November 2024 - Neil Turner's Blog

Playlist of the month: Musicals

November 30, 2024 by Neil Turner

Now I’m not saying that it’s mandatory for queer men like myself to like musical theatre – but, let’s face it, lots of us do, and I’m no exception. Both my wife and previous girlfriend were involved in a musical theatre society at university (same university but not at the same time), and I’ve seen a number of shows, both locally and in the West End in London. And, seeing as Wicked is now a film, it’s a good theme with which to base a playlist on. So, here are my favourite songs from musicals. As ever, you can listen to it on Spotify.

“Defying Gravity” from Wicked, by Kerry Ellis. This isn’t the version on either the stage or film soundtrack, but a belting cover version by Kerry Ellis. Although, to be fair, Ellis played Elphaba for a time during its West End run. This is one of my morale boosting songs.
“The Greatest Show” from The Greatest Showman. Friends fear that he’s been listening to the Greatest Showman soundtrack and has just found another excuse to include this in a playlist. Yes, I included it in July’s ‘duets’ playlist too.
“You Can’t Stop The Beat” from Hairspray. It’s not quite the finale but it’s the big number where the audience is usually encouraged to join in. Back before Netflix was available in the UK, I rented the DVD of Hairspray, not realising it was the (non-musical) 1980s original with Ricki Lake, and not the then new (musical) film version.
“I Wanna Be A Producer” from The Producers. This is one of those songs that I randomly break out into. I enjoyed the film adaptation and have also seen a good amateur production in Bradford.
“Just Around The Corner” from The Addams Family. I don’t think enough people know that there’s an Addams Family musical, especially after Wednesday came out a couple of years ago. It’s about Wednesday coming of age, and this song is a solo by Morticia.
“Unfortunate” from Unfortunate. We went to see this very camp Little Mermaid spin-off earlier this year, and I would strongly recommend it. It’s refreshing to hear new music on stage, and a break from the seemingly endless jukebox musicals.
“When I Grow Up” from Matilda. We managed to see the Matilda musical in the West End shortly before it won loads of awards, and it was excellent. This song manages to be both fun and heartbreaking at the same time. Also, it’s the only one of these that I’ve performed in a show before.
“Let It Go” from Frozen. Oh come on, just because this song has been massively over-played, doesn’t mean it’s not good. How many kids songs manage to include words like ‘fractals’?
“How Far I’ll Go” from Moana. I haven’t actually watched Moana all the way through in one go, but I’ve probably seen all of it collectively as our eight-year-old has watched it multiple times on Disney+. Whilst it’s not made it to the stage yet, this is a good song. I imagine we’ll be watching the sequel at some point soon.
“Ex-Wives” from Six. Six is a musical that I really want to see, but haven’t managed to yet. I’ve listened to and enjoyed the soundtrack a few times though.

Cheques, postal orders and the DVLA

November 28, 2024 by Neil Turner

If you want to change your name and photo on your GB driving license at the same time, then, as I write this in November 2024, you have to pay the DVLA by cheque or postal order. You can’t pay online using a credit or debit card.

Indeed, there’s a number of reasons that you may need to pay money to the DVLA, and can currently only do so by posting a cheque or postal order. You may have passed your driving test in another European country, and now want a GB driving license. Or, you may need to get your license back after being disqualified from driving (for the absolute avoidance of doubt, no, I have never been banned from driving and have a full clean license). In all of these situations, it’s not possible to pay online.

As I mentioned in my blog post a couple of months ago, frustratingly there’s still a need for paper bank statements, and, it seems, cheques. Sure, almost every bank, including online-only ones like Starling, Chase and Monzo let you pay in cheques by scanning them into their apps using your phone. But what if you need to write a cheque for someone else? Online-only accounts do not seem to offer any way for their customers to pay by cheque.

It’s not a much better situation even if you do bank with a ‘traditional’ high street bank. I switched to a new bank account earlier this year, and whilst I got a new debit card through the post, I wasn’t issued with a chequebook as standard. And that should be fine – the last time I remember writing a cheque myself was about nine years ago. Most places accept bank transfers by BACS if they don’t accept credit/debit cards or cash. Sure, I can request a chequebook, but then the bank will need to print and dispatch it to me by post.

Postal orders

Thankfully, the DVLA also accept postal orders. In my 22 years of adulthood, I have never needed to request or send a postal order, but they have been around for years. Originally, they were a way for people without bank accounts to send money by post, in a way that means that only the named payee can use it.

