Introducing The Quindley-Fluff Frontiersman on Blogger

The Quindley-Fluff Frontiersman launched today as an online publication to very little fanfare. After 384 years of being a print-only publication with a consistent circulation of 4 the paper has moved into the technological age. The editor, known to the world only as ‘Fluff, The QuFFer-In-Chief’, made the following brief statement at 1am:

“After 384 years of being a print-only publication with a consistent circulation of 4, the paper has moved into the technological age. As chief charlies I and my associates have voted unanimously, by a majority of 1, that now was the time to make the move. We understand that some of our readers may be put off by this. Indeed, I still remember the violence that marred our move from a hyper-quadro-broadsheet into the more recent regular broadsheet format. The -admittedly catchy- chant “72 square feet of paper is better suited to one 6 foot by 6 foot double sided sheet than to 24 24 by 18 inch pages!” still haunts me to this day. But we shall not be held to ransom by the extreme fringe of our readership. We are prepared to accept the worst if needs be to make this essential move. We live in an age where literacy is being outsourced to Asia and people cannot readily identify the obvious aesthetic differences between the carrot and the radish and we have to change with the times. It is with this in mind that we have taken this step, this leap into the unknown, and we now throw ourselves at the callous feet of the Free Market God.”

However consumer reaction was instantaneous and laced with menace. One reader wrote on the online forum www.howtoreadilyidentifythedifferencebetweencarrotsandradishesparticularlyinstressfulcircumstances.tk:
“I will not take this lying down. Therefore I have righted myself and have adopted a more vertical posture”.

A later, less grounded person wrote:

“The main problem that I have with this decision is that I cannot read my computer in the shower!!!! I mean!”

Facebook groups were also alive with INTRIGUE. Indeed, a recently formed Facebook group called itself: “If one billion people join this group, The Quindley-Fluff Frontiersman will catch fire and everything and that and then we can all sweep the ashes into jam jars and use them for cat litter and then watch as our cats defecate on the remains of The Quindley-Fluff Frontiersman BAXTARDS!!!!! I mean!”

However there is a more positive spin to these developments. For example Lord Tebbit described the move as “Good for The Co-op and Good for Britain”. Foreign Secretary David Miliband praised the entrepreneurial spirit of the decision in a speech to the House of Commons, describing it as “…balls out furniture action”. He later used hyperbolic adverbs such as “Pluckley’s Comb”, “Shed-banger” and “Knee-Skiddy” to describe his expectations for the project- rousing language that, in the words of Tory front bencher Grant Shapps MP, left the opposition “…completely and utterly beefed”.

Despite the controversy the future looks bright for ‘The QuFF’. It is by no means the first paper to make the move from hard to digital copy as it follows in the well trodden footsteps of other notable projects such as “Pens as Darts?”, “Italian Mannerisms and how to adopt them” and “Stewart Granger- Actor or Fanzine?.” Indeed, “Pens as Darts” has seen a five-fold increase in its readership since the move in 2006. However, some attribute this exponential growth more to the increasingly pornographic nature of the magazine rather than to the change in format.

Only time will tell as to whether the move will prove to be a success or a failure. “Fluff, The QuFFer-In-Chief” is confident that the gamble will pay off: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams … glitter in the dark near Tannhauser Gate. All those … moments will be lost … in time, like tears … in the rain*……… But one thousand years from now I am confident that The QuFF will still be there, plugging away for an audience long since dead because we would all have been killed by space rats or something.” This reporter for one is convinced of the fundamental truth of those words.

Report By: “Fluff, The QuFFer-In-Chief

Additional Copyrighted Words By: Rutger Hauer

*With apologies to Warner Brothers Inc., and Rutger Hauer in particular, for the rampant plagiarism.