u/PlzHalppMeh

Up until a couple months ago, I only knew two Motorhead songs: Ace of Spaces and The Game. I liked both and thought I’d try and get into the band. So I listened to every album multiple times – probably 6-12 times each – to get to grips with the band.

I thought I’d share my thoughts on each album so I’ve ranked them all and lift a mini-review for each. I’d like to hear what people think: what you agree with, what you disagree with, etc.

 

22. Hammered (2002)

Unfortunately, I think this is just a really mediocre album. It’s just kind of plodding and dull without any real song that stands out for me. There’s no real purpose or vision or even a gimmick behind it – it’s just one generic mid-tempo boring song after another. I couldn’t hum one bar or sing one line of lyric from it to you. Actually, I could sing the chorus to Brave New World because it’s just the title repeated over and over.  I’ve got nothing nice to say about the record so I’ll move on.

 

21. Bad Magic (2015)

I feel bad in a way for ranking so low Lemmy’s last album but I just don’t think this record has many high points. It doesn’t have low points either, exactly – it just sort of progresses without either offending or delighting. There’s no song here I really wanted to come back to or even really part of a song I wanted to return to. A lot of these later albums feel like they’ve just been made for the sake of making an album as opposed to having something specific to express or communicate. I don’t hate it but ultimately that’s because it’s not interesting enough to hate – it plays it safe and consequently it’s just okay.

 

20. Motörizer (2008)

For me, this album is just ‘Kiss of Death’ mk.ii, so my thoughts on that album below apply here. I just feel it’s similar but even more generic. The songwriting feels a bit lazy in places – ‘Rock out… with your cock out…’ isn’t exactly Milton.  I like the chorus to English Rose but in general there’s very little about this album I find memorable. I can listen to it and not be unhappy but nothing of it remains with me afterwards. Totally forgettable.

 

19. Aftershock (2013)

An album where I like the style more than the actual content. The bluesy vibe on Lost Woman Blues and Dust and Glass hearkens back to their early days, which is welcome. Do You Believe has a decent chorus and I think Keep Your Powder dry is a good line. It’s just a little generic as an album and doesn’t really stand out in any positive way from the albums surrounding it. Fine but nothing special.

 

18. Sacrifice (1995)

This is the first album where Motorhead go ‘full metal’ after experimenting with it on Bastards. It’s pretty heavy but – full disclosure – I’m not a big fan of heavy. I think the change in style helps shake up a sound that had become stale but it’s only really a mask for what is fundamentally a fall-off in songwriting quality. Ironically, I think the non-metal songs are the better songs on it: Sex and Death, which is a punk song, and Don’t Waste Your Time, which is rock n roll. I don’t think this is a bad album, it’s just lacking the standout songs other albums boast.

 

17. Snake Bite Love (1998)

Despite marking a welcome return to a more old-school style, this album is pretty inconsistent in terms of quality. There’s parts of the album I really like. Love for Sale’s a decent song if a little overlong, I like the backing vocals on Dogs of War, and I think Snake Bite Love has an old-school amorous vibe to it that they lost somewhere along the way. Dead and Gone also strikes the chord they’re going for I think and is probably the best song on the album. In other places, I feel it’s a little weak. Take the Blame, Night Side, and Joy of Labour aren’t going to make many top ten lists. It’s just very mediocre in too many places despite some good songs here and there.

 

16. Motorhead (1977)

It’s a pretty raw record and the Motorhead style is still clearly developing at this stage. At points it’s not quite there yet. Vibrator sounds like a Buzzcocks song, it’s not quite there, and Lost Johnny is still too 70s metal, very by the numbers and lyrically high fallutin. Also, I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this, but The Watcher appears to be a rip-off of Leavin’ Here. But Motorhead the song is good and I love the chorus to Iron Horse. You can hear the roots to Overkill in places like that and so it’s a good album for me, but more in terms of what it promises than what it delivers.

 

15. Kiss of Death (2006)

This was an album I wanted to like more than I did. I think the rock n roll style across is really good but like some other albums around this point in the list, there just isn’t enough standout tracks. I really like Christine – I think that’s probably my favourite song off it. God Was Never is apparently a popular track from it but by this point we’ve had like a hundred ‘God Not Real’ songs from Motorhead and I feel like the theme is pretty much played out by this point. Obviously after 30 years you’re going to end up regurgitating the same stuff but they’re regurgitated it better than they do across this album. It’s fine – perfectly listenable – but a bit bleh.

