NEWSLETTER: "THERE IS NO SUGGESTION THAT APPEARING IN THE B3TA NEWSLETTER IMPLIES ANY WRONGDOING"
* BRITPOP - how many bands are still touring?
* PIG-MAN - A weird game, remembered, badly
* WE LOVE HORSES - Image challenge results
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're saving the web
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | by praying for table
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| tags' souls"
B3ta newsletter 980, 2nd March 2026
Read this issue going "wow, this is late"
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue980
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK #1
Other than making sinister bumhole sculptures
* WHICH BRITPOP ACTS ARE STILL GOING? Monkeon
writes, "Like Robbie Williams, my summer of
Britpop project missed the boat and is being
released 6 months late. Do you know who is back
together or never split up? The idea is that you
can play it whenever you want a quick overview
of the current state of 90s indie pop." Fair
play to the old fuckers, doing gigs past your
prime is fun. BTW: Your editor is doing Leeds
this Weds - do come.
https://www.monkeon.co.uk/britpop-now-or-then/
* CAN YOU FIND PIG-MAN? Your editor (me),
writes, "40 years ago a friend at school told me
about a game, a game so weird and insane I've
spent 40 years thinking about it, and I've been
totally unable to track it down so instead I've
made a tribute. Please help me find the
original." Warning: this is not safe for
anywhere.
https://rob.b3ta.com/pigman/
* HOMES UNDER THE HAMMER TIME - Dave Bagpuss
says, "Let's mix up some daytime television with
some 90s hip hop." Well we laughed, whisper it,
Dave Bagpuss is getting better at video and it's
making Geocities nervous.
https://b3ta.com/links/Homes_Under_The_Hammer_Time
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: HEBTROCO SPONSORSHIP
Buy some clothes you thunderously lovely people
Clothes are a wonderful thing, they both have a
utilitarian aspect of keeping you warm and
protecting your skin, they also can make you
look really spiffing. So why not do both with
Hebtro? Buy some clothes from our sponsors, all
designed to last, made in the UK and ideal as
presents for all the awkward men in your life
who are hard to buy presents for.
https://hebtro.co/new/
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: FESSHOLE
You know, cunts' corner
Each week you continue to post bollocks into our
web form and we continue to read it. Nearly half
a million or something like that submitted now,
we've read them all, and it's broken us. Some
OK-ish ones this week include:
* MOST BRITISH MAN ALIVE - "Drank a full mug of
tea by dunking biscuits in it until it ran out.
One and a bit packs of digestives, supermarket
own brand, just as good as McVitie's. Massive
sense of achievement, don't know how I can ever
top this moment." BTW: Reading this we're just
supping down our 'biscuit flavoured tea' that
Yorkshire Tea sent us and our review? Kinda ok
actually. Works.
* "OH NO, I BLEW A DEFINATE SHAG" - "A lovely
woman came round to my studio flat and we were
talking so long her last train had gone so I
agreed she could crash at mine and gave her the
bed. Despite it being summer she complained she
was cold. So I got her a blanket. Only realised
weeks later."
* MEN, A PRIMER - "My ex-wife organised
everything in our marriage. We always joked how
she would even have to plan my affair if I had
one, didn't realise how true that would be until
nine months after the divorce she helped me set
up my Tinder profile"
Follow the account that only has followers
because people mistook it for the funny one
"ZX81 Fails" where people attempt to type in
magazine listings and the rampack wobbles. "Oh
no, what a personal disaster!"
https://bsky.app/profile/fesshole.bsky.social
Come to the shows. Leeds. Luton. Glasgow.
Cambridge. Sweden. Yeah, come, you fuckers,
you'll have a good time. There will be badges.
Leeds is this week on Weds, so do come to that,
at the Old Woollen, which is a lovely venue, so
turn up.
https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole
Buy the books. Why not? You'll be dead one day
and you don't want to be dead not having read
the some bollocks we vibed off the internet.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Your internet "punch cards" this week
* THE WEB IS OLD ENOUGH TO GET DRUNK - Take your
cursor to the HTML bar and get it hammered.
Gives us fond memories of the boozing simulator
Bozo's Night Out on the C64, which dicked around
with its controls in a similar way.
https://playhtml.fun/experiments/9/
* WIKIPEIA WHILST DRIVING - This site asks how
much time you have to waste, and will build a
Wikipedia rabbit hole with that approximate
reading time for you to waste it in. Would be a
good thing to replace any bottomless scroll with
a specified time, really. Instead of
deliberately making people addicts.
https://wikicommute.vercel.app/
* MUSIC FOR DISK DRIVES - ASMR that will
actually relax nerds instead of triggering their
(googles) misophonia. The lovely clickety sounds
of an old hard drive slowly giving up the ghost.
https://ounapuu.ee/btrfs-disk-errors-to-fall-aslee...
* HOW FAR BACK IN TIME CAN YOU UNDERSTAND
ENGLISH - interesting feature which displays
passages of text, which go increasingly back in
time to make the point that, yeah, it all falls
off the cliff in about 1400. Reminds us of
trying to understand Beowolf in the original Old
English and fucking hating it.
