w/e 2020-06-07
This week we should have been in Italy for the wedding of some friends who live there. But, of course, no.
§ Sometimes it’s all a bit much isn’t it, [waves around vaguely] all this. He says from his peaceful rural idyll.
On the one hand, saying nothing could be read as quiet acceptance. On the other, whenever I try to write down thoughts about bigger issues, whether here or on Twitter, I read them back and they seem trite, incoherent, and a bit “sixth-form politics”. Which I rarely think when I read other peoples’ written thoughts so maybe it’s something I need to get over.
For now, let’s just say that Black Lives Matter, and that the British and American governments (among others) are incompetent, entirely self-interested fuckers and ugh, now I feel I should go to the common room to play some pool before Maths.
So, that said…
§ In wildlife news… Among the birds who went bonk into our windows this week was a lesser-spotted woodpecker, who sat on the doormat for a while, presumably feeling like I did when I banged my head a month ago. That was only a month ago! Time’s gone weird.
After a few weeks (days? months?) of silence from the loft we recently heard familiar night-time scampering and, after re-fuelling and re-positioning the traps, we caught the culprit which, for once, wasn’t a mouse but a little shrew. I’m now imagining Mark Heap’s Jim saying “a little shrewww”.
The squirrels usually spend their time digging holes in the grass on one side of the house. With increasing frequency we’ve seen them on the other side, where bird feeders hang from a tree. This week the squirrels have noticed this convenient supply of nuts that have been conveniently left above ground and they’ve started climbing the tree to get them. Sorry birds.
Finally, I entered my home office a couple of days ago to find what I think was a hornet crawling on the carpet. They’re HUGE. Not even a “so-called ‘Asian hornet’” but still alarmingly large.
§ After putting it off for months I’ve started moving a dozen websites from a shared hosting account at WebFaction to Mythic Beasts. WebFaction was bought by GoDaddy a while back and I assume the latter have little interest in maintaining a small, developer-friendly hosting platform. So I’m jumping before I feel pushed.
Thankfully none of the websites are too complicated, ranging from a handful of HTML files to some long-lived WordPress sites. I have a many-columned spreadsheet to keep track of the progress of the several aspects of moving each site. I will be glad when they’re all in their new homes. Touching DNS always gives me The Fear.
Over the past couple of decades my shared hosting has migrated from Pair to Textdrive to Joyent (a “lifetime” hosting account…) to Textdrive again to WebFaction and now to Mythic Beasts. Given the latter have been around for most of that period maybe I should have been there all along.
§ We finished watching season three of The Crown which continues to be entertaining. It also continues to portray a ridiculous way to partly run a country, and continues to be full of objectionable people and systems. I’ve started thinking of it as a slow and aristocratic version of Succession, except no one can jostle for the top job because it’s pre-ordained, so they can do nothing but get drunk, bicker, look resentful, count their golden ornaments, etc.
§ That’s all. Good luck out there.