 

14. The Wörld Is Yours (2010)

It’s probably clear by now that I don’t think they’re last few albums are the most inspired things they ever wrote. But I think this one has a little bit more about it than the rest. ‘Get Back in Line’ is a good line itself and I think Brotherhood of Man is fun as a grim, cynical kind of look at humanity. Outlaw has a good chorus as well – a lot of these songs have good elements but it’s not sustained across the whole track. It stuck with me a little more than the other albums released around this time, which I guess is something.

 

13. March ör Die (1992)

Much like 1916, I classify this album as a bit of an unfortunate detour, at least in places. You can kind of split it across Motorhead songs and ‘Ozzy’ songs – I Ain’t No Nice Guy is a bit contrived but I have to admit it’s not a terrible song. Hellraiser is the best song on the album but it isn’t a Motorhead song for me. Elsewhere, the quality of the songs shows why they made this shift. The actual Motorhead style songs are totally uninspired and basically not worth the mention. March or Die is the most original and best of the lot but it’s a bit of an ordeal – you wouldn’t want to stick it on in the shower. This isn’t an album I can see myself returning to in its entirety.

 

12. 1916 (1991)

I know a lot of people like this album but I’m not a big fan. I think, like a lot of ‘metal’ bands (I know, I know), they realised they needed a new direction by the 90s, but this wasn’t it for me. Where they write ‘Motorhead’ songs, it’s okay – I’m So Bad and Make My Day are decent enough album tracks. Ramones is a fun detour and No Voices is good for a later Motorhead style song. But Love Me Forever is a clear attempt to write a radio-friendly single that I think just sucks. I hate this style of song. I also don’t like the experimental stuff: Nightmare/The Dreamtime is just a miss for me, I don’t actually care for 1916 as a song. I think it’s just grammy bait – as a spoken-word piece, I don’t think it’s particularly original or even all that poignant. It’s been done and done better. Overall, a bit of a swing and miss, but not ‘bad’ as an album.

 

11. Bastards (1993)

I think what’s interesting about this album is the lean towards metal. After teasing a more commercial sound, this is a lot harder record than the couple that preceded it. You can see this especially on Burner and Death or Glory, though they’re still experimenting on songs like We Bring the Shake. For me though, the quality of writing is just ‘okay’. It’s a reinvigorated Motorhead but I’m not sure it’s a substantially better Motorhead. There’s not a lot of standouts on the album for me. Born to Raise Hell is the obvious single and the best song on the album. Don’t Let Daddy is a powerful song but it’s a bit grim, I wouldn’t really want to listen to it that often. It’s an okay album – don’t love it, don’t hate it.

 

10. Inferno (2004)

This is another late-career album with unexpected energy. After the lacklustre Hammered, it seems as though they recovered a bit of impetus with this and it’s got some interesting songs across it. Killers, Life’s a Bitch, and Fight are just album tracks but they’re not generic or boring – this makes it a really easy listen from start to finish. What it’s lacking for me is standout songs. In the Name of Tragedy I think was the single but it’s a little boring I think. Whorehouse Blues is just not for me – I want a bluesy song, but not an actual blues song. In the Year of the Wolf is my favourite track on the album – it’s just a fucking cool song. I don’t love this album but it’s definitely not a chore to listen to.

 

9, We Are Motörhead (2000)

One of the more energetic albums from their later career and I think one of the better. Slow Dance, Stay Out of Jail, and Stagefreight are pretty good tracks, even if they’re not among their best. The title track is the best song on the album in my view and I like the sort of restatement of what Motorhead are about – this is what they do and they’re not shifting from it. I’m not sold on their Sex Pistols cover, which is too close to the original to be interesting, and I think they could have done with another single-quality song. But it’s really good for a band that’s been doing near enough 25 years.

 

8. Rock 'n' Roll (1987)

I think this is easily the weakest of Motorhead’s 80s albums. It’s not bad but the style feels played out by now and it feels as though they’re a bit creatively bereft by this point. Rock n Roll is a good song itself, if a bit simplistic, and I think Eat the Rich and Stone Deaf are okay (minus Michael Palin). Boogeyman has a cool chorus but in general I think the songs are just a bit generic and focused around their titular concept – it’s like they came up with the title and then wrote lyrics around it. I don’t hate it but I’m not a huge fan of it.

