“Thank you for using RSS.” “I love RSS.” A badge in the footer. A little heart, a blogroll. Community. Belonging.
I love TCP/IP. I love HTTP 1.1. I love DNS resolution. Where is my badge. Where is my directory. Nobody forms a tribe around plumbing. You use it. You don’t announce it. You don’t
put a sticker in your footer that says “I love packet switching”.
RSS is plumbing. A transport format. XML with angle brackets and escaped HTML and a version attribute and the CDATA hack. You don’t love it.
…
I feel targetted (if you subscribe by RSS you’ll know that I share my enjoyment of the format in my <description>s!).
Actually, I do love RSS!
I love it despite its faults; and it’s got plenty of faults. Its brittleness, sure, as unstory observes. But also its insistence upon RFC
822 dates, which are almost the worst imaginable standardised Internet date format. Also the fact that things you wouldn’t want to use it without borrowing features from a different, one might say competing, standard. Also the excessive HTTP-centricity,
which makes it theoretically a standards violation to, e.g. make a podcast that’s distributed by Gemini, for example.
But I love what it does. I love how it ties the Web together. And I love how it does it: just a resource, at a URL, that the subscriber can hit as frequently, or not, as they like.
Oh and:
The person with the heart in their footer would not survive writing one item by hand.
I totally would. I absolutely do. I rarely do, because I’m far more-inclined to write software to do it for me, but I still write “raw” RSS a couple of times in a typical
year.
I also love HTTP. Maybe I should sing about that more often, too. And yes, I actually love HTTP in the way that unstory gatekeeps “love of a technology”, like I do RSS: I can “survive
writing it by hand”.
I’m staying in the Thistle Hotel around the corner before a flight in the morning, and stepped out to find this cache – and some supper – before bed. Sorry to hear about your muggle
troubles, but this current (new) container is a good one: needed to say the hint out loud a few times before I worked out what I was looking for! SL, TNLN, TFTC.
This afternoon I’m scheduled to drive from West Oxfordshire to Heathrow Airport. I’ll only lose 15 minutes to divert by the backroads and see if this hashpoint is achievable.
Expedition
I’ve been looking for an opportunity to get out ‘hashing but one’s never shown up somewhere and somewhen that I can make it lately…
…but today, I had to travel from West Oxfordshire to Heathrow Terminal 5. Now there’s a perfectly good highway for that – two options, infact: the A40+M40, or the A34+M4… but I figured
that if I took neither route, instead hacking my way cross-country, it probably wouldn’t cost me more than about 15 minutes extra (spoiler: it took me about 30 minutes extra,
but it was a bit of a rat run for some commuters) and allow me to see about this hashpoint!
Abandoning the car.
Initial survey showed that it’s in a field, which doesn’t bode too well. I’m certainly not interested in trampling crops or hopping fences.
It was a bit warm for walking a road like this!
But to my delight, as I drove alongside the GZ, I saw that it corn had recently been cut and the bales stacked one field over. I turned up the lane alongside and hunted for a place to
park, eventually finding one about 700m away from the hashpoint.
Oh look, a footpath I can get lost from!
A convenient footpath gave me an excuse to start tramping through the parched cut field, until eventually I was upon the hashpoint.
The hashpoint’s out there somewhere!
It was a gloriously hot summer’s day and the rolling hills are especially delightful around here. I reached the hashpoint around 18:22.
Success! I’m out standing in my field!
And then… pressed on to my hotel in Heathrow for dinner, and sleep, and an early flight!
My living room TV is attached to an ageing Windows box that we use as a media centre and middleweight gaming1
PC. To better fill the room with sound (I hate those tinny flat speakers they like to put into TVs these days!), the TV is also attached to a soundbar.
The problem is that the soundbar keeps shutting itself down. If it doesn’t receive any signals for ~20 minutes, it enters sleep mode2. It automatically turns
itself on when the TV turns on, but it turns itself off all by itself.
This is annoying, because if we pause what we’re watching for a conversation or something, the soundbar switches itself off, even though the computer and television are still
switched-on. It’s doubly-annoying because we then have to get up and walk over to it to switch it back on again, because the
dog ate the remote3.
LED’s gone red again?5
Sigh. Whose turn is it to get up and press the button?
My solution is BeepAlive, a little Go program that runs in a Windows system tray and makes a very quiet noise once every 9 minutes.
