Writing - Neil Turner's Blog

Sci-Fi Weekender, swallowed by the void

October 27, 2026 by Neil Turner

It looks like our favourite annual science fiction convention, Sci-Fi Weekender (SFW), is no more. We were emailed a week ago to say that the company which organises it, Dark Watch, has ceased trading, and all its future events would not be taking place.

We’re a bit gutted, to be frank. The SFW community is mostly lovely, and we’ve had some great experiences there over the years. We’ve been to all the SFW events since SFW 9, back in 2018. That was in North Wales, with later events in Sheffield, and more recently Great Yarmouth. I wrote a bit more about these back in March 2024.

Cancellation and relocation

The last SFW that took place was SFW 16 in March last year. SFW 17 was supposed to be in March this year, but it ended up being cancelled. This was due to over-running construction work taking place at the Vauxhall Holiday Park, the host resort, in Great Yarmouth. Instead, Christine and I went to London for the weekend. So, our booking was transferred to March 2027, without us being out of pocket.

We then learned in the summer that SFW would make yet another move to a new site. This time, it would take place at Seal Bay in Selsey, near Chichester on the south coast. Whilst this would mean a longer drive, it’s a larger site and the indoor spaces have higher ceilings. This addresses a minor complaint from some attendees that the Vauxhall Holiday Park wasn’t suitable for bigger cosplay builds. However, last month, ownership of Seal Bay transferred to Haven, who operate the Hafan y Môr park that hosted SFW until 2018.

No refunds

And then last week, we found out that the organisers has ceased trading, and that there would be no refunds. The shenanigans over the venue this year can’t have helped, and I understand a number of people also cancelled their bookings. But more recently I’ve learned that Dark Watch had maybe been in trouble for some time. Several partners and entertainment acts involved with SFW have mentioned that they’ve had unpaid invoices.

Dark Watch and its predecessor companies (Chic Festivals, HRH Experiences… the fact that it has changed name is perhaps a clue that they weren’t doing so well) had a good business model. As well as SFW, they operated the various Hard Rock Hell festivals, and would essentially lease out a holiday park out of season. The park operators got more value out of their parks, and the events usually sold out in advance. However, the park operators themselves have got wise to this – Parkdean runs its own weekender events now at Vauxhall and some of its other resorts. They’re more mass-market than SFW was, but it also means that some resorts won’t be available out of season and that Dark Watch is no longer the only company with this business model.

Getting our money back

The email telling us that Dark Watch had ceased trading advised anyone who had booked to try and reclaim their money by other means:

Chargeback, for any payments made by credit or debit card within 120 days. As we paid in March 2025, this wasn’t an option for us.
Section 75. This is part of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 which makes credit card providers jointly liable with the retailer for any transaction that goes wrong (between the value of £100 and £30,000). I paid by credit card, so this is what I’m pursuing.
Travel Insurance. I didn’t take out a travel insurance policy and don’t have an annual multi-trip policy, but even then, many policies don’t cover supplier failure. Furthermore, insurance companies may not pay out unless you’ve already tried getting your money back via chargeback or Section 75.

For SFW 17, we were planning to share a caravan as a group of six, and so the total we paid was around £860. I’ve submitted the paperwork for a Section 75 claim, which was literally on paper, as my credit card provider doesn’t allow you to contact them via their web site. Thankfully, as something of an email hoarder, I had the receipts and the various re-scheduling emails saved. There will no doubt be a future post about how I’ve got on.

I feel sorry for anyone who paid by debit card more than three months ago, or by cash, and who didn’t have travel insurance in place. This includes some of our friends, for whom hundreds of pounds of their money is now gone with no recourse.

There is a remote possibility that someone will buy the assets of Dark Watch and SFW could be resurrected in future. But it’s not guaranteed. I’d rather try my chances at a Section 75 claim, and pay our four friends back, than hope that a theoretical future owner will honour our booking. After we’ve paid back our friends for their contributions to the booking, there should be around £280 for Christine and I.

Silver linings?

As much as we enjoyed SFW, some of the logistics of getting there are a bit of a pain. In particular, we were not looking forward to the drive down to Chichester. From where we are in West Yorkshire, it would be a 5 hour drive with no breaks. However, with our electric car, this would require at least two 45 minute stops to charge, pushing the journey time closer to 7 hours. So even if we set off at 9am, it would be mid-to-late afternoon by the time we arrived, and the same in reverse. And Christine would be doing all the driving; as it stands, the earliest I can get my license back is September next year.

