Some work. I’ve quite a streamlined process for updating databases when bus operating companies cease operations, now – not enough to be cause for whooping and cheering, but it’s something, and I think the industry has got better at that sort of thing. Apart from that, it’s a bit grim, obviously.

Further to the Tesco Express self-checkout sardine from last month, I distantly remember a children’s book about some Cluedo champions who also investigated real crimes and caught a criminal who left some kind of small fish – I want to say a sardine, but maybe an anchovy or sprat – at each crime scene. You’d think a criminal could simply not leave fishy clues, if they didn’t want to be caught, but their minds work in mysterious ways.

Wednesday: woke in a bit of agony, something to do with the claret coloured bump from last week’s bicycle fall, a haematoma (write that in your copy book) in the buttock area. That evening, went to the walk-in centre, where they said I should go to A&E, so I did. Don’t think I’ve been since I was a wee child, if ever. (They call it the Emergency Department these days, to avoid confusion with the Arts & Entertainment Network TV channel I suppose.)

The hospital’s computer system had crashed. After twelve hours, I was seen and told to go home and rest – sound advice. The whole thing had been a waste of time but never mind ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I’d been a silly fool for not resting, cos actually I’d been quite restless, walking miles and running up stairs for the past few days.

Spent some time staring at a vending machine, watching people get frustrated with the card payment interface – you’ve got to press the buttons in just the right way – then along would come an ambulance driver or medical professional, with their superior intellect, and get it right first time. Then once you’ve managed to pay, it’s pretty cruel how, in a place where people are likely to have broken arms, opening the flap at the bottom to get at your bottle of pop requires at least two hands.

The good thing about long waiting times is I thought I’d have to get a taxi home but in fact it was mid-morning so the bus service had resumed.

I had some bagels proving in the fridge, but the extra time didn’t matter; they still came out bad, but for other reasons.

Found my jumper. Some people say “it’s always the last place you look” is the sort of pointless truism only a boring moron would trot out, but it’s true!

You know the “net promoter score”, where folks ask questions to which the answer is either “I need you to understand that people don’t have conversations where they randomly recommend [East Midlands Trains] to each other”, or “very likely [not really, but I don’t want the poor employees to get in trouble].”

But I search Twitter and actually people are randomly recommending bustimes.org to people. I could say something mean-spirited about it but I won’t – people find something useful, and want to share the useful thing, which is lovely.

As I was walking past Tesco Express, a lady laden with bags toppled over, oh no. I hesitated until someone else approached to help her up, and I’m afraid I just scurried away like I had somewhere important to be. (Thinking back to the fainting TalkTV political editor, of course I’d’ve run over to help if I was a mum like Liz Truss.)

Just hours later, I was bicycling along when suddenly the right handlebar snapped clean off and I landed cross-legged on the ground, bruised and grazed, sand in my mouth and my jumper torn. Oh what instant karma. Motor cars motored past, as it probably looked like I was meditating on the grass verge, but one did stop and kindly check I was OK, which I was after a fashion, and I gingerly pedalled home sort of one-handedly.

It was the old old bicycle, by the way. Who knows how old the handlebars were, and maybe whoever fitted them didn’t use a torque wrench, putting untold strain on the metal by over-tightening.

I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my swollen purple bum – I should have been quicker to sit on a bag of frozen brussels sprouts – woe unto me. What must the neighbours think of the moaning each time I get up or sit down or lean over in bed to reach a cup of tea.

🎦 In The Living Daylights, Timmy Dalton says “it must have scared The Living Daylights (1987) out of her”. There’s a box of fragile cargo marked “handle like eggs”, which apparently is a thing and is also written on something in Thunderball, which I’ll have to keep an eye on ITV4 for.

I had a tin of zesty pop to drink during Licence to Kill, so I waited for someone to open a can on-screen so I could open mine at the same time without the noise disturbing anyone. But there are no ring-pulls in the film. Bond orders a bottle of Budweiser with a lime, but he doesn’t get to drink it.

Sure you’ve already heard Nathan Fielder’s (from off of Nathan For You) The Rehearsal is something. The second episode was underwhelming, but after the third I feel silly for having had any doubts. There’s a New Zealandish torrent search engine that seems better than the famous Swedish one, I don’t know what everyone else uses these days.