I’ve tuned the noise so that it’s quiet enough that I can’t hear it unless I’m specifically listening for it… but loud enough that it the soundbar sees that there are still audio
signals coming in, so it doesn’t go to sleep.
Now, so long as the media centre computer and TV remain powered-on, the soundbar stays awake. And that’s how a hacky engineer like me can solve a hardware problem with a software tool.
Footnotes
1 Mostly the gaming’s done by the kids, and they’re likely-as-not to use the Switch or
Steam Deck instead… or, when we’re not at the Chicory House, Bee, the Bazzite-powered gaming rig I set up in the playroom… but in principle it’s equipped for gaming. I guess we sometimes fire a Jackbox Party Pack on it when we have guests?
2 It doesn’t even seem to save any power to be in sleep mode: my power checker tool says
it draws basically the same amount whichever mode it’s in!
3 It’s triply-annoying because our soundbar is the only infrared-controlled device in our
house that doesn’t follow the IrDA standard, which makes it incredibly difficult for me to automate switching it on from the TV remote, our Flic hub, any “universal remote” etc. I managed to pull off a replay using my Flipper
Zero, but that’s not a solution I want to put into the hands of the kids (or anywhere that the dog might eat it). I suppose I could buy a replacement remote, but I don’t feel like
giving any more money to a company that turned their nose up at IrDA.
4 Okay, so technically I solved this with software a few years ago, but I
misplaced the software and it, frankly, wasn’t very good. My thinking is that by doing it better, and open-sourcing it, I’ll be able to find it when I need it next. And as a bonus, it
might just maybe help somebody else, someday.
5 At our regular house, rather than the Chicory House, the soundbar lives
above the TV, close to the ceiling, and it’s hard to even see the annoying LED. So I mounted a tiny mirror, about a quarter of the size of a fingernail, to the ceiling above
it to improve its visibility from the sofa. Now that’s a hardware solution!
500g of white grapes are £2. 500g or red grapes are £2.20. So you’d expect 500g of half-red, half-white grapes to be… £2.10, right? But no, that’s £2 too.
So buying 500g of white grapes and 500g of red grapes is cheaper if you buy the mixed packs and then separate them. Why!?
Like many others1, MEEK’s Fabulous has been stuck on-loop in my head for most of this year. What a fucking banger of a track,
amirite?
And yet… somehow, today was the first time I figured I’d watch the music video. If you’ve not seen it (or perhaps not even heard the song), go do that now; I’ll wait.
The outdoor shots start about 20 seconds in, and… they’re instantly-recognisable by what they aren’t.
They aren’t London, where singer-songwriter Georgia Meek hails from, that’s for sure.
You don’t get this level of deprivation in the South. Also, I’m pretty sure the director must’ve deliberately flung the tail-end scratchings from a crisp packet into the road to get
those seagulls to play ball.
You probably know from the title of this blog post, but the filming location MEEK and her team chose is… Blackpool!
The music video winds its way around a few streets in the town centre: this one’s distinctively-badly paved-over cobblestones makes it clear it’s the East end of Pier Street. Oh; and I gather that the guy with the
dog was just a random passer-by who Meek collared and got to sign a release and just recruited for the video, then and there. Badass.
The music video goes indoors, continuing – nay, increasing – how fabulously queer-and-glam it is, through a theatre and arcade/bingo hall3. Eventually, it hits and a series of fast food
establishments cumulating in Feast About.
It’s easy enough to line up the tower with The Strand to find this location, even if the named shops didn’t give it away. We’re
on the opposite corner of the block from Ma Kelly’s now, and just around the corner from Garlands (if you’re looking for a cheap drink
and a drag show) and The Flying Handbag (where my 18th birthday party‘s pub
crawl began).
Then there’s some faster and blurrier videography, but it’s clearly the Golden Mile, where she’s heading South and… hey, wait… is this music video actually shot in a
geographically-sound order? So far, she seems to have moderately-consistently been moving South through the roads about one or two streets back from the Promenade, from a little
North of the North Pier down towards the Central Pier…
Half-way down the Golden Mile, this carnival game looks distinctly like the Camel Derby at Coral Island: you can see it photographed from a definitive angle in this review post!
Anyway; after her party night out, she finds her way to a late-night chippy, as you do.
She’s still heading South… which makes me think that the ruined steps she’s seen sitting on for literally three seconds might be somewhere between Coral Island and the Crispy Cod.
Anybody know?
