I don't know what they'd make of these.
The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:19am on Thursday, 26th March, 2026:
Outburst
Facebook has put in some new kind of feature to limit spam. You can't post anything too soon after you last posted something.
I don't know how long "too soon" is, but I couldn't post a reply to a comment on my own post after three hours, nor could I post a reply to a different comment on a different one of my posts nine hours after that.
Why is replying to comments on my own post considered spam? Why is commenting directly on my own post considered spam?
It's as if these people don't want their social network to be buzzing (except with ads).
8:44am on Wednesday, 25th March, 2026:
Weird
Some people who are against making coats out of animal furs are also against making coats out of artificial furs, on the grounds that wearing these encourages people to wear the coats made of animal furs.
I don't know what they'd make of these.
8:42am on Tuesday, 24th March, 2026:
Weird
When I was at school, we were taught how roads were made out of different layers of materials.
Today's schoolkids don't have to be taught, because potholes enable them to see how roads are made with their own eyes.
8:23am on Monday, 23rd March, 2026:
Weird
If someone had asked me to guess what this British Sign Language word meant, I wouldn't have said "monkey".
8:23am on Sunday, 22nd March, 2026:
Anecdote
I was awoken yesterday morning at about 6:15am by the chirping of a smoke detector that is running out of battery.
I could have got up and shut it off, but this particular smoke detector is in a really awkward position above the stairs, so I thought I'd sleep through it and fix it later. I judged that my attempts to shut it off would be more of a disturbance to the other three adults in the house than a chirp every minute or so would be (the time between chirps varied). This is because when I replace a battery in the smoke detector, it gives off a shrill, piercing, full-on beep that's so loud it would disturb anyone within twenty metres (except, perhaps, my wife if she was reading a book at the time).
Anyway, an hour later I got up, fetched a chair and removed the batteries. I didn't replace them, because of the aforementioned shrill, piercing, full-on beep it would give off.
The chirping continued.
My wife, who had been roused by my attempts to extract the batteries, suggested that it wasn't this smoke detector that was at fault, but the one on the ground floor below it.
This one is even more annoying, because it needs a screwdriver to get it out and to access the batteries. I could get it off by standing on the stairs, though, so armed with my electrical screwdriver I had a go at it. I took it into the garage to dismantle, so its chirping wouldn't disturb anyone.
I emerged back into the house proper and the chirping continued.
It was at this point that my wife reminded me that I had a smoke detector in the office where all my computer equipment is permanently pluggedin.
Another chair, another struggle with a battery, and the chirping finally stopped.
Once everyone was up (which was a lot earlier than usual for some reason), I replaced the two AAA batteries in the hallway's smoke detector, the 9v battery in the office smoke detector, and the two 9v batteries in the upstairs smoke detector, which needs two because it doubles as a carbon-monoxide detector.
It gave off a shrill, piercing, full-on beep. Furthermore, it did it twice, once for each battery. The noise was so loud that it hurt my ear, and I can still feel a dull pain there this morning as it heals.
Why do these smoke detector batteries always fail when I'm asleep? Why can't they fail when I'm awake?
Hmm, instead of saying that the smoke detector chirped, I should have said that it cheeped. Then, I could have said that three 9v batteries and two AAA batteries aren't "cheap", and so finished with aplomb.
8:02am on Saturday, 21st March, 2026:
Weird
Looking at the contents of this person's recycling crate, I deduce that they like Pepsi.
10:38am on Friday, 20th March, 2026:
Weird
These home-made warning signs have been popping up locally to warn drivers of potholes.
They're probably seventeen different kinds of illegal, but they do provide a useful public service.
They wouldn't be necessary if the council provided the useful service of filling in potholes before they got to be 15cm deep, of course.
8:48am on Thursday, 19th March, 2026:
Anecdote
Following on from yesterday's post, here are two more patterns I've photographed in the past few months.
It's not art because I say it isn't.
