May 2025 – Page 3

Kennilworth Castle

Playing hide and seek in Kennilworth Castle. You’ll never find me!

(geotagged for your convenience)

Portal 3kend

Never underestimate the power of people who are motivated by the good they can do in the world.

Today I was in awe of this team of unpaid volunteers who, having already given up their bank holiday weekend, worked through dinner and into the night to ensure the continued uptime of a piece software that enables the listening service of emotional support and suicide helplines.

Dan Q found GCA2025 Where’s 25? – Locationless Cache

This checkin to GCA2025 Where's 25? - Locationless Cache reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Happy 25th birthday, geocaching.

I’m spending the weekend volunteering for a nonprofit I founded (it’s almost as old as geocaching, at 23). We’re staying in a hotel at N 52° 36.184′ W 001° 53.869′. I’ve also gotten out to find a couple of local geocaches.

But guess which room number the hotel have given me…

Dan Q found GC7H5M9 Hedge your bets

This checkin to GC7H5M9 Hedge your bets reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Found following a short hunt and a brief rummage after walking up the nearby footpath, with the help of a previous log which talked about crossing a fence (which I didn’t need to do, having come up the correct way in the first place).

Some fellow volunteers and I are meeting at a hotel to the West of here for a weekend of making software to help charities. When we meet up, I have a tradition of getting up early and finding a geocache or two before breakfast. Having exhausted the very-local supply of caches on previous visits, and not wishing to miss out on the tradition on this, geocaching’s 25th birthday, I decided it was time to come further afield (and to finally solve this puzzle!… I’m still stumped by its sibling, though!).

Nice container. Log slightly damp, but still usable. TFTC, and FP awarded for the enjoyable (once I spotted a pattern!) puzzle.

Dan Q found GC9QD6R Centurion

This checkin to GC9QD6R Centurion reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Woke early, as usual, for the first day of a weekend of volunteering, while staying at nearby Fairlawns. I’ve already tapped out the most-local caches to that hotel on previous stays, so for this morning’s walk I came further afield to find this (and one of the two puzzle caches not too far away; that’s next, hopefully!)

This nice (topical!) container was an easy find once I poked my head into the right place. TFTC!

Happy 25th birthday, geocaching!

Avanti’s Accessibility Failure

I’m travelling by train in just over a week, and I signed up an account with Avanti West Coast, who proudly show off their Shaw Trust accessibility certificate.

Clearly that certificate only applies to their website, though, and not to e.g. their emails. When you sign up an account with them, you need to verify your email address. They send you a (HTML-only) email with a link to click. Here’s what that link looks like to a sighted person:

So far, so good. But here’s the HTML code they’re using to create that button. Maybe you’ll spot the problem:

<a href="https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/train-tickets/verify-email?prospectId=12345678&customerKey=12345:1234567"
 target="_blank"
  style="font-family:Averta, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">

  <div class="mobile_image"
       style="font-family:Averta, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; display:none; border:none; text-align:center;">

    <img width="40%"
           src="https://image.e.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/lib/fe371170756404747d1670/m/1/9069c7a2-b9ed-4188-9809-bf58592ec002.png"
           alt=""
         style="font-family:Averta, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;width:143px; height:40px;" />

  </div>
</a>

Despite specifying the font to use three times, they don’t actually have any alt text. So for somebody who can’t see that image, the link is completely unusable¹.

This made me angry enough that I gave up on my transaction and bought my train tickets from LNER instead.

Accessibility matters. And that includes emails. Do better, Avanti.

Footnotes

¹ Incidentally, this also makes the email unusable for privacy-conscious people who, like me, don’t routinely load remote images in emails. But that’s a secondary concern, really.

Note #26502

My contribution to the long-standing British tradition of photographing dogs at polling stations. Don’t forget to vote, folks!