Neil Turner, Author at Neil Turner's Blog

The 7 election candidates in Halifax

June 26, 2024June 19, 2024 by Neil Turner

A screenshot of the map of the Halifax parliamentary constituency

So, there’s a General Election coming up on the 4th July. Although I live in Sowerby Bridge, our local constituency is Halifax, as we’re lumped with the larger town just up the road.

Since the last general election at the end of 2019, there’s a couple of changes.

New constituency boundaries

The first change is the constituency boundary. Whilst there will still be 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom, the boundaries have changed to ensure that there’s a more even balance of population in each. In our case, the Halifax constituency has grown slightly, and now includes part of the Ryburn ward which used to be in the neighbouring Calder Valley constituency. This adds the villages of Sowerby and Triangle.

A new MP

Our previous Labour MP, Holly Lynch, decided not to run again. She is currently pregnant with her second child, and trying to run a re-election campaign whilst expecting doesn’t sound like my idea of fun. She’s been our MP since the 2015 general election, and was re-elected in 2017 and 2019.

So, using the list from WhoCanIVoteFor, here’s who I’ll be able to consider voting for next month:

Labour: Kate Dearden

Kate is the Labour candidate, and most likely to win; Halifax has elected a Labour MP at every election since 1987. Indeed, since 1964, the Tories have only held the seat for the four years prior to 1987. As I’m a member of the Labour party, I’ll be voting for Kate.

Though not born in Halifax, she grew up not too far away in Bingley, and has worked in trade union roles prior to becoming a political candidate.

Reform UK: James Griffith-Jones

Reform is Nigel Farage’s latest political vehicle, and is fielding candidates in just about every constituency in England, Wales and Scotland this time. Previously known as the Brexit Party, James previously stood for UKIP in a local council election in 2016, but there’s a lack of information about him on Reform’s web site. Reform may be popular with some of the more rural areas of the Halifax constituency but I can’t see him winning here. The Brexit Party previously came third in 2019, beating the Liberal Democrats, but only winning 6% of the vote.

This post was edited on Wednesday 26th June in response to a comment from James Griffith-Jones who states that he is not a ‘far-right’ candidate.

Green Party: Martin Hey

Martin is already active in local politics, having been elected a local councillor in the Shelf and Northowram ward a couple of years ago. Judging by his profile, he’s a bit of a NIMBY and concerned with the amount of housebuilding proposed for the area. In the last general election in 2019, the Greens came last with just 2% of the vote.

Independent: Perveen Hussain

In addition to the six parties fielding candidates, there’s one candidate standing as an independent, who is Perveen Hussain. According to her candidate statement, she’s a local businessperson and a campaigner, especially around Palestine. The Park ward in Halifax has a large Muslim community and she may see some support here.

Liberal Democrats: Samuel Jackson

We don’t know what Samuel Jackson’s middle name is, so I’ll leave the Nick Fury comparisons out for now. He’s a local lad, born in the constituency, who works in one of the local textile factories. As mentioned, the LibDems polled fourth in 2019 with a little under 5% of the vote.

Workers Party of Britain: Shakir Saghir

Now this is an interesting one. The Workers Party GB is George Galloway’s latest vehicle, and Shakir recently outed Labour in the Park ward in the recent local council elections. I happened to drive through the ward on election day last month, and his posters were everywhere, alongside photos of Galloway and lots of messaging around Palestine. Policy on Palestine has been one of Labour’s weak points this year.

WhoCanIVoteFor reveals that Shakir was previously a Tory, having stood several times for the Conservatives in local council elections. His switch to the Workers Party seems to have helped him get elected in Park ward, but I would be surprised if he can repeat that success across the wider Halifax constituency. Also, as someone who used to work in Bradford West during Galloway’s last stint as an MP between 2012 and 2015, he comes across as an absolute grifter.

Conservatives: Hazel Sharp

Hazel Sharp has her own, rather basic web site. She’s originally from Scotland, but now works as a physiotherapist for the NHS. Which, considering the current Tory government’s record when it comes to the NHS, is surprising. Having looked at her Facebook page, her campaign seems to be focussed on a handful of more rural areas, with nothing from the suburbs of Halifax itself.

The Tories have come second in every election since losing the seat in 1987, and only lost by 400 votes (1%) in 2015. However, with their frankly disastrous campaign and falling poll ratings, I would be very surprised if Hazel is elected as Halifax’s next MP.

