The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:45am on Friday, 13th November, 2026:
Weird
Seen on the back of a lorry:
If only there were a single word that could be used instead of the clunky "image recording technology".
Hmm, I may be going out on a limb here, but hear me out. I propose — and this is purely speculative — "cameras".
"Image recording technology" indeed. Jeez, whom are they trying to impress? Their message is even accompanied by an icon inspired by a Victorian-era bellows camera!
9:01am on Thursday, 12th November, 2026:
Weird
I don't know what happened to the regular tortoise on the left, but if it had escaped into the same pen as the giant tortoises I can guess.
8:25am on Wednesday, 11th November, 2026:
Weird
These bunnies are for sale in Marks & Spencer.
It's hard to believe that they're meant to look evil, but look evil they do.
9:00am on Tuesday, 10th November, 2026:
Comment
8:19am on Monday, 9th November, 2026:
Weird
I've noticed a lot of soft-toy apes and monkeys recently that are posed like this:
Quite why youngsters want to keep them prisoners in dungeons, I don't pretend to know.
9:08am on Sunday, 8th November, 2026:
Weird
Seen in Marseilles.
This suggests that elsewhere there's a Chapelle Mauvais Jésus, or at least a Chapelle Médiocre Jésus.
10:03am on Saturday, 7th November, 2026:
Anecdote
As long-term sufferers of my posts will know, I collect three things: antique playing cards; maps of Europe from 1869; issue number 4 of the comic Knights of the Dinner Table (which is 30 years old this year).
The reason I collect issue number 4 of the comic Knights of the Dinner Table is that there were two versions of it. The company that used to print them, Enteractive Facktory, was formed by the comic's author, Jolly R. Blackburn (yes, the R. is for Roger); however, running a comic-printing company wasn't his forté, so he sought another publisher. Kenzer & Company, run by David Kenzer, stepped in, and took over publication. This meant that two versions of issue #4 were published: one under the Enteractive Facktory name and one under the Kenzer & Company name. The EF one has font issues, including on the front cover; the K&C one is much more professional.
I already had one of these issue #4s, so wanted the other. I bought a copy on eBay, but it was the same as the one I already had. I bought another, and that was the same. By the time I got the one I wanted, I already had several of the other one, so figured I could keep on collecting them. I must have 20 or more by now.
Issue #4 is so old and (because there are two versions of them) so collectable that when they go up for sale on eBay they're usually close to $200 each. I don't buy those. The ones I buy are the ones put up by comic-book dealers who want a quick sale and put them up at a much lower buy-it-now price.
I was therefore pleased by not surprised to see a signed KoDT #4 for sale on eBay, along with signed issues of #2 and #3, for %57 including postage. I bought it, but when it arrived I found it wasn't signed; only issues #2 and #3 werre signed (one of them, twice). I was still pleased to get an issue #4 at a reasonable price, so wrote up a decent review but mentioned the missing signature.
The seller got in touch and said he did send the signed version. He attached scans to show it. I attached a scan to show it didn't have a signature, and asked if he'd sent the wrong one. He checked and he had, so apologised profusely. He offered to return $10 off the purchase price, but I asked him if I could keep it and buy the signed one as well. He agreed, so that's what we did.
When the signed one arrived, I was amazed. The seller felt so bad about his mistake (which I wasn't worried about, everyone makes mistakes) that he sent me two issues of #4 by way of a thank-you. Both were signed by Jolly R. Blackburn. One was the Enteractive Facktory version and one was the Kenzer & Company one. From having no signed copies, I'm now in the possession of two of them.
I wrote the seller a stellar review and thanked him for his generosity. He has a bunch of other early issues of KoDT he asked me if I wanted, but I politely turned the offer down as I don't collect those (and have copies already).
Kenzer & Company are reprinting some of their earlier issues, as they're so hard to find. Unfortunately, their distributor went bankrupt earlier this year so they've been sending subscribers digital .pdfs instead, but once they establish an alternative there'll be another version of issue #4 for me to buy.
I don't think I'll be collecting it, though.
8:31am on Friday, 6th November, 2026:
Weird
Sometimes, I wonder if antique shops deliberately put unnerving objects in their windows.
I don't know why they would, but it happens too often to be a coincidence.
8:34am on Thursday, 5th November, 2026:
Weird
I took this photograph in Poznan last year.
It wasn't until I saw the feet that I realised the statues were of headless people and not of extracted teeth.
8:57am on Wednesday, 4th November, 2026:
Anecdote
One of the problems I've had with doing my family tree concerns an ancestor called Edward Cooke.
He's my father's maternal grandfather, and he was something of a reprobate. He was imprisoned four times for neglecting his wife and children, having earlier appeared in court charged with the same offence (and drunkenness) but getting away with basically a fine. He makes regular appearances in the Gloucester newspapers as a result of these activities.