Childcare for the Thursday night has also been an issue. My parents are happy to look after our ten-year-old from Friday to Sunday, but not the Thursday night. So we usually have to scramble to find childcare on the Thursday night that would include school pick-up on Thursday, and drop-off on Friday morning. Not having to worry about that is a relief, I suppose.

What we might do instead

Christine and I still have the weekend booked off work, so we’ll see if we end up doing something else nearer the time. And it may be that another similar event comes along; there’s some chatter in the various Facebook groups that we’re members of. I’m hoping that these groups allow the SFW community to stay in touch, and maybe many of us will be able to meet up again somewhere in future.

But it would also be nice to have a weekend away somewhere, perhaps with our ten-year-old in tow this time.

There’s a bit more on this from MetalTalk, about the Hard Rock Hell side of things – and again, claims of unpaid invoices and appearance fees.

Updating firmware on a Nanoleaf Essentials smart bulb

October 25, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of the Nanoleaf Matter Essentials B22 LED Bulb in a light fitting

Last week, Home Assistant notified me that there was a firmware update for the Nanoleaf Essentials smart bulb that I bought last year. Installing it turned out to be a bit of a palaver, hence me writing a blog post about it.

If you want the short version:

Set aside about half an hour.
Update the firmware over Bluetooth, not via Thread.
Remove the bulb from all your smart home platforms (Home Assistant, Google Home, Apple Home etc)
Re-add the bulb as a new device
Reconfigure all your automations and dashboards to point to the new device entry

Trying to install the firmware over Thread

When I saw that Home Assistant was offering the firmware update (version 5.1.45), I clicked install, and then let it do its thing. I was then a little surprised to find that, several hours later, the install was apparently still going.

The firmware isn’t big – smart home devices with small MCUs only have a few megabytes of storage at best, so it shouldn’t have taken hours to download. Indeed, it didn’t – the download took just a few minutes. Installing software via Bluetooth or Thread is slower than Wi-Fi as these protocols are not designed for high bandwidth data transfer; if this was a Wi-Fi device, the download would have likely taken seconds, rather than minutes.

It seemed like the bulb was downloading the firmware update successfully, but then failing to install the firmware. Indeed, I left it several days to work, and tried the download again a couple of times, but no luck.

Installing the firmware via Bluetooth

In the end, I turned to Google and found this Reddit thread where people were having the same problem. The solution was to use the Nanoleaf app, and update the bulb via Bluetooth. This meant having my phone close to the bulb, but it took a few minutes and installed successfully. That was the good news.

The bad news is that, once the bulb came back online, it decided it was a new device. This meant that it needed re-adding to each smart home ecosystem that I use at home – Home Assistant, Google Home and Apple Home. I also had to fix its dashboard entries in Home Assistant, and fix the automations that subsequently broke.

With Home Assistant in particular, I had to make sure that the old device entry was fully removed from both Home Assistant itself, and from the Matter Server addon, before re-adding. Otherwise, it would not re-add properly – the Matter commissioning process would fail.

Benefits of the new Nanoleaf firmware

So, with all of this rigmarole, is it actually worth installing the new firmware? The biggest benefit is that this new firmware supports a newer version of Matter – version 1.4.2, instead of 1.2. On the same Reddit thread, people have reported the bulb being more reliable and responsive with the new firmware. I haven’t noticed much difference myself, but it is working at least as well as before.

Unfortunately I’ve misplaced the manual that came with the bulb, which has the QR code for Matter commissioning on it. That meant that I had to take the bulb out of the socket, scan the code, and then refit it to commission it over Matter. Bearing in mind that this bulb is in a ceiling light, so all of this was done atop a stepladder.

I’m hoping that future firmware updates will work better over Thread, and I won’t have to go through this again.

Metrolink to the Trafford Centre, 2026 update

October 23, 2026 by Neil Turner

Two Metrolink trams approaching and leaving Manchester Victoria station

Back in 2013, I wrote a lament about how Manchester’s Metrolink tram network didn’t reach its biggest shopping centre, the Trafford Centre. Well, now it does, and I used it for our visits to the Legoland Discovery Centre and the Sea Life Centre.