FWIW, I realise that Diamond Geezer has done the same for his constituency in London, but I had planned to write this for some time. Anyway, if you live in Halifax, vote for Kate Dearden on the 4th July.

European motorway toll tag

June 17, 2024 by Neil Turner

An AI-generated image of a car passing through a motorway toll plaza

Today’s the first of a couple of blog posts about things that I’ve done to make our holidays a little easier. This blog post is about Emovis Tag, who sell a small electronic tag to pay for motorway toll plazas in France, Spain and Portugal.

Normally, we go to France on our summer holiday, and take our car with us. Unlike British motorways (with one exception), French motorways are usually privately owned and financed, and so most charge a toll for use. Since 2018, we’ve used a tag from Emovis Tag, which lets you drive through motorway toll plazas without having to stop and pay. Instead, your motorway toll charges are accumulated, and then taken from your UK bank account by direct debit each month.

A photo of a Liber-T tag in the windscreen of my car

For France, you get a standard ‘Liber-T’ tag, and there’s a separate tag that works for motorways in Spain and Portugal. That means that if you’re driving through France and either Spain, Portugal or both, you’ll need two tags. Emovis Tag will send you your tag(s) by post, and you fit them to the dotted area of your windscreen.

Then, once you’re in France, and come across a motorway toll plaza, you ensure that you’re in a lane with the ‘Liber-T’ icon (a lower-case ‘t’) and drive through at a walking pace. The tag should beep loudly at you, and the barrier in front should open to let you through. There’s usually no need to come to a complete stop.

Some motorway toll plazas have longer lanes where you can approach at 30 km/h (about 20mph) and so you don’t have to slow down as much.

Advantages

The key advantage of having one of these tags is that you don’t need to come to a complete stop, either to collect a ticket or pay a motorway toll charge. Whilst this may only save a few seconds, it adds up if you have a long journey.

It also overcomes an issue with British right-hand drive cars; most machines and booths at the motorway toll plazas are designed for left-hand drive vehicles. If you don’t have a front-seat passenger in the car, or they’re like my wife and have a tendency to sleep in cars, then you don’t need to reach over to pay. There’s also no risk of losing the paper ticket given to you when you join the motorway, so you won’t be overcharged if you do lose it. And you don’t have to worry about not having the correct change or having a foreign currency card declined.

Disadvantages

However, a key point to note is that this isn’t in any way cheaper. You have to pay for the tag, and there are annual and monthly account fees to pay (although the monthly fees are capped). There is a deposit for the tag which you can get back if you return it, which is worth considering if you don’t go abroad at least once a year. We’re staying in Britain for our holiday this year, and probably next year too, so I’m debating whether it’s worth returning the tag.

Therefore, you are paying more for an easier experience whilst on holiday. I think it’s worth it, but it’s up to you.

Something else to bear in mind is that, whilst the majority of French motorways have tolls, not all of them do. If you’re visiting Brittany and Normandy, then the main A84 autoroute is free throughout. On our 2022 France holiday, we didn’t encounter any toll-charging roads.

If you do decide to go ahead, you can sign up using this link to get a €5 credit on your account.

An incoming General Election

June 15, 2024 by Neil Turner

A photo of our polling cards for the Halifax constituency for the General Election

If you’re in Britain, it hopefully hasn’t passed you by that there’s a General Election taking place on the 4th July. It was announced back on the 22 May in a very moist way by our current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. Had the Fixed-term Parliaments Act not been repealed, it would have probably coincided with the local and mayoral elections on the 2nd May, but instead we’re being called out for a second election in three months.

We’ve already received our voting cards through the post, but if you haven’t, or you’re not sure if you’re registered to vote, fill out the form now. You have until 23:59 on Tuesday 18th June to register, which is only a few days away.

This will be the sixth general election in which I’ve been eligible to vote. I turned 18 a year after the 2001 general election and so missed it, but I have voted in the 2005, 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections.

The folks at Democracy Club have a couple of web sites to help you with voting. Where do I vote? tells you where your polling station is, if you’re choosing to vote in person rather than use a postal vote. This information will also be on your polling card, although you don’t need your polling card with you to vote.

Who can I vote for? meanwhile lists the candidates standing in your constituency. There’s a record number of candidates standing this time – a total of 4515 across the 650 constituencies, which averages at almost seven candidates per constituency. Indeed, every constituency has at least five candidates standing, which is a first. As well as the three traditional main parties, the Green Party and Reform UK are fielding candidates in almost every constituency too.