I hit a wall trying to find who his own parents were. I knew from his wedding certificate that his father was called John; the problem was that there were two candidates, both born in the right place (Cirencester) at the right date (1836), seven weeks apart, who both claimed at the time of their marriage that their father was called John.
The slightly older Edward Cooke is from a respectable family: John Cooke and Caroline Haviland. Caroline is descended from Thomas de Haviland of Guernsey, whose line was Norman nobility; he served with distinction at the recovery of Mont-Orgueil Castle in Jersey in 1471. Because of this, I can get as far back as Thomas in an unbroken line, 1130 with breaks and ultimately all the way to 1066 — if that's my Edward Cooke.
The slightly younger Edward Cooke is the child of an unmarried mother, Ann Cooke.
The Edward Cooke who wasn't my relative went on to live a completly unblemished life. He had three children, gave his age in the 1861 census (the only one in which he appears as an adult) as 25, and didn't end up in the workhouse.
The Edward Cooke who was my relative had eight or perhaps nine children (three of whom didn't make their first birthday), recorded his age in the census successively as 23, 32 and 46, and his final term in prison was precipitated by his going on the run for failure to pay the workhouse fees for his wife and family.
Deciding which of the candidate Edward Cookes was my ancestor proved problematical. The prison records were almost a help, in that they gave the age of Edward Cooke when he was gaoled, but unfortunately the two candidates were born so close together that their ages were the same at the times my Edward Cooke was imprisoned and released. Likewise, although the date of the 1861 Census fell between the two men's birthdays, the fact that one of them was a habitual liar means I can't trust what he said.
I was stuck at this point for many years, but a recent scan of the Gloucester Chronicle came to my aid. It turns out that my Edward wasn't the only Cooke who had a problem with the law. One Henry Cooke was arrested for beating up one Mary Ann Cooke in 1874. Mary Ann Cooke, née Manning, was Edward's wife.
It seems clear, then, that Henry was a relative of Edward's. The unmarried mother, Ann Cooke, only had one other child (a daughter she called Ann); the respectable family, John and Caroline, had a son called Henry who was two years younger than Edward.
I can therefore suppose with a degree of confidence that my Edward Cooke was the elder of the two candidates, and so was descended from a Norman baron. There's always the possibility that coincidence could interfere (the Henry Cooke who assaulted Mary Ann might have been no relation to Edward, for example), but the new evidence ftends to favour the elder Edward as being my Edward.
Although having a criminal ancestor is not something to celebrate, I have to admit that sometimes it does help with genealogy more than somewhat.
8:22am on Tuesday, 3rd November, 2026:
Anecdote
Well that's the first time I've been unable to remove the fuel cap on my car by hand. It was so stiff that I had to go home and use a wrench on it.
Now I have to decide whether it was a one-off or I need to keep a wrench in the vehicle.
I also have to remember that I still need to buy petrol.
8:58am on Monday, 2nd November, 2026:
Weird
The Doors of Durin, also known as the Elven Door, the West Door, the West Gate and the Hollin Gate, were forged during the Second Age by the dwarven smith Narvi, with writing on them courtesy of the elven lord Celebrimbor. They were the western entrance to the dwarven city of Khazad-dûm, or Moria to the elves.
The north door of St Edward's Church in Stow-on-the-Wold is flanked by two yew trees three centuries old. Without any concrete evidence beyond the fact that J. R. R. Tolkien lived in nearby Oxford and occasionally visited Stow-on-the-Wold, it is claimed that these doors were the inspiration for the Doors of Durin. They do bear some resemblance to his drawing of the Doors, so you can see why people made the association.
Here's a photo of them I took when we visited Stow-on-the-Wold last month:
It's at a poor angle because there were queues of people waiting to have their picture taken standing in front of the door, and I had little time between them for a clear shot.
They do look good, anyway, regardless of any connection with Tolkien.
9:03am on Sunday, 1st November, 2026:
Weird
In Burford church, there's this list of the town's vicars since 1200:
They can maybe fit another one it, b ut after that they're going to have to remake the whole tablet using a smaller typeface. Those vicars in the 1200s just didn't think this through.
8:24am on Saturday, 31st October, 2026:
Weird
I've seen longer user manuals.
Some of them have been in a large enough typeface to be read with the naked eye, too.
8:26am on Friday, 30th October, 2026:
Weird
Last year around this time I was in Poznan, Poland.
We went to a museum on one of the days and saw a suit of armour that was worn by the famous Polish Winged Hussars.
Judging by this photograph I took of the main street in the city, sometimes they still ride down it between the trees.
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).