8:16am on Wednesday, 18th March, 2026:
Miscellaneous
Some patterns I've photographed in the past few months.
It's art because I say it is.
8:30am on Tuesday, 17th March, 2026:
Weird
It seems that 1950s firemen had a more dangerous job than they realised.
8:37am on Monday, 16th March, 2026:
Anecdote
Three years ago, I went to a restaurant and spotted a typographical error in the menu:
I went again yesterday, and was curious to see if they'd fixed the spelling when they increased the prices (which they were sure to have done).
Sadly, however, it was a special "Mother's Day Menu" that didn't resemble the regular one in the slightest.
I see this as a plot to make me go back in another three years. This is how these places drum up custom.
8:38am on Sunday, 15th March, 2026:
Weird
While scouring the web sites of assorted pub restaurants recently, I came across this:
I think it's fair to say that they didn't use AI to create that image.
9:39am on Saturday, 14th March, 2026:
Weird
I don't know who designed this end-game raid in London, but they could have been a bit more subtle with the naming convention.
8:21am on Friday, 13th March, 2026:
Anecdote
Back in November, I went to pick my daughter up from the garage where she'd dropped off her car for a service. Unfortunately, I went to the wrong garage, and upon entering its car park there I found it full. Furthermore, it was extremely tight. Rather than risk reversing out and scraping my car or hitting a jutting-out Mercedes, I decided I'd better do a three-point turn, except with more points.
I must have done around seventeen points in the turn, but when I started to head out it transpired I should have done nineteen and I scraped a door on a wall. Looking at the wall afterwards, in case I'd caused it any damage, it was apparent that I wasn't the first driver to scrape a door on it.
Annoyingly, my wife was in the car with me at the time, so I couldn't invent someone else to blame. It was my fault.
I asked MG if they did bodywork repairs, and they said no; they did, however, recommend a repair shop not far from where they were based, so I went to that. They said they could replace the rear door for something like £2,700 — more, if I claimed it off my insurance. This seemed excessive to me, so I looked for some other places. The first one I found would do it for a thousand quid less, so I went with that.
I booked it in for the next week. It would take five days to fix, because they had to do a colour match. On the second day, I got a call telling me there was a problem. Apparently, the 2025 MG ZS+ Trophy hybrid has a different rear driver-side door to the 2024 MG ZS+ Trophy hybrid, and the replacement door they'd bought was falsely advertised as being 2025 when it was 2024.
They also said that there was a problem with supplies of this door. They're made in China, and are shipped over to the UK somewhat sporadically. I was told they'd keep a lookout for one, and would contact me when they found one. They warned that it could take anything from a week to a year for one to appear.
Come February, three months exactly after I scraped the door, I hadn't heard a peep from them. I emailed, asking if they'd forgotten me, but they hadn't. There were still no doors available.
I wasn't impressed by this, so did an Internet search myself for a 2025 MG ZS+ Trophy hybrid rear driver-side door. Immediately, a match came up on one of eBay's car-parts sub-sites. It looked fine, so I asked the body repair shop if it would do and they said yes. Their own eBay search was somewhat more general and didn't pick it up, apparently. Anyway, they ordered it, fixed a dent it acquired during transport, and last week they painted it and installed it.
It looks pretty good, although it doesn't have the fancy protective spray on it that the rest of the car does.
I wonder how long it would have taken them to find a door if I hadn't looked for one myself.
I wonder how soon I could have had my car fixed if I'd looked for a door earlier.
I wonder how long I'd have had to wait to get my door fixed if I'd left it a week before looking for a replacement myself, given that the boss of the company split from his wife and went on holiday to Egypt.
Oh well, it's nice and smart now, except for the dirt splashes it picked up the moment I drove it out of the repair works.
8:20am on Thursday, 12th March, 2026:
Anecdote
Sometimes, the words that come up randomly on Plaitword make some kind of bizarre sense.
So what are you going to do with it once you have it, eh? You don't know, do you?
Stupid program, bossing people around....
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).