To get a postal order, you go along to a local post office, tell them who you are paying and how much the postal order is for, and then pay cash, plus a fee. For £10-£99, there’s a 12.5% fee, and a fixed fee of £12.50 for postal orders of £100-£250. They’ll then print you a postal order which you can pop in your envelope to the DVLA, or whoever else you need to pay.

It’s certainly a solution if you don’t have a chequebook, but, as mentioned, you have to pay an extra fee on top which you wouldn’t pay using a cheque. Plus there’s the cost of getting to a Post Office if one isn’t local to you.

Ideally, the DVLA will drag itself fully into the 21st century, and enable more tasks to be completed online with card payments. But until then, some of us are stuck using cheques and postal orders.

The coming enshittification of Canon Camera Connect

November 26, 2024 by Neil Turner

A screenshot of the announcement on Canon's web site that a login with a Canon ID will be required to use its apps starting next year

I recently got a popup message on my phone from the Canon Camera Connect app, which I use to download photos from my Canon EOS camera. It took me to this announcement, which states that, from later next year, I’ll need to sign in to my Canon ID to use the app.

This seems silly. All I use the app for is to move photos from my camera to my phone wirelessly. The camera and my phone have a persistent Bluetooth connection when both are switched on and in range, and then when photos are to be downloaded, it switches to a private peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection. There’s no need for me to be signed in to a Canon ID to be able to use the app, as no data needs to be sent to Canon’s servers.

Canon’s stated reasons for requiring a sign in with a Canon ID are that it’ll allow better integration with their cloud services. At present, these are separate apps, but I’m assuming they want people to upload their images to their cloud service, so that they can charge a subscription. I don’t know if digital camera sales are falling, now that everyone has a pretty good camera in their smartphone, but I suppose Canon see this as an additional revenue stream.

And there’s being able to use people’s personal data, too. If people are signed in using your app, you can track what they do.

I like using Cory Doctorow‘s term ‘enshittification‘ for this, as it’s an example of requiring a user to do something that isn’t going to make their experience any better. It’s a very one-sided act on the part of Canon. I would also argue that it goes against the spirit of Principal C of the GDPR, which is to minimise the data being captured. I think even Canon would struggle to argue whether it’s necessary for people to surrender their personal data, just to use an app that works locally between their devices. Indeed, I may well draft a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office about this to pre-empt this change.

As for alternatives to Canon Camera Connect: the only one I could find is PhotoSync. The ability to download photos from Canon cameras (and other brands) requires the purchase of a Premium subscription, which is either a £25 one-off payment, £6 per year or 80p per month as I write this.

Storm Bert

November 24, 2024 by Neil Turner

Yesterday, Storm Bert came to visit us, and delivered quite a lot of snow, followed by significantly more rain.

In some respects, we were lucky that temperatures rose as quickly as they did yesterday, as that later rain could have been more heavy snow. As it was, once the snow started to thaw and the gritters and snowploughs were able to get out, we were able to get on and do most of the things that we would normally do on a Saturday.

However, the rapid snow melt and heavy rain could cause some more problems. There’s flood alerts for the River Calder and River Ryburn in Sowerby Bridge. We’ve seen the Calder rise steadily over the day and are keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t result in a repeat of Storm Eva at the end of 2015. There’s been a lot of flood defence work that has taken place in the (almost) nine years since then, including Slow the Flow, a project to boost natural flood defences in upland areas to prevent the rivers from being inundated during storms. Alas, further up the valley, the new multi-million pound flood defences weren’t enough to stop flooding in Todmorden and Mytholmroyd, although it hasn’t been as bad as 2015 or 2020 so far.

It doesn’t help that we had snow earlier in the week, followed by persistent cold weather. There was a reasonable snow fall on Monday night, which by the time it snowed again on Thursday was still lingering on the ground. More snow fell yesterday but it’s almost all gone now. Meteorologically speaking, November is considered an autumn month in the northern hemisphere, so to have this much snow before winter has ‘officially’ started is concerning. And this is the second named storm of the year, too. This isn’t ‘normal’ weather by any existing definition, and I hope it doesn’t become the new ‘normal’.

At least, unlike with Storm Lillian in August, we didn’t get a power cut this time.

Bridgy Fed – linking Bluesky with the Fediverse

November 22, 2024 by Neil Turner

As I’ve mentioned a few times recently, Bluesky is my preferred social media site; I’ve quit Twitter/X and I’m not spending so much time on Mastodon or Threads at present. This means that I can’t easily follow users on those platforms – unless they’re using Bridgy Fed.