I call women’s football “football” and men’s football “men’s football”. 👅

It was too hot for a bit. Time went all gloopy. In years gone by, when weather was more normal, people would whinge “it’s too hot”, but this was different.

Last week, I accidentally left the freezer door ajar, took a while to twig why the floor tiles were cold, took the opportunity to defrost the whole thing, became interested in the temperature inside it and the fridge in the hot weather, and got a little Bluetooth thermometer I’d been curious about since seeing a tweet months ago … cool story.

Cleaned around the doors and stuff, because you want a tight seal to stop heat getting in and making the milk go off/the refrigerator work harder. Some internet sources recommend smearing Vaseline on the gaskets to soften the rubber, but others say you absolutely shouldn’t, it’s as polarised as whether WD-40 belongs anywhere near a bicycle chain.

Finally, after last year’s dry cleaning fiasco, got some new curtains (Next). Not as bad as “cheap and nasty polyester monstrosities” – they’re exactly as offensively dull as the old ones, don’t want to rock the boat or ruffle any feathers, but nicer being made from more natural fibres and a more appropriate width.

They’re lined blackout curtains, in case that matters. Years ago, after hearing Merlin Mann going on about it on a podcast (?), I took an interest in eliminating light pollution from the bedroom, in search of a better night’s sleep, because our troglodyte ancestors didn’t have artificial light. I think Gwyneth Paltrow’s taken up the cause these days. But what a load of rubbish … isn’t moonlight natural?

🎦 A View To A Kill. Walken, Jones, a dirigible … but not as good as all that.

Prima Facie (Jodie Comer’s West End debut). I’d never been to a National Theatre Live screening before. Oh the theatre, the smug audience in London laughing at bits, but it was powerful and important enough for me to quickly forget any childish annoyance at that sort of thing.

The absolute worst: realised I’d mislaid a jumper I was fond of, who knows when or where I last had it (a regular selfie-taker would be able to know this sort of thing) (obv it’s been too warm to need a jumper recently) (I’ve daggier jumpers I wouldn’t mind losing, but being worn less often they’re less likely to be lost), woe unto me.

To Chelmsford, which Chuck Dickens called the dullest and most stupid place on earth, because the branch of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen hadn’t opened yet when he visited. There I had a thrifty-boy seat-filler’s ticket to see Jools Holland (and his rhythm and blues orchestra, and Beverley Knight) in a parched park. I wondered why so many in the queue seemed to be carrying bags of golf clubs, but no, they were folding chairs, of which I’d never seen so many, the sort people sit in to picnic in laybys beside their campervans.

It’s really quite warm. But one bit of almost-fun is the challenge of walking somewhere via the shadiest route. There’s probably an app for it. Trees help, but even the most horrible paved piazza, in the shadow of an oppressive building, is suddenly one of the best places to be.

The race to 10 Downing Street … the runners and riders … not clear who’s riding who or who’s being taken for a ride, but anyway, I enjoy every single tweet to the effect of “worst Kraftwerk concert ever” during the televised debates where the shits stand behind lecterns, thank you for your service.

🎦 Octopussy. I had some problems with it, and it got worse as it went on, but it was some fun. The cinema was a bit too chilly, if anything; bring a blanket next time.

A few episodes into The Outlaws. There’s a bit where someone says “the feds” but the subtitles say “the filth”. Anyway, it feels clearer than ever that Merchant was responsible for the best bits of the things Gervais shared some of the credit for.

My ma was fond of the (I think) phrasal verb “to fiddly-fart-arse”, as in “fiddly-fart-arsing while Rome burns.” Never heard anyone else say it. So I checked, and people do sometimes “fiddle and fart-arse” but never fiddly. Huh.

Some work. I’m now properly using the National Transport Authority (Ireland)’s GTFS trip updates feed, so at last all the users in Ireland (of whom there are some) can see if their Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus or Go-Ahead Ireland bus is delayed or even cancelled. Coincidentally, the NTA is going to upgrade its platform to support vehicle locations and stuff soon, and I’m pretty excited about that.

