100DaysToOffload

Tilde

Oops, I forgot to post yesterday. Wasn't a “can't think of anything to post” moment of lack of motivation. Just straight up forgot. Probably related to the hangover I had after the drunken 4 and half hour Zoom chat with friends on Saturday night!

I've been an SDF user on and off for years and had a couple of accounts (mainly because I forgot the password to one and couldn't be bothered to try and retrieve it so made another). When the SDF/SDFEU split happened it pretty much ended my usage as SDFEU is like a ghost town. I'd go through spells of making a conscious decision to be very active and regularly post on bboard and their internal newsgroups but at most I might get 1 or 2 replies so would get disheartened. As an aside when I first got on the internet in 1994 it was newsgroups and IRC that really got my interest. Being able to interact with people from all over seemed amazing! Before that I was very into zines and zine culture so the internet seemed like a logical extension of that; people making content and sharing it. When the first tilde servers started getting popular back in 2014/2015 my first thought was “wow I've been using the internet so long that shell accounts are now retro”. I continued tinkering on SDF and never got involved. Things like neocities pages caught my eye but I always feel like I've not got any content worth sharing so had never gone down that route. However a few years ago I saw the Circumlunar.space tilde server mentioned on the fediverse and requested an account. Solderpunk kindly obliged and I enjoyed it a lot. There was a nice community there with a small federated message board and active gopher users. However a change of jobs meant regrettably I had a lot less time for engaging with it so decided to quit after a while rather than become one of those ghost accounts that just lingers untouched for ages.

Recently though there has been a bit of chatter about the new Gemini protocol being set up on some of the tildes. It is a bit like a modern version of gopher and has been implemented on several tilde servers. Of course being the curious type I wanted to try it out and was able to get an account on Tilde.pink. Early days so far and still trying to work out what content goes where (social media, this blog, my old blog, gopher, gemini, etc etc). Here's my gemini space:

gemini://tilde.pink/~luke

Don't expect much though. Now back to the joys of the working week.

Not so easy jet

#100DaysToOffload – Day 25

Like many other people Covid19 messed up travel plans I had. Next weekend my son would have been playing in a big international football tournament in Düsseldorf. He played there last year (in fact all his international away trips have been to Germany, I think someone senior has shares in a German hotel chain!) and a few dads went out to support the boys in their matches. When I say support the boys I mean drink copiously for 48 hours; we were broken on the way home. This particular tournament is held over the Whit Sunday weekend in Düsseldorf which is a big public holiday and lots of bars have bands performing out in the street. It's a great atmosphere so the few dads that went before decided to book up in advance to get good prices. Then obviously lockdown happened and all youth football is cancelled.

Now despite Mrs Luke and myself having a joint email address for bills and purchases our Easyjet account has Mrs Luke's email address associated with it. I'd been regularly logging into the account to see if the flight was cancelled or to see what the options were for rebooking the flight. It's getting closer and closer and the rebook option looks like it going to have to be it. If you use their website you can rebook your flight with no admin fees and if the new flight costs more you pay the difference. Simple! Not so much in practise. Everytime I tried the process it tried to charge money despite the new flights being significantly cheaper. No way was I going to pay more for a flight I didn't really want or need so was considering just taking a loss on the money. Mentioned all this to Mrs Luke and she says “oh why didn't you just apply for a refund voucher like the email says?”. WHAT EMAIL? For some reason she'd assumed I'd seen an email in her inbox, which obviously I hadn't. She finally manages to dig it out and there was a nice easy process to get a credit voucher for the value of the flight. Just had to click 1 button. Which she did. Only to receive an email telling her she was a week too late to do so. FFS! This all became a VERY thorny issue in our household and was threatening to be the cause of a properly serious row. Just as this was simmering away and about to boil over another email turned up saying the flight is cancelled and would we like a credit voucher for the value plus £10 added on top for our troubles? Hallelujah! It was such a huge relief. Now I've set up a filter to forward any emails from Easyjet to our joint email so we can wait for the same fun and games with our flights for our summer holiday!

I am taking in the 100 Days to Offload blogging challenge set by Kev Quirk.

Subscriptions

#100DaysToOffload – Day 24

Whilst collecting the milk from the doorstep and opening up the latest coffee delivery it struck me that as punters we're going full circle back to the days of wealthy Victorians. What am I talking about? I'm talking about how there seems to be a growing trend for folks, myself included, to subscribe to individual services/products instead of getting everything from 1 big supermarket. Of course loads of people do just get everything from the 1 source but there seems to be more and more online businesses popping up offering a delivery of product X every month. So what do I subscribe to?