The most is 13 candidates in Richmond and Northallerton, which happens to be where Rishi Sunak is standing. As well as the major parties, Count Binface is there, alongside the Monster Raving Loony Party (who are fielding 22 candidates in total).

In a later blog post, I’ll talk about the seven candidates that I can choose in Halifax, where I live. Although, as I’m a paid-up member of the Labour party, it’s pretty obvious who I’ll be choosing.

A week off

June 13, 2024 by Neil Turner

An AI-generated image of a penguin with a disassociated look on its face

Normally I’m pretty good at ensuring that I have enough pre-written blog posts saved up so that I can keep to my aim of publishing a new post every other day. As this is the first new blog post for a week, clearly I haven’t managed to keep it up.

It’s the usual combination of a lack of time and motivation that has meant I haven’t been able to write anything recently. I still have plenty of things that I want to write about, and my list of potential blog post ideas has plenty of suggestions. But I just haven’t been in a mood to sit down and type out my thoughts and opinions recently.

I’ve got a couple of blog posts to write about things that I bought with my birthday money (the first of which was about the Bluetooth thermometers). Regular readers will not be in the least bit surprised that these are related to Home Assistant. Oh, and there’s the small matter of an upcoming General Election.

I’m aiming to spend some time this weekend catching up, so hopefully this is a return to your regularly scheduled 3-4 new posts a week.

Cross-posting on socials

June 6, 2024 by Neil Turner

I’ve recently updated the Feeds page to list ways other ways that you can follow this blog, besides subscribing to the RSS feed. To summarise:

There’s the weekly email
Any Fediverse app (e.g. Mastodon, Friendica) can follow the blog directly using ‘@nrturner’
There’s now a dedicated Facebook page
I’m automatically cross-posting links to new blog posts to X/Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky

The Facebook and X/Twitter integration is being done via Buffer and the WP to Buffer plugin. This is because Buffer is one of the few services that still has write access to the X/Twitter API. It also means that I am using my X/Twitter account again, but only to link to my own blog posts. I’m not logging in to interact with other users or post anything there that isn’t a link out to something I host. At least, not until Elon Musk inevitably gets bored, bankrupt or both and sells X/Twitter to someone better.

I think I used to have a dedicated Facebook page for this blog in the past, but I must’ve deleted it at some point. Anyway, there’s a new one which has been around for a couple of weeks and has had basically zero interactions in that time. If you want to very occasionally see my blog posts on your news feed, when the Facebook algorithm deems me worthy, feel free to give it a ‘Like’. I won’t be incorporating any of Meta’s cookies or adtech into this web site, don’t worry.

To cross-post to Mastodon, I’m using the Share on Mastodon plugin. It’s simple but configurable, and does the job well. For Bluesky, I’m using Neznam Atproto Share, which is also simple but configurable. I quite like relatively simple WordPress plugins that just do one or two things, and don’t try to take over your dashboard.

Whilst I have a Threads account, Meta hasn’t opened an API for it yet, so no auto-posts there. Mastodon remains my primary public social media presence, but I do scroll through Bluesky regularly too.

The Black Country Living Museum

June 4, 2024 by Neil Turner

Following our trip to Dudley Zoo and Castle, we went to the other major tourist attraction in Dudley: the Black Country Living Museum.

Those of us living in the North of England may be familiar with Beamish, which is a large, outdoor museum showing what life was like in the North East during various time periods. The Black Country Living Museum is very similar, but based in the Black Country. This is the area around Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, and probably gets its name from the mining and/or burning of coal.

Visitors can walk around various buildings that have been transplanted or recreated from the area. These include an array of shops – some of which sell things to buy – as well as a couple of pubs and fish and chip shops. There’s also a school where you can have a ‘lesson’ as if it were the 1950s, and a fairground. The museum also backs onto the Dudley Canal, and a cut from the canal goes through the museum.

Transport

It’s quite a large site, and so there are transport options to get you from the visitor centre at the entrance into the recreated town. On the day we went, this was a classic diesel bus, but there’s also an electrically-powered trolleybus that was parked up. There’s a tram line as well, but this is currently out of use.

