ABOUT TIGU

" "Oooh, what's this, then?" You may have just asked yourself, shortly before being propelled head-first into Tony's (Illustrated) Guide to Unpleasantness (affectionately known as TIGU). And because I'm not feeling terribly unpleasant at the moment I'm going to tell you.

TIGU is (or at least will be when it's finished) a one-stop guide to all things unpleasant. If there's someone out there that you really cannot get along with, but you can't think of a way of getting to them, then TIGU will certainly be able to help you out. If someone's being unpleasant to you, and you want to beat them at their own game, TIGU will have the answers. If you're interested in the history of unpleasantness through the ages TIGU will be able to enlighten and inform you. If you're just plain bored TIGU will, at the very least, give you some cheap laughs. "

- Tony, at TIGU's birth.

Originally TIGU started as a small segment of my homepage, which at the time was one of those shambling "this is me, this is what I do" kind of affairs that are so common upon the Web. Obviously I was lacking inspiration, or something, and realising how tediously un-original my site was I started to try and think of new things to place upon its pages. Having had the idea for a themed section, I started working feverishly upon ideas, and soon TIGU was open to the public (most of whome didn't actually realise it was there). Those that knew me at the time may recall with horror Tony's Excessive Advertising Campaign (tm) - a flurry of e-mailed messages which still manages to rear its head even today. Still, TIGU had been born, and the general reaction was good. I was pleased.

It was over the summer of '97 that TIGU finally grew into its mature state (mainly because I was bored over the holidays, and was playing about on my new computer), and in a vicious and bloody coup it took over (and replaced) my homepage completely. This had two main results - firstly there was more room for it to spread its creative legs; and secondly I had to go through the whole advertising thing again, in order to get people to explore its larger self. Most of the people that had been there in the first place did indeed look again, but even to this day I occasionally get e-mail saying "hey, when did your homepage change". People, eh?

TIGU's third incarnation (which it mutated into over the evening of Tuesday the eleventh of November, '97) mixed forms, humour in bad taste, frames, and dubious design in ways never seen before. The main reason for the third version became apparent to anyone familiar with the second - it was dull looking. It was given a more professional sheen, and used some clever stuff (like JavaScript, Meta Tags, and that kind of thing).

TIGU's now in it's fourth version, which included another image overhaul, and a move of server, to Geocities. The main reason for this was that they offer a much larger amount of room than the university server I was using before, which should allow TIGU to stretch it's legs a bit.

ELECTRIC TRICKERY

Currently TIGU wields the following pieces of browser trickery, to somewhat questionable effect:

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

I mentioned all of this in the disclaimer, but I'll repeat it here for those of you that are (correctly) totaly dis-interested in the legalities of my fine work. Basically I realise that you might have troubles when looking at TIGU, and as such I recommend the following setup, with is what I use to look at it (and it looks fine).

  • Internet Explorer 5.something
  • A 1024 x 768 resolution window.
  • 16 bit colour.
  • Full screen.
  • Arial is the official font of unpleasantness, and is required to view this site in its full glory.

If you're using anything less than this configuration I can't guarantee that you'll get the full effect of my page.

TIGU Maintained by Tony Gowland
Last updated: 24/12/98