Coffee, delivered once a week.
Toilet roll, big box once a month.
Milk, had milk delivered for yonks.
Printer ink.
Deodorant. Yes really.
Local paper.

Hmm that list doesn't seem that long so I'm sure I've missed some off. During lockdown I've also considered signing up for a chocolate club, artisan chocolate delivered every month, and local bookshop subscription where you tell them the last 5 books you enjoyed so they can pick new releases they think you'll like and send them once a month. In the past we also had a local egg farm delivery but my wife was convinced they weren't free-range so cancelled. From the adverts I see online there is no end of these “clubs” popping up: Japanese confectionary, notebooks and stationery, socks, beer, wine, etc etc.

I am taking in the 100 Days to Offload blogging challenge set by Kev Quirk. Follow me if you fancy subscribing to my posts

An unexpected consequence of lockdown

#100DaysToOffload – Day 23

Busy day today so a brief post. One of the consequences of lockdown I never anticipated is that I've worn through about half my pairs of socks. Admittedly they were mainly cheapo Primark or whatever stuff to begin with but I didn't think that 2 months of being at home would do that. I've never worn slippers and then closest thing I've worn and liked were some ankle socks with grippy soles I got given when i had to stay a few nights in hospital when I mangled my ankle. So whilst pottering around at home I just wear socks and as I say I've worn holes in about half of them. I can see myself in 50 years time when my great grandkids ask me what was lockdown was like and I'll be telling them it was tough on my socks. :)

Frugan

#100DaysToOffload – Day 22

Today my daughter and I popped to the supermarket. Our nearest supermarket is Waitrose (we do live in Hove after all) and everyone has been saying how long the queues have been to get in. This is our 4th trip and the 4th time we've turned up and there has been no queue at all but by the time we leave there has been quite a queue. (There were at least 12 people waiting as left.). The one thing I've noticed about Waitrose is a big increase in the amount of items reduced to clear on the last day of the sell-by date each time we've visited. Seems they are maintain full stock levels but have a much diminished number of customers so items aren't selling. Which brings us to the title of this post: I can't resist a reduced item! I'll eat frugal whenever possible (though never battery eggs and always high welfare meat). Today's bargains were a pork belly joint reduced to £1.35 from (iirc) £4.45 and diced pork shoulder reduced to £1.40 from £3.20. The pork belly has been in the slow cooker for 6 hours already and I've just pulled it (ooh-er mrs!). The diced shoulder is in the freezer and will be slow-cooked soon with barbeque sauce and beans. Last week I got some bananas from the local co-op for 9p! (The co-op is amazing for bargains as they have a zero waste policy so need things to sell so they don't have to return them to their distribution centre.). They went in smoothies and banana bread. This habit often exasperates Mrs Luke as we do end up with some very random things in our freezer (current exhibit: M&S crabsticks for 20p) but usually it's all useful and gets used up eventually.

This is one of my 100 Days to Offload posts. It is a blogging challenge started by Kev Quirk. Check https://100daystooffload.com for info and then grab yourself a bargain by setting a free blog on Write.as.

Sitting out

#100DaysToOffload – Day 21

Was thinking of skipping today's post but my son is playing Fortnite in the living room and listening to the running commentary of him shouting into his headset at his team mates was doing my head in. So here we are!

My neighbourhood has small back yards, as you'd have seen if you were paying attention but it also has even smaller front gardens. Nobody usually ever sits out the front of their house and normally most life takes place indoors or in the backyard. Which is a shame but we do it as well as everyone else. One thing I've noticed since lockdown is there is a lot more of life taking place outside. Gyms are shut so people are exercising outside. Can't visit people properly so friends are talking on their doorsteps. That sort of thing. I like it. My folks have got a holiday apartment in Spain in a small seaside town that is primarily full of Spanish second homes. So people from the interior of Spain decamp to the coast for July and August (bit like the Parisians famously all go to the south for the summer). One thing I notice there is a lot of life happens outside. Most of the holiday apartments are tiny so everyone eats their evening meal out on the balcony. As they're on holiday there is no gym memberships so they all exercise outside. You get the picture I'm sure. It's something I like. It means you see other people and interact with other people but also reminds you there has to be a bit of give and take. Some of the things you might do outside might annoy others and some of the things they do might annoy you. That's life and it is about realising that. Anyway bck to lockdown in Hove. Something a lot of the houses on the north side of the local streets have been doing is sitting out in their front gardens. We've been doing it too. I've seen neighbours sat out with their laptops working. People soaking up some sun. It's been really nice. Here's a few photos I've taken of the shift to front garden usage I've taken during lockdown. Just a few as I didn't want to look like a weird stalker. Hopefully this is something that will continue a bit even after lockdown is eventually lifted.