Once or twice I’ve taken part in user research type things about bus fares open data, and cheekily suggested to the “Whitehall mandarins”/management consultants that dramatically simplifying fares would be easier than trying to model the complicated current situation in an open, standard way. And now I read the news about a rumoured £2 fare cap in England, and of course I don’t seriously think my suggestions have had anything to do with it, but still, “the monkey’s paw curls one finger.”

That Sunday Times article requires some correction and clarification. They say the Peterborough–Norwich bus is £12 for a day ticket, but the more relevant figure is £10 for a single. And that route is actually registered as four separate sections wearing a trenchcoat, which might be relevant, depending on how the scheme is implemented. This could be an example of Knoll’s law/Gell-Mann amnesia, but I already cancelled my subscription to the bigoted rag (which still does some good investigative journalism) years ago.

Found out about Central Tickets, where you can be a “seat filler” and get cheap tickets to events. Only events where supply exceeds demand, but that doesn’t necessarily mean only bad events.

So it was that I spent 24-ish hours in Lancashire and went to see Elbow at the Lytham Festival. (Lytham St Annes is Blackpool’s posh southerly neighbour.) Not deeply acquainted with their work, and apparently younger than their average fan, but it was nice enough to breathe some fresh sea air and have some fish and chips and stuff, and the show was good too. Towards the end of the evening, suddenly everything went all dewy.

Stayed in Preston, and felt smug comparing the long queue for the Lytham–Blackpool bus to much the shorter one for Preston. Preston Bus Station is gorgeous, by the way, deserving of its mythical status.

Caught the FlixBus 030 from Preston to London. I have some beef with the German intercity mobility brand, but the journey was fine, and I won’t bore you by moaning about their flawed seat reservation system and how I hadn’t paid the extra pound to reserve a seat and was slightly ungracious about moving for the lady whose reserved seat I’d unwittingly stolen.

Finished reading The Bug by Ellen Ullman. It’s very much the sort of thing you’d think I’d enjoy; yes, it’s about people, novelly things, just as much as it’s about software engineering, but I’m a person too, remember.

There was the head (and some body) of a sardine on the Tesco Express self-checkout. Unexpected item, not quite in the bagging area, it was next to the barcode scanner, and it was cool how the sardine had evolved its silver skin to blend in with the brushed stainless steel surface.

Some of the product names on Amazon are the way they are, like “unisex bicycle doorbell”, for interesting reasons no doubt.

If they’re not too big, you can get things delivered to an Amazon Hub Locker – you see them at railway stations and petrol stations and supermarket car parks, places of that nature. Usually there’s a bit where you try to scan a barcode, or key in a code on a touchscreen keyboard, and after an indeterminate amount of time a door of the locker swings open, hitting you in the head, revealing your parcel.

But this week I had the pleasure of using a better kind of locker, which uses Bluetooth to pair to the app on your phone, which can be done while you stand back a safe distance, and I was really delighted not to be hit in the head.

Some work. Doing some modern JavaScript stuff. I know what Hooks are in React now, they seem neat. And there’s optional chaining now‽

The goal is to redo all the maps on bustimes.org using the modern stuff. The end result might be, by some measures, worse and more bloated than before, but also better in other ways. And I’ll feel less stagnant, more dynamic and employable.

Went to Thetford, where they’re really quite excited about being the birthplace of Thomas Paine, a historical figure best known these days from various guys’ Twitter profile pictures. Went there mainly to see some live comedy, headlined by Paul Sinha who’s the famous star of TV quiz The Chase, which is also the name of a value chain pub in outer Thetford, a coincidence that went unnoticed.

Finally tried Adrian Chiles’s soda bread recipe. And, how can I put this without using the dreaded “moist”? It wasn’t wet, but I think it wasn’t dry enough. Anyway, soda bread is nice sometimes, but when there’s plenty of yeast about (as there is these days) use it.

Found two unused lateral flow tests in the chest of drawers. The first one, I clumsily spilt the buffer solution on the table; the second, I tested positive for the novel coronavirus, which is not so novel any more (late to the party as ever).

Oh well, quite good timing I suppose, hadn’t made any plans so didn’t have to cancel any. There’s no law against going out and infecting people these days, but I didn’t feel like going anywhere. And after a just a few days I stopped coughing and started feeling better, what a lucky fellow I am.

