News

Turns out Banksy is not the bloke from Massive Attack, Neil Buchanan, or an art collective after all. In a shocking report, Reuters reveal this week that Banksy has actually been an 11 year old child all along.

We’ve just been sent a very rare recording of one of the European broadcasts, ‘Neuk mijn neus, tapel teef’.

Originally broadcast live in Amsterdam in February 1999, it features such classics as ‘Papicide is never Funny‘ and ‘Slippery Pete: Logging Country‘.

Hear this and other episodes on the Archive page.

It’s official! After years of speculation, the original ShyTalk crew have reunited and are about to release their first new show in over 20 years!

Check out the exclusive interview.

We’ve been approached by the original members (and their legal team) and strong-armed into being official resellers for their new episodes and merchandise. To quote Stu, “Look, we’ve no idea how the internet works. You do it.”

The loading screen from the now infamous ShyTalk Radio computer game, ‘Jockey Wilson’s Tiananmen Square Challenge’, released for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1999. The idea apparently came to Stu during an LSD-fuelled weekend spent on Jeff Minter’s farm, although Minter has always refused to comment on whether he himself had any influence in the making of the game.

Poor sales and even worse reviews (with an average rating of around 15% in games magazines) combined with being released on a platform which was 10 years out of date meant that the game was quickly demoted to the bargain bin. Most retailers simply refused to stock it and only around 1,000 copies were actually made.

It was widely considered to be completely unplayable, in terrible taste, and one of the worst ever releases on the ZX Spectrum.

There has also been a rumour circulating since the early 2000s of a bootleg Sega Game Gear version of the game. We’ve seen no evidence of this, however.

Reviews:

“Utterly unwholesome and a complete cash grab. Designed by imbeciles and coded by chimpanzees.”

Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignall, Computer & Video Games Magazine, 1999

“It gave me a headache and made me see colours all wrong for an hour after playing.”

Violet Berlin, Gamespot, 1999

“You’ll be hearing from my solicitor.”

Jockey Wilson, 1999

The time when ShyTalk Radio appeared as an answer in an early 2000s episode of Wheel of Fortune. According to our source, this was at the point in the show where a contestant was just about to incorrectly guess, ‘Shy Wank Patio’.

Renowned journalist, Jeremy Tinkerton, reminisces about his time spent with ShyTalk during their European tour in his article for London Review of Books, 2021.

Read a transcription of the whole article here.

Spotted in Clintons, Norwich, November 2024. Submitted by an anonymous fan. It’s unclear whether this is the work of fans or whether one (or more) of the original ShyTalk Radio members are responsible. There are rumours of them working together again, but this photo has been the closest anyone has come to providing any possible evidence of this.