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The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.

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8:10am on Friday, 24th July, 2026:

Berk

Anecdote

This ad is on a wall in Colchester:

The trouble with taking so many American TV programmes is that people replace some of their cultural heritage with that of the US. I don't know that many people under 30 would know what "berk" meant in English slang.

It's Cockney rhyming slang. Berkshire Hunt rhymes with ... .

We see the same thing with youngsters sticking up a middle finger, when the traditional UK version uses two fingers. You can't snarl "up yours!" with a middle finger; all I've ever heard accompanying it is "sit on this!", but then I don't watch much TV.

Mind you, I'm not a Cockney, either.

8:39am on Thursday, 23rd July, 2026:

Hollyhock

Anecdote

This hollyhock is growing out of a crack next to some steps alongside the main road in our village.

So hollyhocks are willing to grow between a couple of slabs of concrete where they're regularly fed on exhaust fumes, but they won't grow in our garden? What kind of masochistic plant are they?

I think it's a hollyhock, anyway. It's hard to tell when you've never grown one because they don't like your garden.

12:32pm on Wednesday, 22nd July, 2026:

Out in the Sun

Weird

This photograph of Prince George was released today:

So, how long has he been a vampire?

8:13am on Wednesday, 22nd July, 2026:

Wasp

Weird

My wife's been at the crochet again.

8:44am on Tuesday, 21st July, 2026:

Mat Matters

Weird

I have a plastic mat on the floor beneath my home-office chair, to stop it from damaging the carpet.

There are two consequences of this:
1) The chair damages the mat, so occasionally I have to replace it.
2) The mat damages the carpet, because it has spikes underneath it to stop it from slipping.

Following 1), I recently ordered a new mat from Amazon. Leaving aside the vast amount of packaging it came in, this is what it looked like:

On top of it are some blue gloves. The instructions told me that the gloves should be worn to unroll the mat, because of the spikes.

That's thoughtful. What was less thoughtful was the fact that the gloves were stuffed inside the mat, so I had to unroll it to get them. It would also have been handy if the instructions telling me to wear the gloves weren't themselves with the gloves.

Now, I merely have to flatten it by weighing down the corners and leaving it in direct sunlight for three hours.

We're sure to be getting another heatwave soon, I'll do it then.

9:05am on Monday, 20th July, 2026:

Quality

Comment

I was rooting for Spain in the World Cup final, so was glad they won. They're not great in attack, and the only match they impressed me in was the semi-final against France, but they weren't Argentina and that's all I required of them.

Argentina finally fell afoul of their fouling when they had a player sent off. It still took Spain extra time to beat them, but none of that would have been necessary had the referee dished out a yellow card earlier to stop Argentina's tacting of playing dirty before it took hold.

I didn't like the way FIFA handled the tournament:
- 48 teams was too many. The players had to play more games, and long-standing records fell because of this. Is Olise better than Pelé because he provided more assists? Pelé provided his six in a tournament that only had 16 teams, across six games; Olise's seven came from a 48-team tournament across eight games.
- Hydration breaks are a bad idea. They interrupt the flow of play and leave spectators with nothing to do except boo them. They're an excuse for giving US TV channels time to show advertisements. If the weather in a country is such that players will need hydration breaks, the tournament shouldn't be held in that country.
- Overriding red cards without due process is corrupt. Either allow all players who are red-carded to appeal their ban, or don't allow any of them to do so. Don't pluck out an obscure rule and apply it to one player, whose dismissal just happens to have been questioned by the host country's president.
- Extending half time beyond 15 minutes is against the laws of the game. If you want to put on a lacklustre show, fine, you have fifteen minutes for it. The World Cup final is the most-watched sporting event in the world, with maybe a fifth of the global population following it live: it doesn't need to be pepped up by extending the interval with a set of musical performances.

Oh well, we can have another shot at it in 2030.

Meanwhile, perhaps TV pundits can research an alternative to the word "quality". I was sick of hearing it by the end of the tournament.

9:28am on Sunday, 19th July, 2026:

Four Two Four

Comment

I wasn't intending to watch the World Cup third-place play-off yesterday, because I thought we'd get stuffed. However, my wife kept calling me through to see the goals, so I gave up and watched the second half.

Hmm, well it looked as if France took their semi-final loss worse than England did theirs. It also showed that England's squad has more depth than France's, and that Bellingham is amazing.

England scored four in the first half and two in the second; France scored four in the second. Four two four: that was the formation England used when it won the World Cup in 1966. Is that mere coincidence, or is it a portent?

It's mere coincidence. The universe isn't scripted.

Oh well, England won the match and Mbappé is set to win the golden boot, so both sides have something to be pleased about. The score made it look like a testimonial match for Didier Dechamps.

It just shows what football can be like if teams are allowed to play instead of being fouled whenever an attack is developing <glares at Argentina>.

8:43am on Saturday, 18th July, 2026:

Third Place

Miscellaneous

England has a friendly against France tonight. I don't think I'll be watching it.

We ought to field our B players, or our A players but out of position (Kane in goal, for example). That way, Mbappé can score a couple of hat-tricks and be awarded the Golden Boot.