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back...
* PC EMULATE IN CSS - in an attempt to prove
that yes, Cascading Style Sheets ARE a
programming language, a very clever person has
used it to emulate a 8086 chip. Weirdly
fascinating and the Horsle game is cute.
https://lyra.horse/x86css
* MULTIPLAYER SNAKE IN A TERMINAL - just because
you can, definitely means you should. Next week,
build a Beowolf cluster of Stone Henges and use
it to emulate a Casio f91w.
https://snake.eieio.games
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: IMAGE CHALLENGE
Horses
We love horses, best of all the animals, we love
horses, they're our friends, and here's our
favourite three horse tributes we love best of
all:
* 'Ya what' reminds you to beware of geeks
bearing gifs
https://b3ta.com/board/11425678
* 'S4RK' reminds you that Stewart Lee isn't as
funny as this gag, as proved by science by the
professors of comedy at Channel 4
https://b3ta.com/board/11425703
* 'The Twisted Omentum' reminds everyone that
Luke is a fucking tosser * (BTW: If anyone has
got at copy of what we're on about here, the
Star Wars amiga hack with the northern voices,
make a video of it and send it in)
https://b3ta.com/board/11425750
* See all the other images from the 'Horses'
challenge:
http://b3ta.com/challenge/horses/popular
>> This week: Paul Verhoeven <<
It's director week again, and this time it's the
turn of Paul Verhoeven. Boot up PC Paintbrush
and make images of his much loved 80s and 90s
films, or go niche with a joke for 3 people
about 2021s Benedetta. Suggested by Neil
Squires.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/paulverhoeven/popular
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE MADE THIS WEEK #2
Other than making their backs hurt, ouch
* TRAIN-CEPTION - SHEEP writes, "Hi Rob - I've
made a thing with trains for newsletter
consideration. Also thank you for featuring
railannouncements.co.uk in the newsletter, it
ended up being the extra element the project
needed." Yep Sheep is correct, the audio raises
this from clever to funny.
https://youtube.com/shorts/wYa0hvF2tC4
* DAILY MAIL FUCKERY - JasonC tells us he's made
"Daily Mail, but with the top comment as the
headline" We remember similar as meme content on
socials but it's interesting to see it
automated.
https://jasoncartwright.github.io/dmch/
* ANYONE FOR ANOTHER WORD PUZZLE? - usefulcat
writes, "I've made another puzzle. In this one
you flip tiles to make words related to today's
theme. The tiles are double sided and can make
unrelated decoy words. Try to flip as few tiles
as possible." Actually quite fun but it's tricky
to launch this stuff now, as there's just so
many word puzzles, can you even remember which
ones you've played? Our recommendation would be
heavy and insane branding: Dog Shit Word
Puzzles, win a new dog shit every day.
https://puzzmallow.com/crossflip
* EGGY BUSINESS - Pig Face Turnip writes,
"Having not had much work in the last year, I've
decided to become an entrepreneur (or
eggtrepeneur - ha ha), and have set up an egg
delivery business serving my local
neighbourhood." Nice round up of what PFT has
been up to. Oh, god, and that's the next link
too, let's move the Anon Opins up a bit, to give
you a break from "eggs".
https://b3ta.com/links/How_Im_Building_An_Egg_Empi...
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: BEST ANON OPINs, FEATURING REPLIES
It's Fesshole's unpopular sister
Each week we trawl through the replies on Anon
Opin on BlueSky and fuck me a lot of very
earnest people take things too seriously.
Anyway, with enough digging we found some fun
replies.
* DICTIONARY CORNER - "The phrase 'balls deep'
inside something/someone is nonsensical as the
balls are never inserted into a vagina or anus.
The phrase should instead be 'cock deep'." Best
reply? "Tangenital." (thx Sonofrojblake)
* BLOODY HELL - "Giving blood is vital and
celebrities should be used to promote it. Once
every season, football teams should give blood,
have a cup of tea and a biscuit, and then play
their match." Best reply? "To add high stakes,
we make the losing team donate *all* their
blood." (thx bee 'hyphen' moh)
* BINFULENCE - "Nobody needs their outside bins
washing." Best reply? "Grumpy bastard at number
49 does - I got caught short on the way home
from the pub last night" (thx Rhys Olwyn)
Follow the account we just moaned that people
take at too face-value, we've made it sound
really fun haven't we?
https://bsky.app/profile/anonopin.bsky.social
Come to the "gig" in "Glasgow". No, really,
"come"
https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Follow ups on old stories, didn't they do well
* EGG BLOKE GETS INTERVIEWED - Pig Face Turnip
tells us he's had "Hard hitting reporter Cathy
Newman asking me the tough questions about my
hunt for a spherical egg." Quite a fun little
interview and worth a minute of your time even
if it is with the terrible terrible Times Radio.
https://b3ta.com/links/Cathy_Newman_Interviews_me_...
