The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:49am on Thursday, 1st January, 2026:
Anecdote
2025 sounded futuristic, but 2026 sounds like an ordinary, run-of-the-mill kind of year.
Normally at this point in the calendar, I look back at what blog posts were the most popular. I did indeed do that this time round. Sadly, though, they're incomplete.
In previous years, my web site's stats package has deleted the monthly stats every quarter. This time, though, it didn't, so safe in the knowledge that I could access the whole year any time I wanted, I didn't record them.
When I checked yesterday, it had changed its mind and deleted all but the stats for October to December. Splendid.
Oh well, here are the posts that had 240 or more hits on my QBlog site for the final quarter of 2025, ranked by the number of hits they received:
1082 I gave a presentation to some VR world developers https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog111125A.html
814 My notes for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog061025A.html
295 My wife telling me I didn't need to wake up https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog031025A.html
294 I had a flu jab https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog091025A.html
290 The BAFTA longlist https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog101225A.html
275 Men in lycra shout at me https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog131025A.html
260 The loss of Terra Nova https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog101025A.html
251 A nine-year-old girl has a sultry voice https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog021125A.html
240 My BAFTA voting thoughts https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog221125A.html
I chose 240 as my cut-off because my stats package only records the top 30 hits of whatever kind (including icons, landing pages and the like), and 240 was the highest number to be bottom of the 30.
In addition to these posts, there were two from the past that consistently bring in a good number of hits. Gawd knows why:
1154 How the look of playing cards has evolved over the past two hundred years https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2013/QBlog050413A.html
832 The Red-Nodes Clown joke https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2010/QBlog030510A.html
So, overall, then, I can improve my hit count by mentioning BAFTA and talking to people with a shallow knowledge of the history of virtual worlds.
I cross-post my QBlog entries on Facebook, so have another metric for measuring success (or, more likely, failure). The top posts by number of shares are:
8 Pope Lego XIV https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog271225A.html
5 A rip-offer is ripped off https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog290125B.html
5 I gave my final lecture wearing my PhD gown https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog300425A.html
3 A student's use of AI https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog300325A.html
3 I published Bhrēwā https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog060825A.html
3 Game Game Game https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog250925A.html
2 Pebble decorations https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog310325A.html
2 Application accepted https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog020425A.html
2 This Lemon Fancy has no icing! https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog040425A.html
2 Volume I of the 2nd edition of Designing Virtual Worlds is out https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog280825A.html
2 Take me to your leader https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog081025A.html
2 Fibreglass goats in Poznan https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2025/QBlog281025A.html
All the rest received 0 or, very occasionally, 1.
As far as Facebook is concerned, it looks as if publishing books, moaning about AI and making visual puns relating to faith leaders are the way to go.
9:33am on Wednesday, 31st December, 2025:
Comment
When I retired, I had visions of going on holiday more than once a year. We have plenty of savings, no work limitations and the whole world to see. More practically, there will come a time when we're too elderly to go on holiday, so we I was hoping to explore while we can.
We didn't go on holiday this year.
I doubt we'll go next year, either. My wife regards holidays as something you take to recover from work, and as we're not at work any more, we don't have to recover from it. If I nag her, we might get the odd few days away in the UK, but what with the grandchild and all, I don't envisage a ten-day trip along the Rhine, or even a long weekend in Copenhagen.
Oh well, at least I can play games on my computer whenever I feel like it!
10:09am on Tuesday, 30th December, 2025:
Weird
On the one hand, it's good to see that the guide dogs collection box in Sainsbury's sees a lot of use.
On the other, it's not good to see that it isn't on any of the store cleaners' routes.
9:10am on Monday, 29th December, 2025:
Weird
As is tradition, the day after Boxing Day our local Co-Op featured this display.
I tried to buy a packet, but the bar code hadn't been entered into the system. I had to buy a packet twice this size instead.
This is also tradition.
8:56am on Sunday, 28th December, 2025:
Weird
On Christmas Eve, we went to Sainsbury's and arrived just as a chap was pushing some shopping trolleys into the bay.
Even on non-busy days, it's often hard to get a small trolley rather than one large enough to carry three sacks of coal, and these were just the right size. I took the first one.
It was brand new. It was the smoothest, most responsive shopping trolley I've ever used. It had never seen rain, frost or people who habitually steer into bricks.