Got a newer digital watch that can measure one’s blood oxygen level, and was reassured that my blood is full of oxygen. Technology! Not knowing my normal blood oxygen level as a baseline, I didn’t find it that useful actually, but … the screen’s a bit bigger than the old one.

Noises! Thought a neighbour had a noisy washing machine, until I realised it was a pair of Chinooks flying overhead. Then, some cockneys who’d hired a boat and moored it outside were running the boat engine overnight, the money saving mindset too ingrained to countenance paying for an electric hookup at the yacht station half a mile upstream. These are just observations, not complaints – I slept soundly.

📺 Sherwood is quite affecting. Yes, I too was expecting a biopic of Tim Sherwood, but it’s something else altogether, at least he hasn’t turned up yet, ha ha.

📻 A few great calls in the last hour of Saturday’s Allan Beswick radio programme (moon dust, jigsaw puzzles), but then a racist child phoned up and blurted out some hate speech – that’s what happens when you have austerity and close all the youth clubs – so it’s not available for listening again on the BBC Sounds.

😞

Some work.

• The railway timetable data did disappear just as I said it might.

• Mentioned in the latest Buses magazine. Morrisons has fixed its barcode database so it no longer scans as Barbie magazine, by the way.

• It’s not the main thing, but maybe, as the owner of the #3 UK “ground transportation” website (according to the deeply dubious Similarweb) I stand to benefit in some small way from the upcoming rail strikes. Anyway, ✊.

Went to a bit of a local technology conference, a bit of which left me fizzing with ideas, but with regret I didn’t feel like spending the hottest day of the year in a big room of nerds so instead I stayed in the shade, did some laundry, things of that nature.

Bought some things on the internet, yes in this economy, which could be a response to the trauma of a weeping fig (ficus) plant shedding most of its leaves last week? Well I could afford them, lucky me, and I have no regrets.

Most of all, a bicycle. The folks at Tredz Bikes are minimalist in their use of packaging materials, but they seem to know what they’re doing – some crucial sellotape had come unstuck, leaving the box flapping open, but it didn’t matter as the bike was uninjured. And now I know how to use a torque wrench, because it wouldn’t do to have an over- or under-tightened screw on your handlebars.

🎦 Morbius, the film of the summer. Now I’m not going to pretend it was good, but … it didn’t disappoint, I had a nice time, and there’s something to be said for being able to enjoy even mediocre things. Imagine how much my tiny mind would be blown by an actually good film.

Only three other Morb-heads in (although there’d been several more seats blocked out in the interactive seat picker). One left before the mid-credits scenes, and they didn’t miss much.

Elton John had his little piano sing-song next door. I was slightly annoyed by the diesel generators that were continuously running outside my window for a few days, but now there’s just silence and it’s all forgotten. Hope everyone had a jolly time.

To “Laugh in the Park”. I don’t much like that name, but it was three evenings on the trot of live comedy in a big tent, you know, Edinburgh works-in-progress. On the final evening, in front of me sat the worst people – they kept getting up, going away, coming back, and conversing deeply, in a little world of their own. Even when a performer noticed and called them twats, they didn’t snap out of it. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but couldn’t help but be distracted.

Bit under the weather now. Tested negative for the corona, but I don’t know, maybe I didn’t swab my nostrils properly.

Some work. The website gets better. And I took some time to fill in some test coverage gaps, cos that’s a satisfying little game, and in so doing I found and fixed some bugs – brilliant, the process works.

Oh and my latest sort of high availabilty setup finally got put to the test in in a real scenario: one server went a bit wrong overnight (Varnish spookily started listening on the wrong port) and another seamlessly took over as designed, and I was asleep the whole time, brilliant, we’re close to regaining some nines.

Forgot I’d locked a bicycle badly outside a Japanese restaurant, and when I went to retrieve it a week later the front wheel had been nicked. Actually, the thief had gone to the trouble of replacing it with a different wheel – a too-small wheel from a mountain bike, with a flat tyre, so completely useless, but I guess it’s the thought that counts?