Two tram stops

Being as it is Britain’s third largest shopping centre by floor area, the Trafford Centre is large enough to have two stops serving it. One is called Trafford Centre, and is the (current) end of the Trafford Park line. The second is the penultimate stop, and is called Trafford Palazzo. This is actually its third name:

During development, it was known as EventCity which was the name of an events and conference centre located next to the tram stop. However, a few months before the tram stop was due to open, EventCity announced plans to move and the building has subsequently been demolished. The site is now due to become Therme Manchester.
On opening, the tram stop therefore took the name of the road that went past it, Barton Dock Road.
Finally, earlier this year, it was renamed Trafford Palazzo after the shopping centre next to it.

This is where I should perhaps explain the difference between the Trafford Centre and the Trafford Palazzo. They were once all the same shopping centre; what is now the Trafford Palazzo was the Barton Square extension to the Trafford Centre. The original builders of the Trafford Centre, the Peel Group, sold the Trafford Centre to Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) in 2011, and around 2013, it was rebranded the ‘intu Trafford Centre’ as part of a group-wide rebrand of CSC to ‘intu‘. The pandemic in 2020 resulted in intu going spectacularly bust, and its largest creditor, CPP Investments, took control of the Trafford Centre. In doing so, they spun out Barton Square as a separate entity, which was bought back by its original owners, Peel Group. They then rebranded Barton Square as the Trafford Palazzo. They remain linked by a covered footbridge, and use the same architectural style, but are technically competitors. It’s a bit like Eldon Square (another ex-intu property) and Eldon Garden in Newcastle, which are linked but owned and managed separately.

Opening

The Trafford Park tram line opened to little fanfare in March 2020. Partly because this was almost a year later than planned, but also because it was right at the start of lockdown. It splits off from the Eccles Line next to Ponoma tram stop, at a junction that was designed when the Eccles Line was first built. In all, it runs for just over three miles. Trams run approximately every 12 minutes (so 5 trams an hour). At present, they run through central Manchester to Crumpsall, meaning that I can get to the Trafford Centre from Sowerby Bridge with just a single change at Manchester Victoria. However, I gather this is a temporary arrangement, and normally the Trafford Park line trams only go as far as Deansgate-Castlefield. I hope the trams continue to go through central Manchester as otherwise we’ll have an additional change.

The Trafford Centre stop

Getting off at the Trafford Centre stop, you are presented with two ways into the shopping centre. One is through the back entrance of Selfridge’s, and the other leads you into one of the car parks where a series of escalators takes you into the upper level of the shopping centre roughly in the middle. It does feel like something of an afterthought, and it’s not the most welcoming way in, which was also my criticism of the bus station. It feels a bit like the tram stop was designed for people who work at the Trafford Centre and not shoppers.

Speaking of the bus station, this is located out on a limb at another part of the shopping centre. This seems like a bit of a missed opportunity to create a multi-modal transport interchange. After all, other out of town shopping centres like Meadowhall and the MetroCentre both have huge transport interchanges with buses, coaches, trains and, in Meadowhall’s case, trams. The Trafford Centre tram stop was designed such that it could easily be extended in future, and so maybe there could be a third stop added in a future phase which interchanges with the bus station. Original plans saw the line cross the Manchester Ship Canal and the M60, and head out towards the Salford City Stadium and Port Salford, but this hasn’t been built.

On the day we visited, the line did seem well-used, but it was also the day of the Manchester Half Marathon which starts and ends at Old Trafford. I’m therefore not sure how typical our experience was.

Using then not using the AI WordPress plugin

October 21, 2026 by Neil Turner

I try to keep an open mind about generative AI. I’ve used it in the past for generating featured images on here, although I stopped over a year ago. I’ve also used ChatGPT to tackle a couple of issues that I’ve faced when I’ve not been able to find a solution using conventional means, such as the YAML code to multiply two entities in Home Assistant or how to specify IP ranges using CIDR notation.

Recent releases of WordPress have included better support for AI, including an official plugin that enables AI assistance through the WordPress admin interface. I decided to give it a try, with the AI Provider for Google plugin. Reader, I was not impressed.

