Blog | Steve Woods | Language, Linux, Open Source

Community litter pick this Saturday

03/05/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Your ‘umble scribe will be ignoring all that nonsense in London SW1 involving Mr & Mrs Charles Mountbatten-Windsor for something far more vital to the health of the nation.

Their bling bonnet day in Westminster unfortunately clashes with a regular event of local importance – the monthly Barton Hill community litter pick.

Stuff the coronation. This IS important!

Last month four of us turned out for an hour’s cleaning, managing to clear several bags of litter (as well as reporting half a dozen instances of fly-tipping. Ed.), having a bit of gentle exercise with tea and coffee afterwards, all punctuated by good company and good conversation.

If you can join us outside the Wellspring Centre (formerly the Settlement) at 10.00 am on Saturday, we’d be very pleased to see you.
Firefox Focus – first impressions

02/05/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Open Source, Privacy, Security, Tech

Your ‘umble scribe is a great fan of the free and open source Firefox web browser and has been using the desktop version since version 0.x many years ago. One of its major attractions has been its emphasis on security and privacy.

Until recently it was also the default browser on my smartphone, until I discovered Firefox Focus. Firefox Focus is a free and open-source privacy-focused mobile browser based on Firefox which is available for Android and iOS devices. First released in December 2015, it was initially a tracker-blocking application for mobile iOS devices, but was developed into a minimalistic web browser shortly afterwards.

According to Mozilla, Firefox Focus is a dedicated privacy browser with automatic tracking protection. meaning web pages load faster and your data stays private. It’s also easy to delete history, passwords and cookies, so advertisers and other ne’er-do-wells don’t follow you around online. Just tap the erase button on the search field and all that data is gone. Tracking protection is also very strong. The browser blocks a wide range of common trackers by default, including social trackers and those sticky ones that come from things like Facebook ads.

After using Firefox Focus for one week, I can say I’m impressed with the way it works. Although it required me to learn how to use tabbed browsing (hint: hold down a link in your search results and a menu appears, offering the option to open the link in a new tab. Ed.), once that was cracked, I was away. As for fast page loading, that’s not disappointing either, even on notoriously slow-loading sites, like that of Bristol City Council, which still seems to be powered by a horse turning a shaft in the basement of the Counts Louse (which some call City Hall. Ed.). 😉

If you value your privacy and security, I’d recommend Firefox Focus on your mobile device.
Bureaucratic logic

28/04/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics

The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) is a combined authority consisting of the local authorities of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset.

The authority’s functions, as specified by the West of England Combined Authority Order, mostly cover planning, skills and local transport.

And this post is specifically concerned with transport and buses in particular.

Since passing pensionable age last year, your ‘umble scribe has been entitled to a concessionary bus pass offering him free bus travel within England, subject to various conditions.

That being so, your correspondent has found himself doing things he hasn’t done for many a decade, like running for buses. 😀

At the start of April, significant changes were made to bus services within the WECA area. To announce the changes, posters were put up at bus stops. At the foot of each poster, some useful information is given (not that the remainder of the posters did not also provide useful information. Ed.), as shown in the photo below.

Like your ‘umble scribe, readers may also be perplexed at the advice given to those without internet access to contact the Transport Operations Team by email. Obviously a kind of bureaucratic logic of which normal mortals do not wot is at work, together with a degree of perspicacity to which the fictional Yes Minister could only aspire.

That’s not to say that the authority does not have aspirations. Indeed, the term vision appears some 500 times* on the WECA website, according to a site-specific Google search.

Those working at the authority are therefore in need of a doctor in the opinion of the late West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who famously quipped “Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen“, usually translated into English as Anyone who has visions should go to the doctor. Perhaps a logician would also not go amiss. 😉

* = This count is a lot less than the instances of vision on the Bristol City Council website (posts passim).

Update 07/05/23: five weeks after the actual timetable changes were implemented, new revised timetables have finally started to appear at bus stops; see photo below. No need to rush as it appears that if you’re a local government organisation, you are at complete liberty to do your allotted tasks entirely to your own satisfaction!
Bilingual illiteracy

26/04/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Social Media

Playwright Oscar Wilde gave his character Lady Augusta Bracknell some memorable lines in his play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Of these, one in particular related to the difference between misfortune and carelessness:
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

In the case of contractors working for gas supply company Wales & West Utilities in Abertawe/Swansea, carelessness seems to be their modus operandi, as per this report on the Swansea Bay News website.