Bridgy Fed is a bridge between Bluesky’s Atmosphere network, and ActivityPub, which is used by Mastodon and other Fediverse clients, including Threads if you enable that option. I’ve set it up to work both ways with my Bluesky and Mastodon accounts, as follows:

Service	My Fediverse profile URL	My Bluesky profile URL
Mastodon	https://mastodonapp.uk/@neilturner (original)	https://bsky.app/profile/neilturner.mastodonapp.uk.ap.brid.gy (Bridged)
Bluesky	https://fed.brid.gy/bsky/neilturner.me.uk (Bridged)	https://bsky.app/profile/neilturner.me.uk (original)

How to enable Bridgy Fed

To enable it for your account, all you have to do is follow @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy on Mastodon (or another Fediverse service that supports ActivityPub), or follow @ap.brid.gy on Bluesky. It’s opt-in – Bridgy Fed will not create a bridge username for you unless you follow it.

It works reasonably well, within the various limits of each service. Bluesky, for example, has a 300 character limit for posts (or skeets) whereas Mastodon has a 500 character limit for posts (or toots). Indeed, some other Fediverse clients don’t have character limits at all. What this means is that any posts from the Fediverse that are bridged into Bluesky which are over 300 characters will get truncated by Bridgy Fed when cross-posted. You’ll get the first 260 characters or so, and then a link back to the original Fediverse post.

Re-skeeting and re-tooting will also work, if you’re re-skeeting or re-tooting someone else who uses Bridgy Fed, which is quite cool. Otherwise, Reskeets won’t be shared on the Fediverse and Retoots won’t be shared on Bluesky. Remember, Bridgy Fed is opt-in so people who haven’t consented to use it won’t find their skeets or toots being broadcast elsewhere.

As for Threads? Threads users who share their post to the Fediverse can be followed by Mastodon users, but it’s not fully integrated. I don’t think it’s possible, at the time of writing, for Threads users to follow other Fediverse users, and so it presumably isn’t possible to use Bridgy Fed with Threads. I haven’t tried however; whilst I post to Threads occasionally, I’m not a significant user.

My evolving home working environment

November 20, 2024 by Neil Turner

A photo of my home working environment. There is a large LED screen on the left, and a laptop on the right. In the foreground, there is a keyboard and mouse. and a ring light behind.

Until March 2020, I had never done a significant amount of home working in my current job role. But then the pandemic and lockdown happened, and I started a period of exclusive home working until September 2020. Since then, I’ve been a hybrid worker; typically I am in the office 2-3 days each week, but I still spend a significant amount of my working time at home.

First lockdown

During the first lockdown, I worked on our dining table. Though I had a desk, it was somewhat buried under piles of stuff and was set up for my Mac, even though I barely used it. Plus, I was at home with our then four-year-old, who I also had to parent alongside full-time work and part-time study. Let’s just say that this marked the point when I started getting grey hairs.

In my office, I always had two screens and so I replicated this as best as I could at home – a laptop, with an external screen plugged in. This screen was my LG Flatron W2353V, which I was sent to review back in 2009. We still have it, 15 years later; it’s no longer my principal screen, but our (now) eight-year-old uses it with their Raspberry Pi 400. With this, I had a cheap USB mouse and my Mac Mini’s keyboard. Everything would be cleared away at the end of each working day, so that we could have dinner.

Moving upstairs

September 2020 rolled around, and our then four-year-old started school, so no more need for supervision whilst working. I therefore moved to working upstairs, in our spare room. As it was starting to become clear that I would be working at home at least part of the week for the foreseeable future, I started investing in things that would make my home working environment better. This included a folding laptop stand (sponsored link), a new keyboard (sponsored link), a new Lenovo LED screen, and a succession of wireless mice, culminating in this Arteck mouse that I reviewed earlier this year. The laptop stand was probably the biggest game changer, as it allowed my screens to be at a similar height.

Not being on the dining table meant that I could keep everything out when not working, rather than having to unpack my workspace every morning and put it all away again each evening.

Later on, we splashed out on the single most expensive item – a new Markus office chair from Ikea. Over time, I also added a ring light, a better microphone (sponsored link), and a better webcam than the one built into the laptop, seeing as how many of our meetings are still online.

Back downstairs again

Although my workspace in our spare room was adequate, technically this was Christine’s craft and sowing space. Meanwhile, my desk downstairs in the dining room was still sat there under a pile of junk. So, I finally got around to clearing it out, and moved back downstairs to a new permanent home workspace. This gave me more space to work and in a room that was significant cooler over the summer. This is the workspace that is in the photo at the top of this blog post.