 

7. Iron Fist (1982)

To me, this is one of the weaker of the earlier records but still a good album. I think the production lets it down – it feels a bit tinny – and I think they actually rush some of the songs. There’s a certain value in slowing things down and letting the character become a bit more bluesy. It seems like from this point, they become attracted to a certain pace of song that they don’t like to diverge from, and this can leave their songs feeling quite samey. It’s still got some good songs: Iron Fist, Go to Hell, and Speedfreak are my favourites off it. It’s definitely listenable start to finish.

 

6. Orgasmatron (1986)

This album marks the end of a crazy run of great albums for me. I like that they threw in some slower, marching paced ones such as Deaf Forever and Orgamastron, which helps break up the album. They contrast really well with Claw and Riding with the Driver, which are just pacey as fuck and 80s-era Motorhead tracks. I also really like the cheesy Doctor Rock – I think a lot of these more gimmicky songs often fall flat, but I just liked this one. I wouldn’t say this is a ‘special’ or particularly interesting album like some of those ranked above it, but it’s solid all the same.

 

5. Overnight Sensation (1996)

This I think is the last high-quality album Motorhead put out. The album tracks return to Motorhead’s classic style and the songwriting is really strong across them: Civil War, Crazy Like a Fox, Eat the Gun, Murder Show, and Love Can’t Buy You Money aren’t particularly unique or original songs, but they’re just bangers. I Don’t Believe a Word has this plodding, discordant feel to it – it’s a really solid song and hits the mark more so than similar songs they’d tried in the years leading up to this. I’m not sure it has a clear ‘single’ on it but the average quality across it is so high that I don’t care.

 

4. Another Perfect Day (1983)

This is such a unique album for Motorhead. I didn’t know how to take it at first but I really like it now. In a sense, they’re just getting in on the FX bandwagon, but it’s also one of the last hurrahs for album-wide experimentation. They go off the beaten track of individual songs from this point, but the albums seem to revert to the same base sound largely speaking. The melodic parts on Dancing on Your Grave and I Got Mine are really interesting and among the songs I wanted to relisten to most. One Track Mind is just a fucking badass song and I also love the climbing bit on Shine, which is a good all-round song. This is a really good album all told.

 

3. Bomber (1979)

I think this is the record where Motorhead really begin to sound like ‘Motorhead’. I’ve heard people say it’s a bit rushed but I still think it’s a great album. Dead Men, Stone Dead, Poison, and All the Aces are exactly what you want from Motorhead, and I think the title track’s chorus is awesome. Even slower stuff like Sweet Revenge and Step Down I think have a cool, relaxed vibe to them that they didn’t keep beyond the early years. It’s a great record.

 

2. Ace of Spades (1980)

This is obviously a class album. Beyond the title track, which is iconic enough, and one of their best songs, hands down, there’s so many good tunes –Reptile, Crew, The Chase, and Fast and Loose are among the coolest songs they’ve done. It’s a lusty record, which I think is missing across a lot of contemporary rock n roll – it’s not trying to be cerebral or conceptual, it’s hedonistic and unabashed about it. The Hammer’s got one of the best closes to any album they have as well. It’s superb.

 

1. Overkill (1979)

This is the closest Motorhead have to a perfect album. It has a really unique ‘live’ feel to it that elevates every song beyond what it is. There’s that bluesy influence as well, which help its slower songs sustain attention. The songs are just great as well and radiate cool: Stay Clean, Capricorn, Metropolis, the end of Limb from Limb… so good, man. I don’t think they ever came close to topping it.

I thought it'd be interesting to have a look at the least streamed Maiden song from every studio album. I bet there's some surprises as compared with what people enjoy across this Reddit.

First one up is from the self-titled album: Charlotte the Harlot.

This is by far the least-streamed song from the record, having almost half the streams of the next lowest (Strange World), almost a quarter of the second-most streamed (Running Free), and an eighth of the most streamed (PotO).

Track	Spotify Streams
Prowler	31,306,712
Remember Tomorrow	12,578,962
Running Free	32,112,169
Phantom of the Opera	66,191,346
Transylvania	23,191,803
Strange World	16,142,376
Charlotte the Harlot	8,248,758
Iron Maiden	27,573,349

I'm actually kind of surprised by how low it is. I think the lyrics are a little cringey but I probably prefer it to Strange World and maybe a couple others. What do you think - hard done by or about right?

I'm just getting into Springsteen for the first time and I can't help but notice that the E Street Band is really prominent on the Wild as compared with other records.

Obviously they play instruments on all the records, but what I mean is that they're really prominent as a 'character' on the record. Every 30 seconds, there is some kind of interjection from 'the band' - a tuba, a single backing vocal, banter, crowd noises, random clapping, etc.