Anyway, the bottom line is that this music video was – surprisingly but delightfully – set in the area of… what might be the gayest pub crawl in the UK. Which, on top of this already
awesome song, leaves me… feeling fucking fabulous.
Footnotes
1 Especially those in queer or adjacent spaces, obvs.
2 Pier Street and York Street Car Park’s are a comfortable walk from Ma Kelly’s Cabaret Bar, which – and I’m less-certain about this one – might be the host of some of the interior shots from the music video.
Anyway, if you go around the corner in Google Street View you’ll find Higgitts Arcade and Burger Bar, which – just trust me and go look at it – is the most-Blackpool thing imaginable.
3 I’m almost-certain the arcade is the Higgitts, which I mentioned previously because of
its proximity to an earlier shot!
Apparently, zero of the imagineers building this Disneyland Paris cafe conceived that “Chuck Wagon” sounds like what a cowboy would call a wheeled vomit trough. 😂
Fuck Paris. The only way to buy a metro ticket is to download an app. Fair enough. But, after downloading the app it tells you to install another app!
What the actual fuck? A convoluted, messy, and frustrating situation which has resulted in awful reviews for them.
Trains and metro travel require separate tickets at different prices. You can’t easily hop from one to another. You need to think carefully about the route you’re taking. A more
convoluted route may be significantly cheaper because it doesn’t involve swapping between services.
This absolutely parallels my experience of hopping around the Paris’s metro area, last time I was there.
If I’ve got to navigate my way through Paris’s public transport network… I’m going to need a drink first.
From the sounds of things, this is clearly designed as a convenience for visitors to the city, not regulars and locals:
Dès le 30 juin 2026, les touristes et les voyageurs hyperoccasionnels pourront opter pour valider leur titre en sortie de l’aéroport d’Orly sur la
ligne 14 avec la carte bancaire.2
Paris’s relationship with tourists is different from London’s
Les prix des titres de transport via les bornes d’achat sont les suivants :
Bus/tram/funiculaire : 2,55 € (soit + 0,50 € sur le prix classique) ;
Métro/train/RER : 3,35 € (soit + 0,80 € sur le prix classique) ;
Aéroports : 14,80 € (soit + 0,80 € sur le prix classique).
Buying transport tickets in Paris using a contactless card… costs 0.50 € to 0.80 € more. Paris will charge you for the convenience of tapping in and
out with your carte bancaire.
Tap in, tap out. Unless you’re eligible for discounted travel, you probably might as well use your debit card to get around London. Photo by Luca Sammarco.
Contactless is clearly more-convenient for city visitors, but I think the difference between London and Paris’s attitude to it says something about the relationship both cities have
with their tourists. In London, most travellers can use whatever bank card and mobile wallet they’ve already got… and they’ll get as good a deal as possible. But in Paris,
doing the same will invariably cost more than a conventional ticket would. You pay a convenience-tax.
Both cities get tens of millions of annual visitors and extract billions of euros worth of financial benefit from their tourist economies. Paris doing slightly better overall, but
they’re closely-comparable enough that differences like this probably mean something.
Tap in, pay a premium for the privilege. Thanks, Paris! Photo by Candelario Benítez.
I’m not saying that London loves tourists and Paris hates them! It’s not so simple as that. But I think perhaps the cites try to present themselves in a different way.
London’s public transport says: we’ll work around you. You can learn the rules as you go; you don’t have to “learn London” to get around. Just use your usual
contactless card wherever you go; we’ll work out the details, and your daily cost will get capped just the same as if you chose to pick up an Oyster card. Visiting the city as a tourist
is an ordinary use-case for the transport network.
Paris’s public transport says: you should learn the rules. You’re welcome to visit, but you either need to do the work to be a “temporary Parisian”… or you can
just use your usual contactless card but we’ll charge you a premium for the convenience. Visiting the city as a tourist is a special case that the transport
network sees differently from being a local.
Neither approach is “wrong”… but I think it’s interesting. And now I’m wondering what the approach is like across other European cities.
Footnotes
1 I’ll almost-certainly have to tackle the current-generation of Paris’s public transport
at some point before then, but I’ll look forward to the improved version once it rolls-out.
2 “From 30 June 2026, tourists and hyper-ocassional travellers will be
able to pay by bank card on Line 14 out of Orly Airport.” Emphasis mine.
So if you see a reference to Count Duckula, or hear me exclaim “Accrington Stanley!”, or even blush as I describe an utter wanker – please take it as a sign that the
hegemony is not universal and some people exist in a cultural milieu different to your own.
