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The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.

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8:42am on Saturday, 3rd October, 2026:

Phone Booth

Weird

When I was at Queen Mary University London for the BIGGI conference last month, I encountered this phone booth near Mile End tube station.

It's looked much the same for several years. I don't know who operates it (it's painted black, so it's not one of BT's), and the handset has been torn off its cable so it couldn't be used to phone anyone anyway. I think it may have once doubled up as an ATM, but I doubt it serves that function now.

However, judging by the rust at the bottom and the stains on the footpath, it does seem to be enjoying a useful existence as a public lavatory.

I'm sure all the students who come to QMUL to study are thrilled to have this authentic example of British culture right on their doorstep.

8:26am on Friday, 2nd October, 2026:

Not Every Thursday

Anecdote

It's not every Thurday that my evening meal consists of two three-sausages and ketchup butties followed by polishing off a tub of ice cream.

However, it's not every Thursday that my wife goes to a concert in Bristol with our elder daughter, leaving me home by myself.

8:26am on Thursday, 1st October, 2026:

Victor Hugo

Weird

I play Football Manager using procedurally-generated players, rather than real ones. Occasionally, the names it produces at random are somewhat familiar.

I had a hunch he'd show up.

8:46am on Wednesday, 30th September, 2026:

More

Miscellaneous

I don't know how this development in Southwark got its name, but I'd have thought there was quite enough London already.

Streets are often named for marketing purposes. It's an established practice in England for new estates to be made up of cutesy collections of mews, groves, vales, rises, chases, heaths, gardens and crofts, despite the roads in question's having no relationship to the meaning of any of those words. That doesn't mean it's a good idea, though.

The street I grew up on, The Crescent, actually was crescent-shaped. The developers could have called it The Arc if they'd been more mathematically inclined, but then they'd have had to have built a triumphal arch at one end to pacify francophiles.

8:33am on Tuesday, 29th September, 2026:

Lookups

Weird

When you go to the Merriam-Webster thesaurus site, it gives a running update of the top thesaurus lookups every 30 seconds. At times of low usage, the later ones in the top ten are usually arranged in alphabetical order, suggesting that only one person has looked them up in the past half-minute. As I write this, for example, the lower six are: accomplish, accuracy, altruism, amazing, balance and ban. This means that if they're not in alphabetical order, or they are but none begin with A, more than one person has looked the term up in the past thirty seconds.

Here's what I saw there a couple of days ago:

This was on a word-lookup page, so I only got the top seven of the top ten.

I don't know why more than one person was looking for a synonym of that fifth one on the list, nor do I want to know.

The lower six have now changed to: absorb, accountable, accuracy, achieve, afflict and amazing.

See how I used "lower" to avoid using "bottom" there.

8:38am on Monday, 28th September, 2026:

Simulator

Weird

Here's another weirdly alarming game that showed up in my Steam discovery queue recently.

I'm sure that the developers would hide behind the word "parody" if challenged about it.

8:34am on Sunday, 27th September, 2026:

Drone Show

Anecdote

Yesterday and the day before there was an evening drone show in Colchester's Castle Park. We didn't go to it, because it was themed for the story of Alice in Wonderland and meant for children, but we could see it from our house.

That's it, there, on the horizon.

Zooming in, it was possible to see some of the action. This is a mouse about to meet a dodo:

The view through my telescope was much better, as I could see the individual drones close-up. I needed a more stable base for it than one leg on a windowsill, though.

Most of the images were static, with movement coming from turning lights on and off (Cheshire cat fades leaving only its grin, smoke appears from a chimney — that sort of thing). I thought they'd maybe have used animation software to produce the necessary controls, but it was more a 3D-printing set-up by the look of things. Still, I might go to one if there's a better subject, as it does look the kind of thing that's worth seeing at least once.

The most important take-away is that I now know for sure where Castle Park is when viewed from our house.

8:05am on Saturday, 26th September, 2026:

Victims

Weird

From this week's Essex County Standard:

Does that include crimes against punctuation?

8:37am on Friday, 25th September, 2026:

Fudco

Weird

I saw this stand in Sainsbury's yesterday:

I recognise the name Fudco. It's the spoof title given to a fictitious media conglomerate invented by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar, who developed the first-generation virtual world Habitat (still playable, as NeoHabitat).

I wonder how much the Indian food company would pay for https://www.fudco.com/.

I wonder if they know the fictitious company's name came from "fear, uncertainty and doubt corporation".

8:22am on Thursday, 24th September, 2026:

Melts

Weird

Well this is useful to know.

I'm so glad that garden centres point out these things.

8:19am on Wednesday, 23rd September, 2026:

Sewers

Weird

I so read the word "sewers" in this BBC headline as "sewers".

8:25am on Tuesday, 22nd September, 2026:

Aaron

Anecdote

If you're going to dump a used coffee cup on a shelf in a homeware shop, maybe check your name isn't on it first, Aaron.

I would have taken it outside and stood it on the bonnet of his car, but there were several BMWs in the car park so I didn't know which was his.

8:34am on Monday, 21st September, 2026:

Three Emperors

Miscellaneous

The last time I went to the Colchester Book Fair, I bought a book, The Three Emperors, by Miranda Carter.

I soon realised I already had a copy of it and had read it, but this version seemed to have more content. It had been edited down for the edition I'd read earlier.

I know this is true, because I'm pretty sure I'd have remembered this description of Tsar Alexander III's funeral.

8:34am on Sunday, 20th September, 2026:

Version 2

Comment

Version 2 of the puzzle I presented yesterday seems to be the favourite, although none of them were received with wild enthusiasm. I won't be programming up a generator.

The answers, by the way, were:

Version 1
Across: YACHT, EVADE, DREAD
Down: YIELD, CRATE, TREAD

Version 2
Across: FABLE, EAGER, DELAY
Down: FIELD, BAGEL, EARLY

Version 3
Across: GROUP, UNDER, EARLY
Down: GAUGE, OLDER, PARRY

There were several possible answers for the first one, and possibly for the others, too.

Oh well, concocting them made a train journey less boring.

8:20am on Saturday, 19th September, 2026:

Puzzles

Comment

Here are three variations of a puzzle I came up with while bored on a Stratford to Colchester train journey last week.

They all have the same principle: a five by five crossword grid contains six five-letter words, but no clues are given as to as to what the words might be other than their vowels.

Version one. The vowels of the words are put in their correct places. You have to guess the words from this.

Version two. As version one, but you're also told what consonants are present. You're not told how many times each one appears.

Version three. As version two, but you are told how many times each consonant appears.

Which of these do you prefer, or are they all rubbish?

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