On a job outside Llangyfelach Primary School, the utility’s contractors managed to spell school incorrectly as shcool. Sharp-eyed Cymraeg-speaking readers will aslo notice that its Welsh equivalent ysgol is also misspelt as ysool, although this appears to be from an earlier job, judging by the colour differences in the asphalt.

Image credit: Rob Jones

Speaking to the BBC, Wales & West Utilities said the cock-up had occurred during repairs to the local gas network. Its spokesman Phil Whittier said: “Unfortunately, (we) have misspelt the word ‘school'”. However, denied any responsibility for the misspelling of ysgol. The BBC reports that Swansea Council has been contacted about that incorrect spelling.

The error has gone around the world, being mocked as far afield as Australia, with some parents suggesting on social media those responsible be made to write school out correctly one hundred times.
Sunak and his low-carbon escort

25/04/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics, Security

It’s not unusual for heads of government and state to have their motorcades accompanied by motorcycle escorts, as seen in the example below from 2009 of the then Chinese president Hu Jintao‘s visit to Zagreb in Croatia.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
On Sunday – the day of the London marathon – a fleet of cars containing the alleged Prime Minister was spotted surrounded by two sets of police officers – one on bicycles and the other on foot.

Sunak has in recent months been criticised for his disproportionate use of flying, both on private aircraft and on military ones, including one of a mere 25 minutes’ duration.

The Telegraph has suggested the action was to thwart the attentions of environmental protesters from Extinction Rebellion.

If that were not the case and Fishy Rishi was making a vain attempt to reduce his carbon footprint, your ‘umble scribe would like to introduce him to a new word to add to his vocabulary: greenwash.
Mail continues its anti-Welsh campaign

22/04/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Why does the Daily Mail hate Cymraeg – and by implication the speakers of that language so much?

It was one of those Anglophone media outlets that blew its top earlier this week over the decision by a second Welsh national park authority to call the national park solely by its Welsh name – a name for prominent local topographical features that reaches back over a millennium (posts passim).

Yesterday it discovered and did a hatchet job on a petition currently gathering signatures on the Senedd Cymru website calling for the exclusive use of Welsh place names,

To quote the same places named by the Mail, your ‘umble scribe sees no problem at all in Caerdydd, Abertawe, Casnewydd and Wrecsam being referred to by their names in the local vernacular, which have existed for centuries. He also believes that if the Mail is against something, what is being ranted about is inevitably worthwhile.

The Mail’s anti-Welsh piece was also boosted by Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, who used it as a means of attacking what he called extreme policies likely to be introduced by a future Labour government, no doubt winning approval from his colonial masters at CCHQ in London SW1.

Since the Mail’s intercession the petition, which was languishing with a signature count of some 250, has now amassed over 300.

Da iawn! 😀

Update 23/04: Following coverage in the Welsh media of the Mail’s bigotry, the number of signatories this evening is now approaching 700, well above the threshold for its consideration by the Senedd’s petitions committee, if somewhat short of the 10,000 needed for a debate in the chamber.
French Customs censured for illegal retention of personal data

21/04/2023 Steve WoodsPrivacy, Security, Tech

French IT news site Le Monde Informatique reports that the French Customs authorities have been sent a formal notice by the CNIL, France’s data privacy regulator, in respect of an illegal data file containing the details of more than 45,000 people, including copies of identity documents and records of criminal offences.

Businesses are not the only organisations with which the CNIL has found fault for holding illegal files containing personal data. Public sector organisations can also fall foul of the law.

The French Customs authorities, which come under the control of the Ministry for the Economy have been caught red-handed following a report in respect of Customs’ file used for recording information about vessels and their crews which is known as SIRENE. Intended to identify all the people checked at sea or in port in order to combat fraud, this system was in fact developed and implemented with no legal basis and not in accordance with the law, according to the CNIL

Checks were carried out by Customs’ Channel-North Sea-Atlantic coastguard service and inspections revealed that recourse to this system did not comply with France’s Data Protection Act. This data system actually lists information about the vessels checked and their passengers, including personal information such as marital status, address, occupation and copies of identity documents, as well as criminal convictions (drug trafficking, counterfeiting, off-the-books employment, failure to co-operate, sexual assault, possession of illegal weapons, intentional homicide and murder).

6 months to comply or be fined

All told, the details of 45,793 persons – including 392 minors – are included in the SIRENE file. “The creation and use of the SIRENE file are not provided for by any legislation (for example a law or a decree). In addition, the CNIL has not received a request for an opinion concerning its implementation, in violation of the Data Protection Act (articles 87 and 89, the CNIL explained. Other grievances have also been lodged against the Ministry for the Economy, such as the failure to send an impact assessment in respect of the protection of personal data and the lack of a clear distinction between the data of the different categories of persons concerned. or the fact that the latter were not made aware that their data had been included.