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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Some ideas to kick you off
OK mind is a blank for this bit so we'll do the
hack of picking up a book and turning to random
pages to see what inspiration strikes. The lucky
book is Revolution In The Head: The Beatles'
Records And The Sixties. Nice.
* "NO REPLY" - you play John Lennon, reading his
email, and er... not replying because he's dead.
Sorry.
* "JUNK" - you play Paul McCartney's AI spam
filter, deciding which messages should go to the
junk folder "Jane Asher, Paul is not interested
in going to another bloody play" and which go
into his important inbox "OOh, Paul will like to
know about this lovely new Nagra reel to reel
tape recorder"
* "WE CAN WORK I.T. OUT" - you play Magic Alex
looking for gainful employment after the Beatles
split and decide to offer your "electronics
expertise" to the local council and hilarity
ensues when you try to sell them a computerised
bin.
Yes, you can email your projects via the form,
many do and then become so famous that their
friends don't speak to them anymore, as they're
intimidated by the raw power of a b3ta
endorsement.
https://b3ta.com/mailus
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: PATREON THANKS
We love all these people. Almost romantically.
*HEBTROCO* *JAMES O'BRIEN* *MARK MCCREADIE* *MR
PHIL DONNELLY* *STOOBERT* *DION ASHTON* *MARK*
*24-7 DEATH* *DAVID GREEN* and *GUB~GUB*.
MARK ADAMSON, IAN SHEEN, RICHARD BARCLAY,
SPAZZCAPTAIN, CARL DENCH, MICHAEL TRINDER, MIKE
STRINGER, MICHAEL KITT, AUSTIN HOFEMAN, and
NATHANIEL TAPLEY.
BevS, Tom Dolan, Chris Carline, lee burnett,
Paul Cherry, Tom Wright, Matthew Wilkes, Kev
Adams, Rich, DoHa, Dave Nattriss, Dan Stott,
Konrad Petrusewicz, David Ault, '@mattdawhit,
Adam Lloyd, Anna, Chris Evans, d@m0, Dave
Tickle, David Catley, David Mills, 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, Martin Peache, matsimpsk, Matt Buchanan,
Matthew Collinge, Matthew Morris, Neil de
Carteret, Nick Ross, Paul Smith, peter wouda,
pookong, Ricardo Autobahn, Rich Pope, Richard
Beckett, Rob Mahon, Rob Vincent, Robbie Lesiuk,
Simon Holmes, Simon McDougall, Simon waterfall,
Stuart Ashen, 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, Simon Balch, omnipiss, Claire
Turner, James Heaver, Phil Lovell, Jon Morris
Smith, Stuart, Mellyfish, Phillip Spowart, Roy
Santos, Daniel Calvin, Rich Corcoran, John Daly,
nevillebartos, Geoff Tidey, Ian Walker, Leighton
Stevenson, Funny_Hat, Gillian Parrott, Phil
Bennett, Matt, Benjamin Blundell, Katie
Steckles, Luka Mikec, Stuart, Peter Henningsen,
Simon Howard, Kier Fox, tom yeoldeforge, C Bond,
lucas seven, mattcox303, Robert van Dijk, Gerry
Spencer, Ian Walker, Paul Martyn, Richie Hindle,
John Davies, Patrick Hudson, Harry Simpson, Paul
Pod, Tom Loosemore, DrumGui76, Mark Arnold, and
collin.
Also thanks to the 78 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, AD, AS, AR,
CN, DM, DS, HA, IS, JM, NH, PR, SM, MC, MB, AC,
CK, DG, DC, NK, CA, IB, BG, BS, CC, CZ, DH, DP,
DE, EN, GS, GF, IO, JE, JL, JB, LB, LE, LJ, MM,
MB, MF, NJ, OL, PB, PW, PB, RT, RA, RM, RS, SC,
SR, SW, TB, TH, WI, AH, CW, RP, TK, VW, BC, SE,
and BB. You are all lovely people.
And also thanks to our newest benefactors:
collin, Mark Arnold, DrumGui76, Patrick Hudson,
John Davies, Paul Pod, Tom Loosemore, Gerry
Spencer, Harry Simpson, and Paul Martyn.
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.
http://patreon.com/b3ta
EDITORIAL THANKS: Monkeon & Matt Round
additional links; Monkeon for image challenge
help; and Dr Dunno for extra support. Proofing
by Kat E. Thanks Kat. (NP Rob - Kat). Subjlol
from JimmerUK.
And remember to subscribe, and tell your friends
to subscribe.
https://b3ta.com/subscribe/
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: BONUS "REPLY" FESSHOLE
"Travelling hotel chain manager here. From my
not inconsiderable experience shagging around
the counties of England, Yorkshiremen have the
consistently biggest cocks, Hertfordshire the
smallest. Everyone else random. Yet to sample
Derbyshire or Cornwall. Yes, I keep a cock log."
Best reply? "Do you work for Traveltodge?" (thx
Simon Finbow)