front1 front2 front3 front4 front5 frpnt6 front7 front8 front9

Kraftwerk

#100DaysToOffload – Day 20

When the news broke that Florian Schneider had died I was really gutted. Whilst lockdown is going on I've been a bit randomly emotional anyway and his death had hit me hard. Whilst I'm no way an uberfan of Kraftwerk I do like their music. It is a default for me for background music and one of my perennials on Spotify. The second record I ever bought, at the age of 10 from Woolworths (of course!), was Kraftwerk's The Model. (The first was the theme tune to the movie Flash Gordon but we don't talk about that.) I still love the track today so this video blows my mind: Kraftwerk's The Model played on the 14 bells of Utrecht's Dom Tower. Can't even begin to fathom about how they do that. The fact that pretty much all the music I liked as a teen and young adult was influenced by Kraftwerk shows just how much an influence they had.

100 Days to Offload is a blogging challenge started by Kev Quirk to help get through lockdown. Check https://100daystooffload.com for information.

Saturday was baking day

#100DaysToOffload – Day 19

Lazy day yesterday for me. Actually not that lazy but indulgent is probably the best way to describe it.

Started off by doing back at home pain au chocolates but modifying them with Reese's Pieces peanut butter chips.

the before

They were DELICIOUS.

the after

(Only 3 in the picture as the rest of the family descended on them before I got a photo!)

Then while I was waiting for the bread to proof I made chocolate chip cookies; which handily heated the kitchen and oven up nicely.

yum

Once they came out the oven the bread went in and that came out looking like this:

fresh loaf

Shortly after that loaf came out a friend popped round for a doorstep chat. After showing off the loaf to him he looked really jealous so I gave it to him and made another while watching the resumption of the Bundesliga matches. I was so keen to watch I even paid for the privilege rather than relying on one of the usual snide streaming sites. ; )

More Football

#100DaysToOffload – Day 18

So yesterday's post wasn't what I'd intended to write but serves well as a basis for understanding this post. So my son is football mad and great at football. I know nothing about football. Where do I start with him? First thing to know is football match tickets can be expensive. Silly expensive. About 6 years ago I took him along to Brighton & Hove Albion to watch his first match. We went with my mate Steve, my son's godfather, who happens to love football and play a lot himself. It was a dire match that Brighton lost 0-1. It was cold and raining. If anything I hoped the experience would put my boy off football for life. As we left the ground after the final whistle he turned round and said “that was great!”. Ah oh! So to make life cheaper (paying £40 a pop to entertain a 5 year old for an afternoon wasn't a long term option) I asked about and found out about Whitehawk FC.

(A bit of scene setting: We live in Hove. Hove is nice. It's genteel and middle class and full of yoga instructors. The local corner shop to me sells 3 types of non-dairy milk alternatives and chia seeds. You get the picture? Whitehawk is the other side of town and has the reputation of being the rough part of town. When we first moved down 20 years ago I heard the reputation of Whitehawk and went for a stroll about one day as I love walking around a new area to get to know it. Where I grew up in south London at the time had the highest rates of street robbery in the country and was the epicentre of the London crack trade. Whitehawk in comparison seemed like quite a nice suburb to me so I guess it is all relative though I do understand kids growing up there probably aren't afforded all the opportunities that kids growing up elsewhere in the city might have.)

Whitehawk had always been a small non-league team in the shadow of the Brighton & Hove Albion and had had tiny crowds. In fact [the “Wealdstone Raider” video that went viral])https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealdstone_Raider) about 7 years ago was filmed there. It's a drunk opposition supporter taking the mickey out of Whitehawk saying “you've got no fans” and being aggressive. However some (alledgedly rather dodgy) local businessmen had been pumping into the club and they had had 3 successive promotions in a row to get the National League South. That's the 6th tier of English football and sniffing at professional full-time footballers and real chances of joining the “proper” football league. All of which meant they had a bit of a buzz about them when someone mentioned them to us. One Saturday afternoon I take my son and a couple of his friends along (as kids under 16 were free with a paying adult with my ticket being £12!). Their ground is a bit ramshackle and looked like it was last renovated in the early 90s. Unlike league football you can drink alcohol in sight of the pitch and you aren't allocated seats. In fact the opposite as fans tend to congregate behind the other side's goal which means both sets of fans swap ends at half time. However what struck me the most were the fans there. Forming a large, noisy, cheerful bunch they sung good humoured songs the whole match long. Songs against homophobia and sexism. Funny songs celebrating the players and songs about themselves. And they drank a lot! Here's a recent video all about the Whitehawk fans so you can get the idea. Basically I loved the atmosphere and we became regulars at Whitehawk. (Not diehards but usually a match a month.) My son loved it as he got a lot of freedom there and who doesn't love singing and shouting out loud? Actually I think part of why it is so fun is when else do you get the chance to make so much noise for so long? There's something good for your soul in letting out all that energy in such a positive and noisy way.