I feel like this is an even-more specific dialect than en-GB. What is this, en-GB-1980s? 🤣
The campsite provided our large group with an entire field to ourselves, including spaces for socialising, a fire pit (at which the
kids enjoyed toasting marshmallows), and a wood-fired hot tub.
The entire weekend would have surely been a memorable experience already, but one particular event will probably stick in the minds of everybody in attendance: the
fire.
The fire
The UK’s in its unprecedented third heatwave of the year: the grass is all dying and everything is tinder dry. And so it was that, on Friday night as the kids and I slept in our
glamping “dome”, I was woken by the distant beep-beep-beep of a domestic smoke alarm. A few seconds later, I heard a second such alarm with a different tone, and it became clear that
this wasn’t just somebody’s toast on fire.
Not recorded: the sound of the occupant of this static caravan/cabin – having jumped through the window to safety as the front door was blocked by flames – on the phone to the fire
brigade.
I went back into the dome to check on the children, which is when Penny knocked on my door to ensure I was aware of what was going on. The kids were sound asleep, so I ran out to the
car park to move the car (which was parked in such a position that embers were raining down on it!) and to check on the situation.
The fire intensity of the fire grew particularly intense as the sound of fire engine sirens began to be heard from the valley below. Photo copyright Rory Prior.
I returned to the dome and got the children dressed. We evacuated to a safer distance and watched as the firefighters arrived and began to tackle the blaze. Short of water, they had one
pump dousing the flaming building while two others relayed water from the nearest fire hydrant, way down the hill.
There was a brief faux pas when one of the Abnib kids exclaimed “this is so cool“… without realising that he was standing right next to the people whose
home was being destroyed in front of us.
Eventually the situation came under control and we were all able to return to bed.
The battery pack
I spoke to Mike, whose holiday home was the building that was destroyed. He’d managed to escape with some shorts and his mobile phone, but little else: in particular, his car keys
remained inside and were probably destroyed, which rendered him unable to drive back to his regular home.
The firefighters worked quickly, but it still took over three hours before they were able to finish spreading out and drenching everything that had caught light. We watched from a
distance, and sheltered all the children (including those of a non-Abnib family on-site) in one of our tents.
Mike had been turning his phone on only in bursts in order to conserve battery for all of the essential calls he’d have to make (e.g. his bank, to extract some money without his cards,
and a locksmith, to get him back into his car). His phone charger – an awkward USB-B-Micro one – hadn’t survived the fire.
But conveniently… I happened to have such a cable in my bag. Plus a fully-charged battery pack. So I lent both to Mike, in the hope that it’d make it easier for him to do all of the
necessary administration1.
It’s got to be a pretty-devastating thing to happen to your holiday home and everything in it. Mike was surprisingly chill about it when I spoke to him, taking soft-of an attitude of
“well, there’s no point fretting about it after the fact!”
“You saved my life!”
Anyway: on Saturday night, shortly after the kids and I had turned-in, there was a knock on the door. It was Mike, come to return the battery pack I’d lent him.
The kids didn’t know who he was, so I explained: “This is Mike; he’s the fella who lived in the home that burned down last night.”
Mike handed over the battery pack and charging cable and, grateful for them, used a metaphor that. “Thanks,” he said, passing the hardware to me, “You saved my life!”
I hadn’t told Mike which glamping pod was ours, and just figured I’d see him around. Or else if I didn’t get my battery pack back, that’d be fine: it’ll have been more-useful to him
than to me in the days to come! But there we were, in our pyjamas, when he appeared at our door.
He turned and left, and both kids sprung out of bed and exclaimed “You saved the life of the guy whose house burned down‽”
I’m sure they had in their minds the idea that, during the period between the fire starting and me waking and evacuating them, I’d singlehandedly dragged this dude out of a burning
building. Y’know, instead of just lending him a phone charger after-the-fact.
I only let them hold the misapprehension for a few minutes, but for a moment it lightened the mood.
Footnotes
1 I was already using my phone to call our insurance company before our flood, earlier this year, had finished. I can only imagine how inconvenient it is to suffer a disaster and lose your communications lifeline at the
same time!
An unexpected start to the kids’ and I’s glamping weekend last night when the static caravan behind our dome burned to the ground. We spent most of our night half way down a field
watching the fire crews tackle the blaze.
(Nobody was injured; the residents were able to escape out of a window.)
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