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The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.

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3:12pm on Saturday, 12th September, 2026:

Bettison's Tower

Anecdote

There's a folly in my home town called Bettison's Tower (or Bettison's Folly).

It's only open on one day a year. This year, it's today.

As I happen to be in my home town this weekend, visiting my stepmother, this morning we paid it a visit.

You can climb up it using ladders inside. It's an easy climb, holding onto ropes, but a tricky descent as you have to get back onto the ladders before you can come down.

It was worth it, though, becuase the views are great!

The tower was reputedly built in order that the servants of the owner could see when he was coming back from Hull, so they could have his meal ready when he arrived. Unfortunately, there's a tree in the way now, so I couldn't check out whether Hull Road is actually visible from the top.

All the years I spent growing up in Hornsea, and I had to wait until I was 66 to go up Bettison's Folly. I'm super glad I did, though!

7:42am on Friday, 11th September, 2026:

Croak

Anecdote

Now my online puzzle, Plaitword, is urging me to kill people.

Who needs manipulative AI when random numbers can perform just as well?

9:32am on Thursday, 10th September, 2026:

Wheelie Bins

Anecdote

Wheelie bins have finally been rolled out (boom boom!) to our part of the village. No longer do we have to put our waste in black (regular waste) or clear (recycleable waste) bags, which can be torn open by foxes for fun. Now, we get to put it in wheelie bins, which can be pushed over by teenagers for fun.

I quite like wheelie bins. They hold a lot more than the sacks — which we had to pay for with our own money — ever did, and they can take more awkward shapes. Large pieces of cardboard will fit.

We already had a wheelie bin for garden waste— which we had to pay for with our own money — but we didn't have to pay for the new, bag-replacement bins. Other parts of the country have had wheelie bins for years, but Colchester's residents put up a stiff resistance to them on assorted grounds that were all flimsy covers for "they're not what we're used to". Anyone who has a genuine problem with wheelie bins (say, being too infirm to use them) can receive special treatment and stick with using bin bags.

Some parts of the country have a wide variety of wheelie bins, with different colours for different uses. Glass in one coloured bin, paper in another, plastics in a third, food waste in a fourth, unrecyclable stuff in a fifth, garden waste in a sixth, and probably more, too. Colchester has small crates for glass, and kerbside caddies for food (with a fox-proof, if not teenager-proof, lid on them). The garden waste bins we had to pay for with our own money are brown. The new bins are both black, but one has a green lid.

The green-lidded one is for "dry recyclables", which is the council's way of saying you shouldn't put stuff you just washed or should have just washed in them. They're for paper, cardboard, plastics and metals. The black-lidded one is for everything not covered by some other bin or crate. We put them out on alternate weeks, because that saves on collections (i.e. refuse collectors). The recyclables bin probably holds more like a month's worth of recyclables at the rate we produce them, so I'm not complaining. Sometimes, in the old, clear-bag days, I would skip a fortnight for plastics because the bag had so little in it that it would have blown away in the wind.

As both the new bins are both black, just with different-coloured lids, this means that people who don't keep track of which week is for household waste and which is for recyclables can't just look outside to see rubbish everyone else has put out: they'll have to get closer to check the lid colour.

Our first pick-up was this week and went well. We obeyed the instructions to put household waste in bags before dumping the bags in the wheelie bin "to keep it clean inside", but not using bags for reyclables "so the bin holds more". These edicts are almost certainly to do with how the bins' contents are processed, rather than the convenience of citizens.

Here's a photo of the van that was actually delivering the bins. I'm a roving reporter!

No dismembered body parts were put in any of the bins this time round, but give it time.

8:42am on Wednesday, 9th September, 2026:

What We Did Before

Anecdote

I was invited to give two podcasts recently. I mentioned one of them on Sunday, and the other (which was actually recorded first) is now available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCBE6WUb8X8. The "Apple/Spotify version" is at https://pod.fo/e/5e1b80; the quotes are because I don't use either of those services so don't know what the "/" implies.

This one is more about the history of MUD, being on a channel called What We Did Before. It's much more tightly-edited than the previous one, so my rambling asides are heavily cut and the lengthy qualifications I made to some remarks are omitted; as a result, I seem somewhat more strident than usual. I'm not sure the ordering of the questions is the same, or indeed the wording of them, but it's been done in good faith and gets across the points well, given the 35-minute format. Unlike President Trump's reaction to the BBC's editing of one of his speeches, I shan't be suing for $10,000,000,000.

I haven't watched all the video, because not only do I not watch anyone else's podcasts that are longer than two or three minutes, I don't watch the ones I feature in for longer than that, either.