Following the CNIL’s formal notice, the Ministry for the Economy and Customs have 6 months to comply otherwise a penalty could be issued.
Bore Da, Bannau Brycheiniog!

18/04/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Yesterday the news was announced that, following the recent decision by its fellow national park authority in North Wales, the one covering a large swathe of south Wales would henceforth be called the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park in English.

There was also a video to accompany the name change.

However, the change has not gone down well, particularly in the rabid right-wing monoglot English press, as shown by the image below from yesterday’s Daily Mail website.

Snowflakes!

Not forgetting to add all their typical smears, they’re touchy souls at the Mail, aren’t they? Nevertheless, like all good Anglophone monoglots, they cannot even get the pronunciation of Bannau Brycheiniog right. In Brycheiniog, the ch is pronounced as in the Scottish loch, not like an English ck as written in the Mail.

Furthermore a ‘columnist‘ at The Independent also did not want to be excluded from being outraged and mocking the Welsh language, as Nation Cymru reports.

Nor has the change met with universal approval in Wales itself.

To being with, Reach plc’s Cardiff-based Wales Online title adopted a provocative stance with its headline at the top of yesterday’s home page (clickbait for a largely monoglot Anglophone readership not known for voicing its support for either Cymraeg or Cymdeithas yr Iaith? Ed.).

However, the all-Wales whinging trophy has to go to the Welsh Conservatives, those faithful servants of their colonial masters in London SW1, with the charge being headed by their Senedd and Welsh ‘leader‘, one Andrew RT Davies, who planted the Welsh Tories firmly in the Anglophone camp.

This earned him plenty of derision, particularly from his fellow Welsh, of which the following is typical.

If Mr Davies doesn’t like his compatriots using their own language and celebrating their own heritage (the hills were known as the Bannau Brycheiniog long before the monoglots arrived in force), perhaps he ought to relinquish his seat in the Senedd Cymru and find a nice safe Tory constituency in the English Conservative heartlands.
I for one shall look forward to visiting the Bannau Brycheiniog and Eryri (the national park formerly known as Snowdonia. Ed.).
Public notice, public ignorance

18/04/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language

As seen in Gloucester Lane, BS2.

In the words of lots of disappointed parents trying to teach their offspring manners, “What’s the magic word?” 😉
The Galleries – Bristol’s sunlit uplands?

12/04/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

Unicorns are commonly described as horse-like creatures with a single large, pointed, spiralling horn projecting from their foreheads. They have been depicted as such in European art for at least a millennium, although their origins stretch way back into history to the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation and the Middle East.

In a more recent context, the sunlit uplands first popularised in Churchill’s “This was their finest hour” speech in 1940 was dusted off by the Brexit zealots and Europhobes to denote the boundless possibilities which faced the country once it had extricated itself from the stranglehold of the alien and oppressive European Union.

Those on the Remain side of the argument eagerly populated these mythological mountain pastures with herds of unicorns to illustrate the delusions of the Brexiteers. Those who turned the unicorns loose on the sunlit uplands have since prove correct in the mockery: Brexit has been an absolute disaster with increased bureaucracy and delays at the Channel ports, not to mention the 5% plus decline in GDP
Being built on what were the banks of Bristol’s tidal River Frome (long since culverted. Ed.), the Galleries shopping centre could not in any way be classified as belonging to any uplands, sunlit or otherwise. Nevertheless, one empty shop unit on the top floor was populated by a whole herd of unicorns.

Had they migrated from those Phoebus-favoured hills? Despite the £116.8m cost to the taxpayer and low visitor numbers of the original, was the city planning its very own Festival of Brexit?

The answer was staring your bemused correspondent in the face in one of the shop’s windows.

It was another of those local sculpture trails (posts passim), this time featuring unicorns instead of gorillas or Gromits, ostensibly to celebrate the 650th anniversary of the Bristol gaining county status in 1373, presumably by the usual practice of the time of local worthies giving the reigning monarch a large amount of cash in return for a charter or, as stated on the festival website:

Unicornfest, part of the 650th anniversary celebrations for Bristol, seeks to unite the business and creative sectors, as well as local communities and schools across Bristol and the surrounding area, bringing art, colour and fun to the streets of the city this year.

6 months to comply or be fined

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