Looking at the handle, I saw it was a hire trolley:
There must be some company that keeps a warehouse full of perfect shopping trolleys all year round, to release them at the one or two times of year when every single supermarket doesn't have enough shopping trolleys.
If ever I find myself in possession of a large warehouse and ten thousand shopping trolleys straight off the production line, that's a business I'd like to get into. They must be able to charge a fortune.
8:24am on Saturday, 27th December, 2025:
Weird
8:33am on Friday, 26th December, 2025:
Weird
Oh well, Christmas is over for another year.
8:29am on Thursday, 25th December, 2025:
Weird
8:37am on Wednesday, 24th December, 2025:
Anecdote
When my wife and I were looking through photos to put on next year's calendar, we came across a good one of our younger daughter and grandson. Unfortunately, it was spoiled by the presence of a woman in the background.
"We could use it if it weren't for that useless woman", I said.
I meant "useless" in the sense of "not helping". Earlier, I'd described a van as being useless. It's my default way of referring to something in a photograph that would improve the photograph by not being there.
"That's me", said my wife, inspecting the useless woman.
We had a good laugh about it, but this was two weeks ago. I fear that the longer she takes to plot her revenge, the worse it will be.
10:02am on Tuesday, 23rd December, 2025:
Weird
This is a cruel way of tricking hungry birds into thinking they've found berries large enough to feed a family of eighteen.
9:22am on Monday, 22nd December, 2025:
Weird
I saw this list propped up in the bread section of Sainsbury's.
It looks as if it's someone's shopping list, but it's all Sainsbury's products and it includes the prices. Could it, therefore, be some kind of stealth marketing campaign?
Nah, Sainsbury's isn't imaginative enough to try that. It's a shopping list.
9:13am on Sunday, 21st December, 2025:
Anecdote
Oh, I meant to post this earlier.
When I was in ASDA a few days ago, buying ricotta cheese for my wife's ricotta cheese confection, I picked up some other items as well. I think I ran eight objects in all through the till.
When it came to paying, I reached confidently into my jacket pocket and ... no wallet. It didn't occur to me that it had been stolen, because it hadn't been: I knew exactly what had happened. When I'd gone to the Co-Op to buy the ricotta cheese, it had been cold so I'd put on my coat. I'd put my wallet in that coar. After I got home, I transferred the wallet back to my jacket, so so I thought, but actually I'd transferred it to the other pocket of my coat (they hang next to each other in the hallway).
So, there I was in ASDA with eight items of shopping and a till that kept asking if I wanted to continue.
Now, a good many people these days pay using their phone's near-field communication system. I heard about this when it came out, but avoided it because the security wasn't good. It's since improved, but I never got around to installing it on my phone.
There, in the automatic till section of ASDA, I downloaded Google Pay, installed it, ran it, entered my card details (conveniently remembered by my phone), entered my card verification value (conveniently remembered by my memory), rushed through the tutorial and paid what the till was asking.
I was astonished that this actually worked.
I'll still use my card to pay, because I have to get my wallet out for loyalty cards anyway (no, supermarkets, I don't want your stupid app on my device, thank you). Besides, my phone is more likely to be stolen than my wallet, so I wouldn't want to rely on it.
My wife doesn't like relying on hers, either, but she keeps her payment cards in the cover of her phone so is still stuffed if she loses either.
9:52am on Saturday, 20th December, 2025:
Anecdote
Overheard in Sainsbury's, from a hassled shelf-stacker who shouted it at her colleague:
"Don't you criticise MY stacking, Mr Leaning Tower of Pancetta!"
He was wearing a Christmas jumper, so probably got off lightly.
12:17pm on Friday, 19th December, 2025:
Weird
Ancestry is clearly running out of ideas for its "dominant traits" DNA updates.
If they can only guarantee that your footedness is 1% determined genetically, there seems little point in mentioning it (other than as clickbait).
9:48am on Thursday, 18th December, 2025:
Anecdote
My wife wanted some ricotta cheese, so I had to walk to the local Co-Op to buy some. They didn't have any, so I walked to the Nisa store further away. I was a little apprehensive, because I knew they were rebranding and the changeover date was the 18th. Were they closing on the 18th or opening on the 18th, though?
They were opening! Yay!
They were opening three hours after I got there.
I asked at the door, but they didn't sell ricotta cheese either.
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).