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Some work.
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Every bus stop around here has what’s called an ATCO code, like 2900N100 or 036006286286 or 3600SOC30941. The 290, 036 and 360 prefixes denote stops in Norfolk, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Somerset respectively. There are also NaPTAN codes, like NFOGTDGT or windjpj or sotagtpw, designed to be inputted more easily into a telephone keypad, but the ATCO code is the primary key.
It’s not great that you can have one like 036006286286, with a significant 0 at the start and no letters amongst the numbers, because sometimes resourceful people paste these things into things like Microsoft Excel, which helpfully notice when something looks a number and change it to 36006286286, and eventually that ends up “downstream” in some data.
Fortunately, there’s no stop in Somerset with the code 36006286286 for it to be confused with. Anyway, my reason for mentioning all this is that, after more than six years, I’ve noticed the phenomenon and quite quickly made it so bustimes.org is good enough to work out that, for example, a reference to the non-existent 36006286286 is probably meant to refer to 036006286286. What’s more, I now properly handle ATCO codes case-insensitively, which I can’t believe I wasn’t doing before.
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I’m running out of needlework like the above, so February could be the month I properly confront my white whale, bus fares. Which I sort of soft launched ages ago – if you know where to look, you can find some fare information on bustimes.org, and I and probably others have already made journeys informed by that – but there’s work to do.
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On the bus to a distant shed to retrieve a bicycle I left there not quite two years ago. What was I thinking leaving it there all that time? It’s a moist shed, and when a bicycle is left in a place like that, or anywhere else really, it goes a bit mouldy and stuff all congeals on the drivetrain etc. But it was short work to scrape and pump and lube it into working enough order to ride it home. What happens next, the reason for my finally bothering to get that bike out of that shed, will be revealed in due course.
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Don’t trust anyone who has any part of their name in common with a sort of curry.