The most recent additions came from Ikea. I added a black Lånespelare mug holder, a white Skådis peg board to hide wires, and a Stubberget monitor bracket. The bracket clips on to the back of my desk, and attaches to the screen using a four screw VESA mount. That way, it’s easier to adjust the height (previously it sat on a rather stout book about pharmaceuticals), but also frees up more desk space and keeps the cables tidy. And whilst we don’t have a very young child any-more, having the screen fixed to the desk is much safer than a free-standing screen that could fall on them if pulled. We’ve had our various TVs fixed to the wall for the same reason.

I’m still working flexibly and so it’s likely that I’ll still need a good home working environment for some time to come. That might include an additional screen in future, although my current laptop only supports one additional screen and not two. I’m also looking at further ways to tidy up the cables.

DNA – Data Not Amendable

November 18, 2024 by Neil Turner

I’ve always been intrigued by sites like 23andMe and AncestryDNA which give you insights based on a DNA sample. They claim to be able to tell you about your family heritage, identify other users with a close DNA match, and potentially indicate whether you’re susceptible to certain inherited diseases.

But I’d never got around to signing up for one. They’re not free; usually you have to pay for a kit. Also, I can’t imagine that I would get much useful data from them either. Ethnically, I’m White English, and as far as I know, so are most of my family tree going back several generations. Indeed, we haven’t really moved much out of the north of England. So such sites would be unlikely to tell me anything that I didn’t already know.

As it happens, recent events have made me even less inclined to sign up. A smaller UK firm, Atlas Biomed, seems to have gone bust, with no indication of what will happen to the data that users have provided. And the aforementioned 23andMe is in trouble; it’s cutting 200 jobs, representing 40% of its workforce, and seems to be losing multiple millions of dollars. Oh, and it got hacked last year.

Your DNA is not something you can change. It’s not like a bank account; should someone gain unauthorised access, then it’s possible for your bank to give you a new account number and cards. You can change email addresses, and, under witness protection schemes, even gain a whole new identity if needed. But you can’t make wholesale changes to your DNA (gene therapy notwithstanding). And so if your DNA leaks out, or is sold on, there’s not much you can do about it.

If you’re reading this and are thinking about using a DNA testing service, maybe undertake some due diligence first. Ask questions like: where is the company based, and where is it storing your data? How will they keep it secure? Will they securely delete all your data if you withdraw consent?

Sky Follower Bridge

November 14, 2024 by Neil Turner

Last week, the social network Bluesky surpassed 14 million users. Users seem to come over from Twitter/X in waves – essentially whenever its excessively wealthy and over-impulsive owner does something to make it even worse. If you’re setting yourself up on Bluesky, and want to find the people that you were previously following on Twitter, then Sky Follower Bridge can help you.

Unlike some tools that were around a couple of years ago for finding people on Mastodon, Sky Follower Bridge is a browser extension. This means that it doesn’t use Twitter’s API, as such apps have generally been shut down pretty quickly, and is a clever way of side-stepping this issue. That does, however, mean that you’ll need to use a desktop browser to find your followers. Extensions are available for Chrome and Firefox; I used the Firefox version, but the Chrome extension has been updated more recently.

Finding your follows

Once the extension is installed, you’ll need to go to the page on Twitter/X that lists the accounts you follow, and then you activate the extension by clicking its toolbar button. It’ll then analyse who you are following to see if it can find a corresponding Bluesky account.

Some people will have put their Bluesky usernames in their Twitter/X bios, so Sky Follower Bridge should detect these. It’ll also look for matching names and usernames and suggest Bluesky users on this basis. This does mean that, if you follow someone with quite a common name, such as, oh, I don’t know, ‘Neil Turner’, it may suggest a different user on Bluesky with the same name.

Although I’ve been on Bluesky for just over a year, Sky Follower Bridge found 18 accounts that I used to follow on Twitter who are also on Bluesky. However, not all are active; it seems like quite a few signed up, tried it and then haven’t returned. Still, if you’re making the move off Twitter and want to stay connected with your previous followers, this is a good tool to use. And if you’re not already following me on Bluesky, here’s my profile link.

Patronage! At the Costco

November 12, 2024 by Neil Turner

A screenshot of the Costco web site showing their store finder. There's a map with pins showing the location of their warehouses across northern England

Something that has been on my to-do list for a while was to join Costco, the American ‘big box’ members-only wholesale retailer where you can buy items cheaply in bulk. Although primarily aimed at trade buyers, individuals belonging to some professions can also join their membership scheme. And, last week, I finally got around to joining after they visited my workplace.

