Week 297: we've got you

Hard to believe that, in all my years of coming across things, I’d not come across the principle of least astonishment before.

This week I was mostly cold and doing front-end web development, swimming in a knot of complexity of my own making.

The National Express coach slogan “if you know, you go” is sound advice: go (to the loo) beforehand so you don’t have to use the centre sunken toilet cubicle on the coach. The Stagecoach bus slogan “we’ve got you” has sinister undertones and/or overtones: I’m sure it’s supposed to connote cosy “we’ve got your back” vibes, I think there’s even an advert with the Sonny & Cher song in it, but it reads a bit “gotcha”, you know, no one likes “getting got”.

On my occasional visits to the Merseyside region, I’ve had trouble with the Stagecoach ticket machines declining various payment cards – it’s frustrating, why won’t they take my money? On the first occasion the driver mumbled something something “get off”, not sure if it was “you’ll have to” or “try again when you” but I did neither; subsequently I used a different card until that stopped working. But it’s good to know I’m not alone – see this Railforums thread which bizarrely quickly descends into someone accusing someone of deliberate fraud. I feel like there might be a bug that’s causing false positives, wonder if they’re using a Bloom filter or something.

To leafy London again. What a lot of people ganning about with umbrellas there were, they’ll have someone’s eye out if they’re not careful. Fell asleep on the train home and said “crikey” upon being politely awoken.

Sometimes, when one goes to some bustling place on one’s own, there’s a mishearing and before one knows it one’s accidentally bought two pints of refreshing local cider, and one wouldn’t want to make a fuss and back out of the transaction. And although one is not enough, two is one too many.

Confidence Man … their star has risen and they’re playing bigger rooms than before. A nice time but I wish I’d arrived earlier and avoided the cider misunderstanding and stuff.