Seems we've slid backwards into spring again, except the trees and other plants are moving forward. Trees already have seeds forming, and some of our late-fruiting raspberries are not only forming but ripening.

But still, people will ignore the obvious explanation for this weirdness (climate change) because if it's not hot it can't be global warming.

🤦

I won't lie, the kicking that the Tories are going to get — most of it self-inflicted — makes me smile.

However, I'd smile even more if the likely Labour government were aiming higher than Slightly Less Awful.

I don't know if I can ever trust the Liberal Democrats again at the national level. At local government level, they've been... well, competent in making the best of a bad situation. (But seemingly can't stop fighting Labour instead of the actual party responsible for this mess. Hint: they run the county council and central government.)

In an ideal world I'd vote Green. Sadly, the First Past The Post electoral system means this is emphatically not an ideal world.

What really turns my stomach, when I briefly check the news, is that the real winner will be Nigel Farage and his latest political vehicle — not in seats, but in moving the policies of the other parties ever further rightward.

July 4th won't be the end of the battle — it'll only be the start. The real battle remains the  excising of the cancerous tumour that has infected UK politics for decades, of which Brexit is but the most visible manifestation. Doing that, though, may require a revolution.

I've not posted anything here for over a month. The reason for that is that my time and energy have been taken up by preparing for my mother to have a hip joint replacement operation, then helping her as she recovers.

I'm pleased to say that my mum is doing really well now, with just some minor discomfort around the operation site. I won't lie, I was worried about this operation and uncertain about the outcome — my mum turned 85 in March, and though she's very fit for her age there were still some risks involved.

I've missed blogging, but the brutal fact is that it's hard to write when you're low on mental and physical energy. I just about managed to keep up my private journal most days, which is where I tend to dump stuff that I need out of my head.

I've still not decided what to do about my main website. I'm seriously considering sending the newer posts to the Internet Archive then starting afresh, perhaps transitioning to just being a personal site without a blog. I don't feel the need to have multiple blogging systems, plus I'd quite like to just have a place where I can play around with HTML, CSS and a little JavaScript and not bother with tools like Hugo. Building personal websites should be fun, and if I'm honest 'fun' is not a word I'd associate with Hugo.

(I'm also debating moving back to proper web hosting so I have the option of using PHP — yes, really — for some degree of semi-interactivity. But that can wait for now.)

I've not touched my main site for over a month now, partly because I'm no longer liking the way the Hugo static site generator does things. I miss the ability to type into a text box, hit Publish and have it instantly online. Scribbles, which this site runs on, hits that spot for me without having the management headaches of WordPress.

So I will be mostly posting here for the time being while I decide what to do about paring down the Hugo build process. Moving my main site back to my old web host, which support FTP transfer rather than WebDAV, would also speed up deployment massively.

I don't mind some friction, but the current Hugo setup has too much for my liking.

That pretty much sums up the week's forecast, and possible the rest of the month. 🌧️☔️

How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

Very thorough analysis by Dan Luu of how many websites fare (or don't) on lower-spec (and cheap) devices, and the attitudes that have shaped this situation.

I find it hard to escape the conclusion that building a Web that excludes those who cannot afford state-of-the-art technology is a feature, not a bug, and a very intentional one.

2 Tone Music — best viewed on desktop if at all possible, this is a mixture of archive pictures and interview quotes from those involved in the creation of the legendary UK record label that formed in 1979.

How to help someone use a computer

Timeless advice — saving this to remind myself, particularly when helping my mother or sister with technology problems.

clears throat

Der Spring is sprung,
Der grass is rizz,
An' me wonders where
Dem boids is?

Dey say dem boids are on the wing.
Now ain't dat a bit absoid?
Fer shurly der wings is upon der boids?

---

My late father taught me that rhyme. No idea where he heard it from — most likely, an old comedy record or radio show of his childhood years.

It's all Jack Baty's fault. 🤪

I'm interested to see how this thing evolves...