The features that I enabled were:

Auto-generation of post summaries for excerpts
Automatic suggestions for tags to add to posts
Automatic generation of alt text for images

Not worth it

All three features were, frankly, terrible. The post summaries over-used marketing-speak, and bore no relation to the voice I myself would use if I’d written them myself. The tag suggestions were no better than what I could think of myself, and sometimes no suggestions were made at all. And the alt text was so generic that it didn’t actually describe what was in the image. So, I’ve removed both plugins and gone back to doing everything manually.

I think the post summaries were what disappointed me the most. Having been able to digest a complete blog post that I had written, Gemini wasn’t able to summarise it using the same voice. Now, that could be an issue with the command that Gemini was being sent which may have led it to use more marketing speak, but I couldn’t find any way to amend this in the WordPress admin interface. Rewriting its summaries using the more colloquial, sarcastic and self-deprecating language that I normally use actually took longer than just writing them myself from scratch.

Maybe in a couple of years, I’ll revisit this to find that the AI models have improved, and can better mimic the way I write. If you’re using WordPress on a commercial site, then perhaps it will work for you. But for now, I’ll stick to doing things manually.

Sea Life Centre in Manchester

October 19, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of a sea turtle at the Manchester Sea Life Centre

Next door to the Legoland Discovery Centre at the Trafford Palazzo is another Merlin attraction in the form of Manchester’s Sea Life Centre. We visited both on the same day.

Sea Life Centres tend to vary. We’ve been to the one in Scarborough a few times, most recently in 2019, and it’s branded as a ‘Sea Life Sanctuary’ as it includes a seal hospital. The Manchester Sea Life Centre, being quite far inland, is very much a tourist attraction. It’s all indoors, and whilst there are endangered species there, it doesn’t have as much of a focus on protecting wildlife not already in its collection.

Sea turtles

On entering the Sea Life Centre, you first watch an interactive film about sea turtles, and how they lay their eggs on sandy beaches. You then pass through a series of themed zones, including a glass tunnel where you can see into the largest tank. This is home to several sharks, and Ernie, the sea turtle. There’s a tank focussing on rays, a coral reef, a rockpool, and another turtle exhibit including lots of terrapins which have been captured in the UK as an invasive species. Finally, just before the exit, is a large soft play frame for kids.

This was our third visit to the Manchester Sea Life Centre, the last one being in the run up to Christmas in 2019. We’ve generally whizzed around in about an hour each time; there are usually some talks and demonstrations to pad out your visit to perhaps two hours, but it’s not a full day out. We did this and the Legoland Discovery Centre next door in one afternoon.

Accessibility

Most of the Sea Life Centre is step-free, apart from some areas used for VIP experiences. Standard disabled toilets are available inside the attraction; a Changing Places toilet is available elsewhere in the Trafford Palazzo.

You can book both the Sea Life Centre and the Legoland Discovery Centre together if you wish, and Merlin will claim that this will save you money. In my experience, it doesn’t – it was cheaper to book both separately a few days in advance. I think that’s because the combo deal includes a fully flexible ticket, rather than one for a specific date and time – if you’re able to book for a certain time slot, it’ll probably be cheaper.

There is a shop inside, but no café – just a couple of vending machines selling drinks and ice cream. There are a number of food outlets elsewhere in the Trafford Palazzo though, and loads in the Trafford Centre which claims to have Europe’s largest food court.

All the rest of the information about getting there and discounts is the same as it was for the Legoland Discovery Centre, so I won’t repeat myself. In my view, it’s not the best Sea Life Centre – the Scarborough one is much better – but as somewhere easily reachable by public transport it fit the bill.

Playlist of the month: songs from TV adverts

October 17, 2026 by Neil Turner

Screenshot of the songs from TV adverts playlist

This month’s themed playlist is songs that have later gone on to be featured in TV adverts. Some of these are songs that were already well-known, but others are from bands or artists that became popular because their songs were featured in TV adverts. I could have spent hours choosing hundreds of songs for this, but, like most playlists of the month, there’s just ten. As usual, you can follow along on Spotify, and I’ve included YouTube links to the adverts as well.

