Week 236: floundering

Happy iOS 17. It/Safari has a hard-to-reproduce bug where sometimes WebGL just doesn’t work sometimes, which would be annoying if say you’d recently retooled some maps on a website to use MapLibre GL JS instead of Leaflet.

Tim Vine (a), Northampton. There’d been a change of venue from a reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete–roofed one to a more structurally sound one, which being larger may be why it was possible to get a ticket. It wasn’t that good, but it was nice be in the shoemaking capital of the East Midlands and see the spectacle of pen behind the ear in person.

Overheard, down by the river: “She’s into going out for dinner … I don’t get the point of it when I could make something just as nice and stay indoors. But I’m not like ‘fuck you Jamie Oliver’ or anything like that.” (I’m worried that I’ve not transcribed that perfectly, that I’ve become what I hate (inaccurate TV subtitles), but I think that’s more than the general gist.)

Went for the flu jab and got a bonus corona jab (Comirnaty Original) in the other arm too. So now I feel a bit achy, like the self-satisfied feeling of having had a long session in a gym, brilliant.

Watched some videos which didn’t really address the cause of the dual-flush toilet cistern sometimes continuing to trickle after flushing. They’re all about fitting a whole new flush valve, which might be inexpensive and necessary but feels unnecessary and wasteful. But I worked it out: the two rods/pegs that the push-to-flush buttons press down on can disengage from the buttons, leaving the rod stuck down a bit and the button unusually loose. I’m not explaining myself well, but it’s actually a bit like the gooseneck kettle power button saga from earlier in the month. I’ve made some adjustments and I think they’ve worked, and the pleasure of flushing a well-adjusted cistern almost makes you want to flush again and again just for fun.

An life-affirming hour or so in Great Yarmouth. Also a seagull went to the toilet over me, which is pretty unlucky if you ask me.

Before I go, some amazing stories about the floundering retailer Wilko:

• A while ago I needed some coir compost (it’s peat-free, and light enough to carry without a motor car). There was none at the local Wilko, but the website’s useful stock checking facility told me a different branch had some in stock, so I went there and bought some coir compost, brilliant.

• Also a while ago, on a local website I saw a banner advertising Wilco with a c, which is like a more obscure version of Halfords, possibly one of North East Lincolnshire’s main sellers of car batteries. I clicked and was directed to the website of Wilko with a k – how funny to imagine what series of misunderstandings led to that. And yet that free advertising on Wilco’s dime was not enough to save Wilko.

• I bought a garlic press the other day. (“£4. Someone’s earning!” Actually cheaper than Amazon.) And yet I know it’s much cooler to crush garlic without specialised equipment, or to slice it finely with a keen blade.