I don't see that Messi should win everything in this World Cup.

Oh, and in the ongoung saga of our fibre-optic cable connection:
"We came to see if we can connect your property to our Full Fibre network yesterday.

The good news is we can, but we need an additional engineer and a hoist to safely work on a pole on private land which is too full, and we also need to install a new underground cable duct because the current one isn't suitable for your new fibre cable.

We're really sorry for the delay, but we're on it and will update you again in the next 10 days (we're usually much quicker).
We promise Full Fibre's worth the wait. It's the UK's most reliable broadband technology.
If we don't need to come inside your property to finish the job, we'll simply confirm when your service goes live. But if we do, we'll be in touch to book a follow up appointment once the work's done outside."

I guess they didn't bother with using a professional editor because that makes standard reply #8 look more authentic.

8:55am on Friday, 17th July, 2026:

Error 24

Anecdote

Earlier this week, our dishwasher stopped prematurely with an Error 24.

A little trip to the Internet informed me that Error 24 meant it couldn't drain. Given that the bottom of it was full of water, I had already deduced this. Fortunately, there were plenty of videos offering instructions on how to fix an Error 24.

Take out the trays the plates go on, OK, that's easy enough.

Remove the filter that stops bits getting into the gubbins. OK, I could do that, the water wasn't deep.

Use your industrial vacuum machine to take out all the water. Hmm. That would be the industrial vacuum machine I don't possess, then. I had to sponge it out.

Remove the weird-shaped piece of plastic shielding the impeller. I was worried I might break it, but it soon yielded to my brute strength and freed itself from its housing.

Feel around the impeller (which is basically a fan that works on water) and remove all obstructions. Oh. There were no obstructions.

If there are no obstructions, use a drain-unblocker. Right, well I did that, using half a bottle of the stuff that my wife kept under the sink ("Not that sink, the other sink!". It was that sink.)

Nine hours later, reassemble the machinery and try it again. OK, I did that. I gave the filter (which is like a highly perforated tin can) a nice clean, because it had a lot of fat on it, but not enough to impede the water flow.

Try the dishwasher again. I did it with a prewash, because I only needed to see if the water drained away.

Error 24 again.

Back to the Internet! If clearing the pipe doesn't work, you need to move the unit off the wall. Start by unscrewing interior panels to remove the motor, then switch off all power. Disconnect these wires first. I don't know what came next, but the impression I gained was that a bomb would go off if I didn't do it right.

Well, I wasn't going to get into dismantling a motor. I resigned myself to buying a new dishwasher.

Overnight, as I slept, it occurred to me that the amount of water at the bottom of the machine following the prewash test was much less than it would have used. It was draining, but something was stopping it.

Next morning, I got up and checked the filter. Something I had previously believed was a part of it turned out to be no such thing. This is what it looked like:

I don't know what it came off, but it must have fallen into the filter and prevented it from turning properly.

I took it out, my wife cleaned up the filter (unimpressed with my earlier effort), then we tested it on a prewash again.

It worked!

We filled it up during the day, and then ran it.

It did a prewash, because it remembered the setting, but it finished. I persuaded it to switch to a regular wash and set it off again.

Error 24.

Overnight, I once again worked on what had happened. It had definitely drained away the prewash, so the pipes weren't blocked. It then occurred to me that perhaps I hadn't reassembled it properly. I seemed to recall having had to turn the filter to get it out, but I hadn't turned it to get it in.

Next morning, just as my wife was about to spend half a day looking at dishwashers on the Internet, I tried twisting in the filter.

Something clicked, so I retreated and set the dishwasher going again.

It completed! No Error 24!

Our dishwasher in now serviceable again. I've no idea what that piece of triangular plastic came off, but I dare say I'll find out eventually when whatever it is falls apart.

In other news: "Openreach: We're sorry we couldn't get you connected today. The job is a bit more complex than usual. We are going to get it sorted though and promise Full Fibre's worth the wait. We'll be back in touch in the next few days.". They provided a link to a web site explaining what the possible problems might be: underground works; tree cutting; scaffolding may be required; road closures; gully services; specialist engineer is required to complete the work; permissions may be required. Strangely "bloke with a ladder was busy" isn't there.

8:03am on Thursday, 16th July, 2026:

Triangle

Anecdote

There's still no fibre-optic connection to our house. The installer said he'd come "after 9 o'clock", which if he ever does show up will be technically correct, but he certainly gave the impression he meant some time yesterday.

In other news, our village is currently suffering from roadworks. Here's the map.

It's basically a triangle. The red dots indicate where the roadworks are.

The one on Chapel Road is across the entire road and there are "road closed" signs to warn people they won't be able to get past. This is only true when there's no-one working there, because you can sneak past if there isn't a van in the way. For most of yesterday, it was indeed clear, although most people didn't know that because they obeyed the road signs and turned round before they found out. The roadworks are to fix a problem with a leaking water main.

The roadworks on Lexden Road are three-way, so we all have to wait in case someone wants to come out of the cul-de-sac. These are caused by the sinkhole I mentioned last week, which has yet to attract any repair crews.