In my view, I think Bruce leans on them too much across the record. Second albums are notoriously hard to write and the continual interruptions from the band seem to mask a lack of confidence in the songs themselves.

Take even a quieter song like New York Serenade. It has this beautiful lilting quality and then it drops out and everyone starts shouting 'SHE WON'T TAKE THE TRAIN'. It's like he's worried you'll get bored. Every 30 seconds there's got to be opportunities for audience interaction as represented by the E-Street Band.

And I get that's part of the charm of the album, but I also think it's overdone at times. Later Springsteen doesn't feel the need to layer everything up and continually interrupt himself - he just lets the songs progress naturally. The Wild is fun but I think it is quite a self-conscious record, masking its author's insecurities with bombasity and busyness.

I'm looking for recommendations for grammar textbooks useful for teaching primary-level native speakers. They would need to focus on British English and support an explicit approach to teaching grammar. Ideally, there should be different textbooks mapped onto levels of progression (i.e., Level 1, 2, 3, etc.).

I don't mind if these are quite old or out of print as I'll only need a copy or two of each. I also don't mind if they're quite prescriptive, which I know can often be the case with older books on language.

Has anyone tested to see what the new rate limit actually is?

I saw a couple older posts claming it was 669. But I hit over 700 yesterday with no rate limit (installed Pano Scrobbler and it double-scrobbled everything for some reason).

I don't want to skew my statistics by testing it myself but I am kind of curious to know what the max is.

I've had gastritis and esophagitis for 20 years but have done very little research into it since getting diagnosed.

It was, I believe, triggered by alcohol consumption when I was 17. I was a party animal and I worked out that even small amounts of alcohol were not just giving me stomach pain in a specific area, but making me fatigued and ill in general for several days after. I've attributed this to gastritis - has anyone else experienced this?

I still get occasional localised stomach pain from time to time but without alcohol it's not really disruptive. I take no medication for it at all. Are there any cures for it now? Is there new guidance? At the time, I was told I had to take omezaprole for the rest of my life and decided I'd just never drink again instead. How do people manage it today?

Up until a couple weeks ago, I only knew a handful of Alkaline Trio songs. I saw they were touring the UK and so decided to listen to every album multiple times. I chalked up just under 2,000 listens according to last.fm. The tour leg got cancelled but I figured I’d rank and review the albums so my listening binge wasn’t a total waste of time.

 

10. Agony and Irony (2008)

It seems a shame to start off with a negative review but I found this to be a really dull and kind of soulless album. The switch to a saccharine pop-rock style feels cynical and the songs have the sincerity of a band trying to jump onto the ‘in’ thing for the fourth or fifth time. They got away with it in the past by having songs strong enough to carry the fans with them, but they’re just not here. There’s no obvious single, no standout track. Every song is mid-paced and feels very safe. The most interesting thing about the album is just how sugary some of the songs get, with ‘Love Love, Kiss Kiss’ being just off the charts in this regard. It’s probably the only album on this list where there isn’t a single song I’d care to hear again.

 

9. This Addiction (2010)

This is a tricky album because I get what they wanted to do, but it just didn’t come off. There is clearly a concerted attempt to go ‘back to basics’ with the style. However, their inclinations towards stadium rock lead every other song back to the same tired structure, albeit with a bit more pace than on Agony. I think the opening two tracks are pretty good but it quickly devolves back into plodding rock songs laden with faux sentiment. Again, underneath it all, the song quality just isn’t there. Even a relatively strong ending in Dorothy and Fine aren’t enough to rescue the album from mediocrity. It’s a testament to the strength of the band’s earlier material and the widespread affection for it that they maintained a solid support throughout this period as I think it represents a real creative nadir.

 

8. Is This Thing Cursed? (2018)

I see this album as kicking off something of a late-career renaissance for AlkTrio. Not every song is to my style – the title track is a little theatrical, and the country vibe on ‘Little Help’ is a little corny – but at least it’s interesting. They’ve put effort into these songs, which are varied without being overwritten, and there’s some songs I really like among them. ‘Goodbye Fire Island’ just has great vibes and shows off how good the production is across this album. Krystalline is one of my favourite acoustic songs they’ve done and I love the energy Matt brings on it – much prefer Matt belting songs out over signing them nicely. What it lacks is a real banger of a song, which some of the albums ranked above it have, despite having more generic ‘album’ tracks. Even though it’s not my favourite album they’ve done, I appreciate the care and thought that clearly went into writing and producing this album after a prolonged period where I felt they were phoning it in a bit.

