Notes

Headed back to Glasgow, via a highland winter wonderland. Stopping at Dalmally, the train is greeted by Angus, the station dog.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.

Robert Louis Stevenson captures my sentiments perfectly, as yet again, I find myself sat aboard the Caledonian Sleeper, and headed for Scotland.

HISBE’s ‘refill bar’ is such a great idea! Using this to replenish washing detergent and other cleaning fluids should go some way to helping me reduce my plastics consumption in 2018.

“Events, dear boy, events”

That was the answer I gave Kate when she asked me why I thought Brexit might not happen. This was Harold Macmillan’s response when asked what he thought would most likely knock a government off course – although some dispute whether he ever actually said this.

At the time, I had wrongly attributed this to James Callaghan, having confused it with A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on, which he said in an address to the Commons. But variations of this phrase have been around since the 18th century.

Where’s a Winston Churchill quote when you need one.

Currently watching series two of The Crown. Claire Foy’s impersonation of the Queen is impeccable, matched only by Bertie Carvel’s embodiment of Robin Day. Both are genuinely believable – unlike HMY Britannia, whose CGI reminds me of that used in Titanic, twenty years ago.

Wait for More Bumping

Michael Lopp on how to write:

Randomly think of a thing. Let it bump around your head a bit. If the bumping gets too loud, start writing the words with the nearest writing device. See how far you get. The more words usually mean a higher degree of personal interest. Stop when it suits you.

Wait for time to pass and see if the bumping sound returns. Reread what you’ve written so far and find if it inspires you. Yes? Write as much as you can. No? Stop writing and wait for more bumping.

This perfectly articulates what I was trying to get across in my last post. This bumping sound can too often get drowned out by the sound of tweeting.

Fixing my Feeds

After reading Robin’s re-introduction to RSS, I decided to make Feedbin my feed manager of choice. I had been using a self-hosted instance of Fever for many years, but since this is no longer supported, I moved1 my subscriptions over to Feedly at the beginning of the year.

As a piece of software that operates mainly in the background – Reeder is where I spend most of my day – I was willing to put up with Feedly’s many quirks. But then I tried Feedbin. The difference between the two is like night and day. Feedbin is not only usable, but damn right gorgeous to boot! I guess the adage is true: you get what you pay for.

This move has prompted some other RSS related news, in that I’ve fixed my XML and JSON feeds, and redirected legacy URLs to their canonical locations. It can’t have been fun subscribing to my site recently, as I fiddled and fumbled while adding support for micro posts. I think I’m happy with everything now, but no promises.

Anyway, for the avoidance of doubt, you can subscribe to my site using your syndication format of choice:

How very Web 2.0.

  1. That’s right, data portability. Another fabulous feature of RSS. ↩︎