It’s gruelling wheeling a one-wheeled bike home, looks a bit funny. And I was reminded that some places you’d expect to sell wheels only deal in posh lightweight racing ones. Started to wish I’d taken up unicycling. Haven’t bothered reporting the crime to the police.

Without wanting to dox myself, the Killers had a little gig on the football pitch outside here, and it was great fun seeing all the dozens of lorries delivering bits of stage and everything. Most interestingly, Elton John’s playing in a few days, but they’ve already dismantled the Las Vegas rockers’ stage rather than keeping it for the Rocket Man singer. But the Pimm’s and prosecco stalls by the entrance haven’t moved.

As for the music, well, I don’t know much about acoustics but I think sound sounds better when you’re inside the stadium it’s coming from rather than outside of it, but it’s OK. A small part of me’s almost tempted to finagle a ticket to see the Candle In The Wind singer now, but at what cost?

🎦 The Man with the Golden Gun, in which Roger Moore wears some horrible clothes. It’s not one of the best films but ah well. One reviewer says it “suffers from double entendre-laden dialogue”, which feels like a misuse of the word “suffer”. (Missed the start, embarrassed again by there being no adverts or trailers, which I’d’ve known if only there hadn’t been some last week.)

This is definitely an unoriginal point, but acronyms can be confusing can’t they, “assigned cop at birth”, “all males are bastards”.

Down by the river I saw the cutest thing, (and also) a brood of ducklings swimming closely behind their parent, using their innate knowledge of fluid dynamics to conserve energy. And then a team of rowers came thundering along in their skiffs, and with a clatter of oars they smashed the ducky babes to pieces.

The slipstreaming fluffy dears reminded me a tweet there was, actually a screenshot of a Facebook post about bad dudes on their racing bicycles creepily following a lone woman, and I wondered if that ever happens among the birds in the water.

The big bustimes.org news is … trains.

If you think such a development is as easy as clicking my heels (or a mouse) and making it so, I’ve got news for you … actually it sort of was. The railway timetable data just appeared without warning in the London region of the Traveline data (L.zip), amid the existing buses, tubes, etc. I did have to do a bit of work to match the ATCO codes in the timetable data to the ones in NaPTAN

and the same for the operator codes

minor discrepancies which I guess they’ll fix properly in time. But that was all.

Of course it all might disappear just as suddenly as it appeared. I could go further, add some real-time information and stuff, but that would take actual effort, and there are already a dozen great websites and apps (like Realtime Trains) which only a fool would try to compete with.

The main ramification is you can log more non-bus journeys to Busmiles, in addition to trams and ferries, if that’s the kind of pointless fun you find fun. RailMiles is still better if you want to account for the way the tracks are curved and trains don’t go straight between stations like flying crows.

Predictably, some emails asking me if buses were running as usual on the bank holiday. To which an answer is “I don’t know, they’re probably on a Sunday (or maybe Saturday) timetable … I could Google it for you, but so could you.” But I’m not complaining, it’s always nice to hear from people.

Proud of the lack of flags or bunting festooned anywhere around the building here. My people!

I’ve not followed the jubilation coverage (let’s say I’m saving it to watch later, so no spoilers please), but on Twitter I saw a picture of a bus (one with a local connection no less) decorated with a bizarre sort of cod–Cold War Steve collage of celebrities, one of whom was Billy Connolly but I initially thought was David Davis, what a thing to think. And it’s funny that there’s a Five Guys outside St Paul’s Cathedral.

Had to drive a motor car, which I can but usually don’t do. Good poets don’t drive cars, but how is that relevant? I’m not a poet. Anyway, big up the Enterprise Car Club, whose app I have some complaints about but otherwise worked well. A few humiliating moments, before I remembered how a clutch works and thought to push the seat back to make enough room for my legs. No-one beeped their horn at me, no trauma, and oh I was patient and generous when overtaking bicyclists. Now the next time I have to drive a car, whenever it comes, will be less daunting.

🎦 Diamonds Are Forever. Turns out the Odeons are showing the Bond films just slightly out of sync with the Vues, which is handy, big up capitalism.

Alas, it’s beginning to seem like I might never get to see Morbius on a big screen, so much for the summer thereof.