We were also still occasionally going to BHAFC matches as my son was mad for them too so this was all costing me quite a bit! Then in the run up to my son's birthday the club were promoting half season tickets so I got us some primarily just to save money. My son loved the football, I loved having a pie and pint at halftime! At the end of the second season of having season tickets the Albion got promoted to the Premier League. The buzz and celebrations basically cemented me as a football fan and the friends that previously never broached the subject of football with me now started regularly talking to me about it.

We still go along to Whitehawk matches but much less frequently now. Still have the Albion season tickets too but my son (when we're not on lockdown!) trains 3 nights a week with his team and has matches on a Sunday. That's 9 hours a week of football alone plus the time spent watching professional football. It really had become a huge part of my life and I am missing it.

This is one of my 100 Days to Offload posts. It is a blogging challenge started by Kev Quirk. Check https://100daystooffload.com and go score the goal of making your own blog.

Football

#100DaysToOffload – Day 17

It used to be football didn't interest me in the slightest. Not at all. Had no team loyalties, no caring about results. Nothing. When I was little I was rubbish at football and was always the last one picked for teams in PE. I was physical and enjoyed athletics. It wasn't I was anti-sport but just not football. My dad wasn't into football at all so there is that influence too. My mum liked it and her brother always used to take me to matches when we visited at Christmas but I found it all a bit confusing and frightening (this is back in the late 70s and early 80s when football crowds had a certain reputation shall we say!). To add to this my parents were from different parts of the country, I was born up north and then we moved to London where I grew up. So I had no real sense of loyalty to a place, or rooting even, some people have that helps them take pride in their local team. All this meant as an adult approaching middle age I was known as the friend that didn't like football.

Then along comes my son. He is 4 years younger than his older sister and most of the “baby friends” we made when we had her were parents of boys (just the way it turned out). This did mean when we went to the park or round for playdates he ended up playing with older boys. He'd play football with them and by the age of 4 or 5 he could pretty much keep up with them. The assorted dads would say “he'd really good at football” and we'd think “that's nice”. Then he started school and would play with his sister's classmates. As he was little and they were big they usually wouldn't pass to him which meant if he wanted the ball he'd have to get it so he got fearless at tackling. Aged 6 he said he'd like to join a football team. Local grassroots sports teams' websites are atrocious. Really hard to find information so we asked about and got recommended one of the various local teams. Went along to one of their drop in sessions and on the first session got asked if he wanted to join the team. Only later did we learn that that team is notoriously hard to get as they only accept good players. That first season he won Player of the Year and was regularly man of the match. The whole thing was a huge baptism of fire for me as I know literally nothing about football or football terminology. Turns out the team has got 2 ex-pro players' sons in and the majority of the other dads used to play at non-league/county level. Then there is me! Still it was fun to live vicariously through my son's exploits. He did a second season with the local team. That season they won every match they played but 1 and that match they drew. At the end of the season he had a trial at the academy of the local Premier League club academy and out of 300 boys at the trial he was the only 1 they invited back. Proud is an understatement. He's now done 2 season with them and is signed for a third. Obviously he is loving it. At the start it was so surreal to go from playing Mile Oak Wanderers to playing Arsenal or Chelsea but he handled it fine. The one thing we do with him and the academy is try to manage expectations. We take each season as it comes and try to tell him it is just for 1 season and not to expect more. Luckily he is a bit of a renaissance man and is top set at most subjects at school plus he plays trumpet and guitar. If the football doesn't work out I'm sure he'll do OK for a job of some sort.

This post was meant to be about how I got into football and ended up being about how awesome my son is. (He is by the way.) Maybe tomorrow's post will have to be about how I started to enjoy going to football matches and appreciating football matches but guess I wanted to show the extent of just how much and quickly football came to MASSIVE part of my life.

This is one of my 100 Days to Offload posts. It is a blogging challenge started by Kev Quirk. Check https://100daystooffload.com and go score the goal of making your own blog.