Mines

As mentioned, coal probably inspired the name of the Black Country, and so there are two mines on site. One is a deep mine, The Racecourse Colliery, and the other is a ‘drift mine’ which can be entered on foot. The latter is open for tours, although it’s a realistic simulation rather than a real mine. It does mean that it’s unlikely to collapse, but you’ll need to wear a hard hat as it includes low ceilings that would be typical in this type of mine.

There’s plenty to see, and I would advise going at a weekend when more events take place as we did. Like many attractions, your tickets are valid for one year after your visit, so we may go back another time to see some of the other demonstrations. As you would expect, the museum is also frequently used for filming shows such as Peaky Blinders.

As usual, you can view several more photos on Flickr.

Accessibility

The site is on a slope, and some powered wheelchairs may struggle in some places. Some buildings have narrow entranceways or steps, and the drift mine is uneven under foot. There is an accessible bus available if booked in advance. Some of the industrial exhibits may produce loud and unexpected noises.

ThermoPro TP357 Bluetooth thermometer review

June 2, 2024 by Neil Turner

A photo of a ThermoPro TP357 thermometer showing the current temperature of 17.5℃ and humidity of 59% on a LCD display.

I have an upcoming project for Home Assistant which means that I need to be able to measure the temperature in our bedroom. As part of this, I’ve bought a couple of ThermoPro TP357 Bluetooth thermometers from Amazon (sponsored link). One is for our bedroom, and the other is for our eight-year-old’s bedroom which tends to get a bit cold in winter.

I specifically went for these thermometers because they’re:

Cheap – I paid £19 for the pair last week, but they’re £16 for the pair as I write this.
Supported by Home Assistant – there’s an official integration.
No extra hardware required – because they’re Bluetooth, and I run Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi with a supported Bluetooth chip, there’s no additional hardware required to get the two to talk to each other.
Probably good battery life – Bluetooth is quite energy efficient when compared with, say, Wifi, and so the batteries should last longer.
No need to use the cloud – all the data can be stored locally on Home Assistant.

ThermoPro TP357 look and feel

The ThermoPro units are smaller than I expected. They’re about as tall as a credit card but roughly square, so they’re narrower than a credit card. Each one runs on one AAA battery which is provided. On the back is a flip out kick-stand, a magnet and a hook, so you can wall-mount it, stick it to your fridge or have it free-standing on a shelf like I do. There’s also a button on the back that switches it between Fahrenheit and Celsius.

On the front, there’s an LCD screen which shows the current temperature and humidity level. There’s also a face pictogram – it’ll smile when the humidity is between 30-60%, frown when it’s less than 30% or show a neutral expression if it’s over 60%.

Home Assistant integration

If you have Bluetooth enabled on your Home Assistant device, then a few minutes after you put the battery in, Home Assistant should pop up a notification to say it’s discovered a new ThermoPro device. You’ll just need to confirm that you want to set it up and allocate it to an area, and you’re done.

As you would expect, the ThemoPro integration reveals entities for temperature and humidity, but also the battery level. I’m not sure how accurate this is, as both provided AAA batteries just show 50%. I’ve added these to my Home Assistant dashboard, and have set up some additional functionality that I’ll blog about later. Mainly because, despite allegedly being ‘summer’ in the UK right now, it’s not been warm enough for me to test.

The range seems quite good on these. ThermoPro claim that there’s an 80 metre range in direct line of sight. There’s a few thick walls between my Home Assistant device and the thermostats, and one that is around 5 metres away doesn’t have great signal strength but it’s enough.

ThermoPro app

Of course, ThermoPro expect you to use their app for iOS and Android. This includes logging of up to a year’s data, and you can set notifications based on events related to the humidity and temperature. Well, that’s what it says – I haven’t actually installed the app. I’m not yet sure if it’s possible to have the app and Home Assistant communicate with the thermostat at the same time. But theoretically, anything the app can do, Home Assistant can do too.

Alternatives

I’ve had various Facebook adverts for alternatives to these. Some have e-ink displays, which are more readable at a distance, or use different protocols to Bluetooth. But they’re all more expensive. These two seem to do the job well and are small and cheap. Plus, it should be quite a while until I need to replace the batteries.

IF – a film about imaginary friends

May 31, 2024 by Neil Turner

At the weekend, we went to see IF at the cinema. You’ve probably seen the trailer, as it’s the latest film to star Ryan Reynolds.

It’s about a 12 year old girl, who is going through some hard times, and realises she can see the imaginary friends of others. Unfortunately, these ‘ifs’ can no longer be seen by their kids, and are looking for new kids to befriend. The BBFC rate it as a U, so it’s suitable for kids, but they do warn of ‘bereavement themes’.