Costco isn’t particularly new to UK, with the first of their warehouses opening here in the mid-1990s. Our local warehouses are in Leeds (near Crown Point), and just off the M60 near Oldham. We went to the Leeds one.

Inside a Costco warehouse

Costco calls its stores ‘warehouses’ and it’s an apt description. It’s a bit like the warehouse bit at the end of Ikea, where what you need is on pallets, and the shelving goes way up beyond customers’ reach to store excess stock. It had a similar feel to the hypermarkets that you get in France such as Auchan and Grand Casino, albeit with much higher shelving.

As well as shelves full of products, services offered in store include a butcher’s, an optician’s, a takeaway food stall, and tire fitting for your car. There’s also usually a fuel station, offering discounted fuel – again, for members only.

Almost everything is available in much larger quantities than you would expect at a standard supermarket. Either because they’re sold as multipacks, or just in bigger packaging. All prices are displayed without VAT added; where VAT applies, the VAT inclusive price is written in smaller lettering. After all, Costco is primarily a wholesaler selling to businesses.

Range

What you probably won’t find is a huge range of products. Costco generally sells one brand for each item, and, as it’s aimed at traders, this tends to be branded items. This means that, even with a bulk discount, items may not always be cheaper than supermarket own brands. That being said, Costco does offer its Kirkwood brand for some items like packaged meat and toilet rolls.

Being an American supermarket, some of the meat on sale is imported from the USA. American meat isn’t commonly sold in UK supermarkets and it’s the first time I’ve knowingly seen it on sale here. Generally, wherever American meat is on offer, there will be British meat alongside. American meat is cheaper, but also tends to come in much larger quantities. I have to say that I thought that the British meat looked to be better quality. I also have my issues with how animals are reared on American farms, as their welfare standards aren’t comparable with Britain and Europe.

Some of the things we bought on our first visit included 40 rolls of toilet paper (actually 10 packs of 4 rolls), huge bottles of Heinz ketchup and 24 can pallets of Cherry Pepsi Max and Orangina.

Costco Membership

You have to be a member to shop at Costco, either online or in store. Anyone can register and pay for an online account, but if you’re an individual, there are eligibility criteria that you need to meet to be able to shop in store. Current prices are here; including VAT, a standard individual membership is around £34 per year and an Executive membership is around £75. Executive members get an additional 2% off their Costco spending, so if you go regularly, it could work out cheaper. I reckon you would need to spend an average of around £170 per month at Costco for it to be worthwhile.

It’s worth noting that the membership cards are not supposed to be transferable, so the named person needs to be there to enter the store. As standard, you get a card for yourself, and a second card for a spouse (so both Christine and I have one each). You can then add one additional person to your account; this costs extra but would be less than a separate individual membership. Besides cardholders, members can bring a maximum of two guests with them on a shopping trip. I suspect that we’ll be offering to bring friends with us in future, so that we can buy in bulk and then split up our purchases later. If you’re a real-life friend of mine and you’re reading this, yes, that means you – contact me and we’ll try to arrange something.

In terms of eligibility, I qualify as I work in the education industry, and Christine works in healthcare so she qualifies too.

Prices

The prices are pretty good. For example, the aforementioned 24 can pallet of Cherry Pepsi Max was £8.38 including VAT (£6.99 without). Tesco sells an equivalent quantity for £10.50 and although I have seen offers as low as £8 from time to time, it’s a good price. They also don’t have ‘multipack can, not to be sold separately’ written across the top.

Vanish stain remover cost us £11.38 (£9.49 excluding VAT) for 1.9 kg; Tesco want £11.25 for a smaller 1.35 kg box. And we got two 880g bottles of Heinz Tomato Ketchup for £6.99 (VAT exempt), instead of £4.50 from Tesco.

But, like I said, most products are branded. We didn’t buy any herbs or spices because we could get them much cheaper at one of our local Asian supermarkets, and I can get own-brand cereal much cheaper at Lidl. Also, there were some things that we didn’t buy because of the quantities. For example, you can’t just buy one tin of kidney beans, you have to buy at least 24. Which is great if you’re regularly cooking chilli con carne, but otherwise is a lot of food to have to store. We’re lucky that we have a cellar and can put bulky items there until needed, but if you don’t have lots of storage, this could be a problem.

So, should you consider a Costco membership? If you can shop often enough to make the membership cost worth it, sure. Individual membership works out at around £3 per month and we saved more than that in one visit, although you also need to factor in travel costs.