 

7. My Shame Is True (2013)

I think this album represents a clear improvement over whatever was going on previously, giving us a few more definitively punk rock songs and having a higher average quality across the songs. Among them, it produced two very good songs that presumably remain in tour rotation. ‘She Lied to the FBI’ is good for what it is, which is a fun but cheesy Ramones impersonation. However, for me, the standout track is ‘I Wanna Be a Warhol’, which is just a blast from the band’s own past. You could put that on Infirmary and it would sit alongside ‘Private Eye’ without embarrassing itself. However, there’s a bit of a slide into bad songwriting habits across the second side to this album, especially in songs like ‘Only Love’ and ‘One Last Dance’. Cut them and give me one more strong ‘single’ and this album would be sitting a lot higher.

 

6. Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs (2024)

I was really surprised by how much I liked this album. For a band pushing 50, there’s a lot of energy across this record. ‘Hot for Preacher’ is a really good opener, with an especially catchy hook (‘boo hoo’). In fact, it has great hooks and motifs across it (‘Meet Me’s bridge, ‘Break’s “Godammit, I cannot get enough”, BH&E’s, “I never wanna see your MF face again”). ‘Broken Down in a Time Machine’ is an especially original song to be turning out at this stage of a career and it’s one of my favourite songs on the album. Some bits of the record I’m less keen on. I don’t understand why their ‘interlude’ is toward the end of the album rather than halfway, or why it begins with an haitch. Dan seems to also stumble into a weird Jamaican accent at times as well (“Ah see lats comin from deh doah down deh hall”), which I can’t seem to unhear. But these are minor gripes. Generally, this is an interesting and varied album resultant from a band invested in putting out quality material rather than just collecting inflated tour revenue while it lasts.

 

5. Good Mourning (2003)

I can see this being an unpopular ranking because this album coincides with their heyday. But I have a problem with this album. In fact, I have two. For me, the band were trying to find a new sound and identity on Infirmary, which is natural for a band finding their feet and looking to break through. However, I don’t like where they landed on Good Mourning. First, I’m not a fan of how pronounced the macabre themes become. To me, early AlkTrio lyrics were raw, personal and confessional, with a ‘dark’ edge to them. On this album, they took this ‘dark’ edge and made it their defining feature. Every song is overladen with metaphors about being a skeleton, or vampire, or bathing in seas of blood. It’s just silly to me. And that’s where the second issue comes in. I no longer feel that the songs are about real people, places or experiences, but are just lyrics written to align with their new brand. The album doesn’t feel authentic to me. Maybe that’s controversial, but it’s just how I feel about where they were going from this point onwards. The actual average quality of the song is decent, so I enjoy it in places in spite of myself, but in reality, I think there’s also only one standout track in ‘We’ve Had Enough’. I also quite like Fatally Yours, but other than that, there’s not much I found myself returning to here. Not a bad album, just not really my cup of tea.

 

4. Maybe I’ll Catch Fire (2000)

I’m in general big fan of AlkTrio’s earlier sound from their first few years. However, I don’t think this album lived up to their debut. There’s a little bit of second album syndrome, where they remain in more or less the same style but don’t have years worth of material to support it. ‘Madam Me’, for instance, is one of the better songs, but seems to be quite similar in places to their non-album single ‘Sun Dials’. I think ‘Sleepyhead’ is a pretty good track, on a par with their debut album, and ‘Fuck You Aurora’ and ‘Radio’ are really raw and bold songs that arguably surpass the heights of their first record. Honestly, they’re kind of ‘braver’ than anything attempted on Goddamnit in that they’re more stripped back. I love the raw energy of the debut but it’s a somewhat self-conscious album that tries to hide its self-perceived deficiencies behind constant riffs, pace changes, and overlapping vocals. What they’re doing on Maybe I’ll Catch Fire is more self-assured in a sense, but its album tracks, while good enough, are more forgettable than across the albums ranked above it.

 

3. Crimson (2005)

I liked this album a lot more than I expected. A lot of the criticisms I made of Good Mourning apply here also – the spooky skeleton is still here, he’s just acquired an emo fringe – but the quality of the song is so high that I can’t deny how good an album it is. ‘Mercy Me’ is an all-time classic, no question – a certified punk-rock-karaoke stalwart. But I also really like ‘The Poison’, ‘Burn’, ‘Deathbed’ and ‘Prevent This Tragedy’ – it’s probably the first album on this list so far where I’m not skipping multiple consecutive tracks. ‘Sadie’ is a surprisingly moving song as well – not usually the kind of AlkTrio song I dig, but it’s just undeniably gripping. And I guess that’s why I rate this album quite highly – like Good Mourning, it’s not really my type of thing on paper, so the fact that I enjoy it so much suggests it’s really quite good.