9:18am on Tuesday, 8th September, 2026:

Ye Foraye

Weird

As the Bayeuax Tapestry is now safely back on home shores, here's the first panel of a cartoon in Punch from 1848:

I don't know what the context is; if you were around in 1848, it'll probably be obvious to you.

I thought I'd blog it, because it's my steadfast belief that all maps of barely-known parts of France should be marked "Here are poodles".

8:25am on Monday, 7th September, 2026:

Lo

Anecdote

The reading on our electronic bathroom scales started to state the weight then flash "Lo". After a while, the delay betweeen its giving the weight and flashing "Lo" grew shorter and shorter.

Assuming the "Lo" wasn't of the "and behold" variety, I replaced the batteries. It stopped saying "Lo", but I immediately gained 2kg,

So, next time I need to lose weight in a hurry, I know what to do: put old batteries in the bathroom scales.

8:39am on Sunday, 6th September, 2026:

TPIF Podcast

Anecdote

A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed for a podcast. It was supposed to be an hour long, but eventually it lasted two hours. You can see it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw27N08xtQg if you're interested. You're sure to find something in there with which to disagree!

Most podcasts ask me roughly the same questions, but they don't let me ramble for two hours.

8:12am on Saturday, 5th September, 2026:

Not Trained

Weird

The Essex County Standard isn't the only local newspaper capable of mangling tragic headlines.

This is yesterday's front-page headline from its sister paper, the daily Colchester Gazette.

I had to work to parse that as intended.

8:30am on Friday, 4th September, 2026:

Doghouse

Weird

In the UK, you don't see many tall towers with advertising hoardings perched at the top, but in Spain they're all over.

However, you don't see many of them that are guarded by dogs.

8:42am on Thursday, 3rd September, 2026:

'Tis the Season

Weird

This is one of several such displays I encountered in Sainsbury's yesterday.

"'Tis the season"? So the season is four months long now? It's nearly two months to Hallowe'en.

At least they haven't started playing Christmas songs over the PA system yet.

8:13am on Wednesday, 2nd September, 2026:

Rent by a Bear

Weird

It would be the same these days. Passers-by would video the renting.

8:49am on Tuesday, 1st September, 2026:

Bricks

Weird

Here are two photographs of part of the water tower that dominates Colchester's skyline:

The top one is the general view; the bottom one is zoomed-in. As you can see, some of the bricks have initials on them.

The story goes that there were arguments between the governing parties of Colchester when the tower was built. The Liberals were for it, the Conservatives against. The Liberals won, but the Conservatives weren't finished in their objections. When the Liberals wanted a ceremony to mark the start of building work, the Conservatives complained about how unnecessarily expensive it would be, and dug in their heels. The Liberals had to raise separate funds just for the ceremony, which took time, but this still didn't please the Conservatives. The Liberals said OK, we'll have an opening ceremony without you, at which point the Conservatives caved in.

Meanwhile, the building work had continued apace. By the time the local politicians had agreed to have a ceremony, commemorating their contibutions with bricks bearing their initials, the building was already quite high. They had to climb up ladders and scaffolding wearing their best suits and top hats in order to lay their bricks. This was nevertheless preferable to chiselling out their initials themselves on lower bricks.

So it is that the initials of the councillors who were involved in the construction of Colchester's water tower are on bricks 20 feet up in the air.

This is all according to the guide who showed us around the tower when we went up it last month. I'm sure he didn't embellish his explanation in the slightest.

8:45am on Monday, 31st August, 2026:

Perfect for Barbecues

Weird

Seen in our local Co-Op:

I don't think a Mars bar ice cream would last long on a grill, but I'm willing to give it a try.

If it doesn't work, I'll eat the rest raw.

9:15am on Sunday, 30th August, 2026:

Reference

Weird

Going through Volume II of Designing Virtual Worlds, I found myself in need of an academic paper that told me how many abandoned villages there are in England. I knew it was somewhere around 3,000, but didn't have a reliable source.

I typed the following into Google, trusting its AI to do the legwork:

"I want an academic quality research paper that states how many abandoned settlements there are in England. It's fine if they're restricted to a particular era or county."

It certainly delivered. It produced a .pdf with exactly the information in it that I needed. It was perfect, except for one problem: the AI had written it itself, on the fly.

Next time I want to find an academic paper in a field that isn't my own, I shall be adding the words "peer-reviewed" to my prompt.

8:31am on Saturday, 29th August, 2026:

Good Grief

Weird

This is on the front page of this week's Essex County Standard:

Much as the grieving family has my sympathies, I was somewhat distracted by the grammar.

Still, it all goes to show that AI hasn't yet reached the offices of our local weekly newspaper.

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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).