Discovering Scarfolk: a wonderfully witty and subversively dark parody of life growing up in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s

Product Information

The notion that the council planned to employ a nuclear option is further supported by a minor story in a local newspaper from the time. In October 1979, seven-year-old schoolboy Nigel Johnson, mixed up his family's contribution to his school's annual harvest festival. Instead of the intended box containing four cans of oxtail soup and spaghetti hoops in tomato sauce, he took a quarter tonne of enriched uranium and other weapons-grade nuclear materials. Some observers have detected a kinship between Scarfolk and the musical genre of ‘hauntology’, as exemplified by the Ghost Box record label. It’s a link that Littler himself can understand. Indeed, he describes the unmade screenplay that he cannibalised for the blog as ‘hauntology-themed’. In his review of The Advisory Circle 's From Out Here ( 2014), musician DJ Food remarked both From Out Here and Discovering Scarfolk define "a good portion of the visual stimulus associated with the hauntological genre." [23] Scarfolk Annual [ edit ] Scarfolk Annual Country Cory Doctorow (23 April 2013). "Wyndhamesque missives from Scarfolk, an English horror-town trapped in a 1969-79 loop – Boing Boing". Boing Boing . Retrieved 14 October 2014.

Discovering Scarfolk: a wonderfully witty and subversively Discovering Scarfolk: a wonderfully witty and subversively

a b c Simon Usborne (17 April 2013). "How to wash a child's brain: Designer Richard Littler creates fictional world based on terrifying public service films – Features – Films – The Independent". The Independent . Retrieved 14 October 2014. Scarfolk designs often play with the modernist aesthetic of actual Penguin covers, like these three above. Collectors Weekly: Have people mistaken your designs for real artifacts?This Scarfolk book is brilliant. [It] makes me laugh like Peter O Toole - a sound of wheezy delight" During the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 a ghostly figure was spotted by alarmed viewers in a BBC broadcast. The spectre appeared to be sitting beside the Queen in her carriage. The apparition's identity remains unknown, though some claim it is Scarfolk resident Herbert Empire. It's not surprising to learn that author Richard Littler is a graphic designer; all the illustrations here (many of which are also featured on the blog) are beautifully executed to the very last detail. The story, though, leaves something to be desired. The silliness that made me laugh out loud at the beginning soon overstayed its welcome; the book is too focused on the graphics to allow the plot to develop into anything you'd care about or be scared by. This is reflected in the blog, which started out as just images but now includes a lot more description around them. It's obvious the popularity of the images has forced the creation of a narrative and not the other way around.

Review: ‘Discovering Scarfolk’ by Richard Littler - The Daily Review: ‘Discovering Scarfolk’ by Richard Littler - The Daily

The excessively tongue-in-cheek quality of the narrative cheapens the satire, especially given the dark nature of some of the themes, and the humour falls flat in many places.

a b c d Littler, Richard (16 October 2014). "Why the 1970s was the most terrifying decade - Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 2 November 2014. Darran Anderson (June 2014). "The Creeping Terror of Childhood". The Honest Ulsterman . Retrieved 14 October 2014. Scarfolk is a town in north-west England that did not progress beyond 1979. The entire decade of the 1970s loops ad infinitum. In Scarfolk children must not be seen OR heard, and everyone has to be in bed by 8 p.m. because they are perpetually running a slight fever..."

Discovering Scarfolk | Richard Littler

Richard Littler had a frightening childhood, too, but as a designer and screenwriter, he turned his memories of life in suburban Britain during the 1970s into a haunting and hilarious blog and book about the fictional dystopian town of Scarfolk. Littler mined the dark side of his childhood to create pamphlets, posters, book covers, album art, audio clips, and television shorts—remnants of life in a paranoid, totalitarian 1970s community, where even babies are not to be trusted. A book called Discovering Scarfolk, which tells the story of a family trapped in the town, was published in October 2014 by Ebury Press. [18] [19] It is a guide to all aspects of Scarfolk and covers the "frenzied archive of Daniel Bush, whose sons 'disappeared' in Scarfolk in 1970." [18] Littler has said that the book "attempts to guide you through the darkness by making light of the contradictions and it promises not to unnerve you. Well, not too much anyway." [3] The Advisory Circle's 'From Out Here' album". DJ Food. 15 December 2014 . Retrieved 20 February 2015. Littler: Scarfolk is more like a half memory. This means popular or stereotypical imagery from the period is ignored—there are no lava lamps, discos, or garish fashion and interior design. Scarfolk often invokes involuntary memories of long-since forgotten things, which didn’t have a life outside of the period or were taken for granted, like municipal designs, household products, TV station idents, and library music. First of all, the fictional account of the demise of the Bush family in Scarfolk don't contribute at all, I think.

Retailers:

Scientists (and advertising agency executives who planned to exploit the results) predicted the result would produce “a wide variety of positive images, including majestic British landscapes accompanied by the sounds of waves and music as beautiful as anything written by maestros such Sir Edward Elgar or Cliff Richard”. At the end of the decade, the council decided that because of a small handful of troublemakers, the whole town would have to be punished: Everyone would have to resit the 1970s. The card had proved so effective that, not only could it effortlessly beat every other card, it also killed the losing player within moments of the game ending.