I enjoyed it, and there definitely seems to be a split between the audience and critic scores. On RottenTomatoes, the critics score it 49% but audiences 88%. If you do go and see it, bring tissues; our eight-year-old has seen it twice now and teared-up both times. And maybe don’t think too hard about the plot; The Guardian’s review highlights a number of plot holes.

Dudley Zoo and Castle

May 29, 2024 by Neil Turner

A photo of Dudley Castle, inside the grounds of Dudley Zoo

For my 40th birthday last weekend, we had a couple of days in Dudley. Which might seem like an odd choice for a short break, but it meant that we could visit Dudley Zoo and Castle, and the Black Country Living Museum (which I’ll blog about separately soon).

This was my third visit to Dudley Zoo; all three of us visited in 2019 on the way down to Portsmouth to go on holiday, and I had been as a child (probably 1992 as I seem to remember it being the 29th February). It’s a medium-sized zoo; it doesn’t have any really big animals like elephants and rhinos, but is home to some quite big animals like sealions, lions, tigers and giraffes. You’ll need a full day to see everything, but unlike Chester Zoo you will be able to see everything in one day.

Dudley Castle

Before the zoo, there was the castle. There’s been a castle on this site since Norman times, as it’s a strategic lookout position. The current castle is a ruin – it was damaged quite a bit during the English Civil War in the 17th century and suffered a fire in the 18th century. You can go up the keep, which is the oldest bit of the castle, and there’s a newer indoor part which is home to nocturnal animals, as well as offering a history of the castle.

The ruined castle offered a focal point for what was originally known as Dudley Zoological Gardens, and several animals including the penguins and sealions now live in what was the castle’s moat.

Tectons

When the zoo opened in the 1930s, a number of concrete buildings were built by the Tecton architectural group, with all but one surviving. They’re now all Grade II or II* listed, although a number are no longer fit for their original purpose. They were all restored recently and still look quite futuristic, almost 90 years after they were built. These include the main entrance gates, which I gather are now only used on really busy summer weekends. Entry is now via what was originally known as the Station Café, which is now a gift shop. Incidentally, there’s no longer a railway station nearby, but there will soon be a stop on the West Midlands Metro once the Dudley extension opens – hopefully later this year.

A photo of a tiger licking its mouth at Dudley Zoo

Dudley Zoo highlights

The highlight for us was the Lorikeet Lookout; provided that you go in between 11am and 3pm, you can buy a pot of nectar to feed the lorikeets. They’ll happily sit on your hand/arm/shoulder whilst doing this. We also got to see a female tiger playing around in the water, and a weaver bird making its nest. As usual, I’ve uploaded a full set of photos to Flickr.

They also have red pandas; we saw one but it was high up in the trees and so I couldn’t get a photo. We also didn’t see the otters this time.

Accessibility

Like most zoos, Dudley Zoo is open every day (except Christmas Day). As mentioned, it’s on a hill, which is great if you’re building a castle, but not so great if you’re in a wheelchair. Whilst there is a marked out route with gentler slopes, some powered wheelchairs may struggle. If your wheelchair folds, you can use the land train to get between the bottom and top levels of the site.

There’s a detailed guide for people with sensory issues available to download, and there are sensory signs on just about every enclosure warning of possible loud noises or strong smells.

AboutMy.email

May 27, 2024 by Neil Turner

So, now that I’m sending out email newsletters, I need to be sure that people will actually receive the emails. Because email spam is still a problem after all these years, the big webmail providers have strict requirements to ensure that email reaches their user inboxes, and AboutMy.email is a really simple testing tool.

When you open the web page, you’ll be given an automatically generated unique email address. All you need to do is send an email to this address, preferably by adding it to your email list. Once the email comes through, AboutMy.email will analyse it, and let you know what you need to improve.

I had already set up DMARC, DKIM and SPF on my domain, and so, as you can see from the screenshot, it scored quite well. Other things that I’ve gained points for are my site having an IPv6 address, and using TLS for email connections.

To improve the score further, I’ve subsequently added a BIMI record, and need to look into adding unsubscribe headers from my emails. But it’s a very good start, and should reduce the chances of my emails ending up in user’s spam folders. I like how simple AboutMy.email is – you don’t need to register an account, and there’s no spam follow-ups afterwards (which would be ironic I suppose).