 

2. From Here to Infirmary (2001)

This was an album I found really easy to get into. To some extent, I was disappointed that they moved away from their original style, but I also like their new style here as well. It feels a bit like a transitional album, especially when you hear some of the tracks they wrote between Maybe and this – ‘My Standard Life’ and ‘My Friend Peter’ are fun songs, but are basically Green Day imitations. This album sees the band define for themselves a radio-friendly punk-rock sound that is more their own. It’s not their final form, but I prefer it to where they’d end up taking it. ‘Private Eye’ is both one of their heaviest and best songs, it’s really amazing. ‘Stupid Kid’ is fun even if it’s a little pop-punk and derivative. But it has so many good songs across it – ‘Mr Chainsaw’, ‘Take Lots’, ‘Armageddon’, ‘Another Innocent Girl’, ‘You’re Dead’ – are among their best songs in my opinion. I’m less fond of ‘Steamer Trunk’, ‘Bloodied Up’ and ‘Trucks and Trains’ but they’re not necessarily skips either. Great album – a classic.    

 

Honourable Mentions: The Alkaline Trio (2000) and Remains (2007)

I’m only ranking studio albums, but if I was ranking B-side compilations as well, these two albums would be in the top five. Both filled with great songs – love ‘Bleeder’ and ‘97’ off the former, and ‘Hell Yes’, ‘Jaked’, ‘Warbrain’, and ‘Don’t Say You Won’t’ off the latter. How or why they left some of these songs off albums or relegated them to EPs is beyond me.

 

1. Goddamnit! (1998)

I was blown away by how good this album is. I knew AlkTrio from songs like ‘Private Eye’, ‘Mercy Me’ and ‘We’ve Had Enough’ – I didn’t know this side to them existed. It’s such a fucking good album. It’s not just really accomplished for a debut, but it’s also really fucking original. They were years ahead of their time coming out with this in 1998. It’s ironic that people associate them with the songs I’ve mentioned above, which reflect the band moving towards the punk rock musical centre after writing something that I see as genuinely moving third-wave punk forward. Without them, I don’t think you get bands like the Menzingers, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Off with Their Heads, etc. On the actual quality of the songs themselves, they’re just fucking great. ‘Cop’ has such a weird, irregular, punchy style; ‘San Francisco’ sets the standard for shout-a-long choruses; ‘Clavicle’ manages to convey simply the sentimentality they so often aim at but fall short of later in their career.

The lyrics across tracks like ‘Nose over Tail’ and ‘Trouble Breathing’ are genuinely personal, revealing and poetic, and I don’t think they’ve ever scaled those heights again. In some ways, you can’t, in the sense that you can never be 18 and writing your first ever songs again. Nothing they put on record again was ever as raw and unadulterated as it is here. Also, I love the singing style on this album – no artifice, just blasting it out with passion. Everything about it screams energy, even the quiet parts. It’s the closest thing they have to a perfect album – ‘Enjoy Your Day’ is a bit of a lull for me. But it’s otherwise perfect.

I never see this listed as an official symptom, or only as a consequence of broken sleep. But every year when hayfever season rolls around (for me, June), I sleep more and I'm yet more tired. I go and do a few physical things and I'm beat. Does anyone else get this or is it just me?

Hey, I'm looking to get back into the game and don't really fancy BC or MOP right now.

Are there any active Classic Era servers in the EU? I've been waiting for a Classic+ but gotta scratch the itch!

We're playing Scrabble casually in our house at the moment and a consensus has arisen that we no longer want to accept certain types of words. I'm looking to see if there are any alternative, standardised sets of rules that restrict certain types of word.

In particular, we want to exclude exclamations ('ah', 'uh', 'er', etc.), obscure loan words ('qi', 'za', etc.) and anything labelled slang or informal (possibly also obsolete). However, there are of course borderline cases (e.g., 'wow', 'ouch') and it might be easier if someone's already parsed a set of rules for this purpose, or if there's a restricted dictionary for this purpose (either physical or digital).

Just for the record, I'm not saying the official rules should change or criticising how others play - we just want to encourage more creative uses of the standard lexicon rather than memorisation of 'scrabble' words, if that makes sense.