
day and went to bed hating myself. Day 52: Sat
at my desk and played Windows Solitaire all day
and went to bed hating myself. Day 53: Sat at my
desk and imagined stuff and wrote it down. Best
crack on. Day 54: Sat at my desk and played
Win...
* THE SITCOM WE NEED TO SEE - INTERIOR. EVENING.
A COUPLE SIT IN A THREADBARE FRONT ROOM. BOTTLES
ARE EVERYWHERE, ASHTRAYS OVERFLOW. THERE ARE
RECORDS OVER THE FLOOR AND ACOUSTIC GUITARS
PLACED CASUALLY AROUND WITHOUT CARE.
Beverley Martyn: *sigh*
John Martyn: *farts*
Beverley Martyn: Oh God, did you have to? That's
rank
John Martyn: *looks smug*
Beverley Martyn: I can actually taste it.
*beat*
John Martyn: That's solid air that is
* THE MUSEUM OF ALAN SUGAR'S POSTS - we just
checked in on the Amsphone head honcho and his
posts are getting increasingly bleak. Tweet
after tweet of replies to engagement slop
accounts like "how many eggs are in this photo?"
then videos of him using his robot lawnmower and
robot tennis-ball server. It's a picture of
old-age loneliness and we think if you walked
through an exhibit of it all, you'd phone your
dad and go, "OK, I know we disagree about Brexit
and immigration, but it's better to keep the
lines of communication open than this."
Your email could be just the start of becoming
newsletter-famous like your b3tan heroes: "Dog
Hammers" and "Lord Nonce-Burger".
https://b3ta.com/mailus
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: PATREON THANKS
We love all these people. Almost romantically.
*STOOBERT* *JAMES O'BRIEN* *MARK MCCREADIE*
*DION ASHTON* *MARK* *24-7 DEATH* *DAVID GREEN*
*MICHAEL KITT* and *GUB~GUB*.
MARK ADAMSON, IAN SHEEN, RICHARD BARCLAY,
SPAZZCAPTAIN, MICHAEL TRINDER, MIKE STRINGER,
AUSTIN HOFEMAN, and NATHANIEL TAPLEY.
Tom Dolan, Kate, Chris Carline, lee burnett,
Paul Cherry, Matthew Wilkes, Kev Adams, Tom
Wright, DoHa, Rich, Dave Nattriss, Dan Stott,
Konrad Petrusewicz, David Ault, mattdawhit, Adam
Lloyd, ALFsplaining, Anna, Ashens, Chris Evans,
d_m0, Dave Tickle, David Catley, Derek Law, Emma
Lay, Eric von Borstel, Gia Milinovich, Greg
Neilson, Iain Brassington, Iain Ruxton, Ivan
Kelly, James Donnelly, Jason Stewart, Jim
Frayling, Jim MacArthur, Jude Evans, Kate
Devlin, Lumphammer, Martin Peache, matsimpsk,
Matthew Collinge, Matthew Morris, Nick Ross,
Paul Smith, peter wouda, pookong, Rich Pope,
Richard Beckett, Rob Mahon, Rob Vincent, Robbie
Lesiuk, Simon Holmes, Simon waterfall, the wub,
Tim Jokl, Tom Ryan, Wil Hadden, Byron Geoffrey
Farrow, Chef Twat, Craig Turner, fourstar71,
Jonty Wareing, Stevey Garland, Helen Gaskell,
Ben Ward, Andy Tillett, Stafford Lawrence,
omnipiss, This London Midlife, Claire Turner,
Phil Lovell, Jon Morris Smith, Stuart,
Mellyfish, Roy Santos, Phillip Spowart, Daniel
Calvin, Rich Corcoran, John Daly, Geoff Tidey,
nevillebartos, Ian Walker, Leighton Stevenson,
Funny_Hat, Gillian, Phil Bennett, Matt, Oni,
Katie Steckles, Simon Howard, Luka Mikec,
Stuart, Kier Fox, Peter Henningsen, tom
yeoldeforge, C Bond, Harri Bionic, mattcox303,
Gerry Spencer, Patrick Hudson, Robert van Dijk,
Richie Hindle, Ian Walker, Paul Martyn, John
Davies, Mark Arnold, Harry Simpson, Paul Pod,
Tom Loosemore, da.vidjam.es, Zoe
Trinder-Widdess, Jonathan Ellinsfield, James
Stratton, Chris Wicks, and Leonie M Smith's
Freewheeling World of Turquoise Floyd.
Also thanks to the 75 lovely people who didn't
opt to be thanked by name: NM, BB, JB, GT, SR,
JF, CW, LA, CJ, ES, MC, SF, JB, CO, MC, AD, AS,
AR, CN, DM, DS, HA, IS, JM, NH, PR, SM, MB, CK,
AC, DG, DC, NK, CA, IB, BS, CC, CS, CZ, DP, DE,
EN, GS, GF, IO, JL, JB, LB, LE, LJ, MM, MB, MF,
NJ, OL, PB, PW, PB, RC, RA, RM, SC, SR, SW, TB,
TH, WI, AH, CW, RP, TK, VW, BC, SE, and BB. You
are all legends.
And also thanks to our newest benefactors: Chris
Wicks, Leonie M Smith's Freewheeling World of
Turquoise Floyd, James Stratton, Jonathan
Ellinsfield, Zoe Trinder-Widdess, da.vidjam.es,
Mark Arnold, Patrick Hudson, John Davies, and
Paul Pod.
YOUR NAME COULD BE HERE - Remember you TOO can
contribute to the Patreon; it means your editor
can afford to write this newsletter thing as it
takes time and effort.
https://patreon.com/b3ta
EDITORIAL THANKS: Monkeon & Matt Round for
additional links; Monkeon for image challenge
help; and Dr Dunno for extra support.
And remember to subscribe, and tell your friends
to subscribe. And especially tell your mum.
https://b3ta.com/subscribe/
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: BONUS "WINDING UP ECONOMISTS" FESSHOLE
"My brother's an economist and it's truly
embarrassing to be in a group with him when he
introduces himself as a scientist. There are
aspects of science in economics but it's pretty
weak stuff, almost homeopathic." Best reply? "It
might be spelt homeopathy, but in economics they
pronounce it 'trickle-down'" (thx Gibby)