The final set of roadworks are caused by BT Openreach, who are hooking up a new estate to the Internet. I guess the middle of the road is the only possible place they could have placed an access shaft. No cherry-pickers were in evidence, so this isn't the source of our Internet-connection woes.

We have to go to the supermarket today. I fully expect that in the hour we're out, the installer will return to finish the job.

7:24am on Wednesday, 15th July, 2026:

Cherry Picked

Anecdote

Well, I don't have my fibre-optic Internet connection yet.

The chap came round yesterday and installed everything, but he didn't connect the unit to the telegraph pole. This is because he's not allowed to use a ladder without there being a colleague present.

So, he didn't know that he was going to have to climb up a telegraph pole, even though everyone else whose house he has connected to the telegraph pole required him to climb the telegraph pole?

His colleague, it transpired, commanded a cherry-picker, so no ladder was necessary when he was present. He wasn't present, though, because he was installing someone else's cable. He would, however, be present later in the afternoon.

He wasn't. He couldn't make it because he had to go to an emergency. My guess is that "go to an emergency" is code for "go home because he overran".

We should be connected up this morning.

Yes, well we "should" have been connected up yesterday afternoon....

8:39am on Tuesday, 14th July, 2026:

Please Confirm

Anecdote

We're finally getting a fibre-optic Internet conenction down our road. Today is the day they install it in our house.

The village has had fibre-optic for a few years, but not our road: too few people wanted it. We have to use either BT''s ADSL service, which because we're seven miles from the exchange is pitifully slow (but reliable), or an airwaves connection operated by County Broadband, which is fast (but unreliable).

The original plan was for County Broadban to provide a fibre-optic connection that was staggeringly fast, but obtaining permission to dig up the streets delayed the process. During that period, Virgin Internet (which already had a licence from doing other towns) swooped in and installed fibre-optic cables. This put an end to the dreams of County Broadband.

Some time back, BT decided that using copper cables to connect to people's houses was slow and expensive, and got permission from the government to upgrade to fibre-optic. They had previously tried to do this in the 1980s, but the Thatcher government stopped it because rival operators such as Cable & Wireless complained it was unfair competition. We could have had a world-class fibre-optic network for forty years, but by mistaking infrastructure for a service, we didn't.

Anyway, BT Openreach began replacing phone lines with digital connections some time ago, and have eventually reached our road. There are people living in isolated hill farms in Wales that got it before we did.

The installation will be this afternoon between 1pm and 6pm. Openreach asked me to confirm by replying to their text message with CONFIRM. I did this. Then, a few days later, they asked me to confirm by replying YES. I did this. Meanwhile, M Group, which is sub-contracted to do the installation, asked me to confirm by replying Y. I did this. They also asked me to reply Y over WhatsApp. This I did.
BT itself didn't do this. They phoned me, and sent me a text with a code number in it to make sure they were they were speaking to the correct person.

If the installation doesn't work, I can still use County Broadband. If the installer manage to break the County Broadband line, I can still use my phone as a hotspot. I should therefore be able to report back on how it went tomorrow.

I think our landline phone might not work after this, though, so if you're one of the four people who ever uses it, call one of us on our mobile phone instead.

10:13am on Monday, 13th July, 2026:

Abacus

Weird

My younger daughter sent me this photo of an abacus she bought for her toddler.

First, it's a stretch to call it an abacus.

Second, some of those letter/picture combinations are, well, somewhat uncommon in wider toddler literature.

Orang utang! Paint! Quebec! Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer!

9:13am on Sunday, 12th July, 2026:

Bobby

Weird

You don't see many papier maché bobbies with pie-cut eyes around these days.

I came across it in an antiques shop. Apparently, it was used for advertising, although I don't know quite what it was hoping to sell.

Yours for a mere £120.

8:23am on Saturday, 11th July, 2026:

Prang

Anecdote

As I reversed out of my drive yesterday, I hit a stationary vehicle (a van). There was no-one in it at the time.

I'd switched the radio on, but it wasn't making a sound — and neither was the reverse proximity sensor. The camera that shows what's behind when I'm reversing wasn't on, either, although I'd only glanced at it anyway; I was looking in my mirrors, because there was a car coming up the road.

Anyway, after having struck the van, I returned to the house to assess the damage. It wasn't all that bad on either vehicle: a couple of scrapes on the corner for me and a dent on the wing for them.

As my handwriting is so bad, I wrote a note saying I'd hit the van and invited the driver to knock on our door to discuss the matter. I also said I was sorry.

Then, I went to buy some chips, which is what I was reversing out to do in the first place.

When I returned, the vehicle's owner was talking to my wife. He said not to worry about the damage, as his vehicle was always being hit down his road. He was only parked outside our house to do some plumbing work nearby. He didn't want to claim on insurance, or to accept any money for repairs; for him, it was just one of those things that happens to his vans. He said he was impressed by my honesty, because I didn't have to own up to having hit his van at all, he'd never have known.

I tried to give him some money anyway, but he wouldn't have it. We left on very good terms.

It''s good to know that there are still some really nice people in the world.

I didn't even get his name. If I had, I would have called him next time I needed a plumber, for sure!

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