Mr Oizo – “Flat Beat” – One of two appearances for Levi’s jeans, this advert featured a yellow puppet head-banging in a car. There were several adverts featuring this character, apparently called Flat Eric.
Babylon Zoo – “Spaceman” – Levi’s took one of the remixes of this song and sped it up for the advert. As such, the single version of this song starts off sped up, and then slows down to normal speed, becoming a meme about disappointment.
Jess Glynne – “Hold My Hand” – Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday! This also became a meme, and I can confirm that they play this advert on board Jet2 flights as my outbound flight to Athens last year was with Jet2. I can’t really recommend flying with a budget holiday airline for work, but at least someone else was paying.
Perez Prado – “Guaglione” – Back to the 1990s again for this advert for Guinness entitled Anticipation, although the song was originally released in the 1950s. I remember having this as a (very badly animated) screensaver which must have come on a CD-ROM mounted on the front of some kind of PC magazine.
Lord Rockingham’s XI – “Hoots Mon” – Another 1990s advert for Maynard’s Wine Gums, and again, featuring a variation of a song from the 1950s. Better known as “There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose”.
Dandy Warhols – “Bohemian Like You” – Vodafone did some pretty good adverts in the early 2000s – this one was called How are you? and features this Dandy Warhols song. This is another song that did well on the back of being featured in an advert – originally charting at number 42, it made it to number 5 after the advert came out.
The Mock Turtles – Can You Dig It? – Vodafone followed up How are you? with this advert featuring David Beckham and this song by The Mock Turtles. They were a bit of a one-hit wonder – whilst they released three studio albums and multiple singles in their time, none were as successful as this song. The CD release even featured a mobile phone on the cover. Also, the lead singer of The Mock Turtles is the older brother of Steve Coogan, better known as Alan Partridge.
Fleetwood Mac – “Everywhere” – Another advert for a phone network, this time Three (now wholly owned by Vodafone but was independent back in 2011 when this came out). The advert features a dancing pony, to the tune of a Fleetwood Mac song.
Smash Mouth – “Walking On The Sun” – Most people know Smash Mouth from the first Shrek film, but they had another single as well which Ford used for an advert called Get Out More.
The Vines – “Ride With Me” – Apple don’t make iPods any more, but when they did, they often used existing music to advertise them. This was the one that was out at around the time I bought my first iPod.

It’s here that I should also mention the web site Commercial Breaks and Beats, which was a directory of UK TV adverts and the songs used in them. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2008, but at least it still exists on the internet.

Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester

October 15, 2026 by Neil Turner

A couple of weekends back, Christine had some coursework to do and wanted me and our ten-year-old out of the way for a day. So, we went to the Legoland Discovery Centre, located at the Trafford Palazzo in Manchester.

This was actually our second visit; our first was in August 2017. Back then, our now ten-year-old was only about 18 months old, and as such, way too young. Whilst there is a small Duplo area, it’s not a big attraction and so we didn’t get much out of it at the time. It’s best for primary school aged kids, so 4 to 12-year-olds. Older kids may find that they’re too big for some of the attractions.

What’s inside the Legoland Discovery Centre

Like I said, the Legoland Discovery Centre isn’t a big attraction, especially compared to Legoland Windsor. We went to Legoland Windsor in 2021, at which you really need two days to see everything. Handily, there are two themed hotels on site, but at a price – instead, we stayed in a Premier Inn in Slough. By comparison, you can do pretty much everything at the Legoland Discovery Centre in two hours. Indeed, at busy times, you may find your visit is actually limited to two hours.

It’s all indoors, and starts off with an exhibit showing how Lego bricks are made. On our previous visit, this was an interactive exhibit with a member of staff walking us through it and presenting us with a special exclusive Lego brick at the end. On this visit, it was a static exhibit with information panels.

Next, was Miniland, where there are Lego models of real places. These are all in the north west of England, so Manchester but also Chester and Blackpool. If you visit this month, like we did, the models have all been spooked up for Hallowe’en. So, expect to see spiders attacking the model of the Blackpool Tower and tentacles coming out of a model of the Trafford Centre.

There are two rides:

Kingdom Quest, where you sit in a chariot and shoot lasers at invading trolls
Merlin’s Apprentice, which spins you round and lifts you up and down as you pedal

There’s a Ninjago themed soft play area, the aforementioned Duplo area and a ‘4D cinema’ where you get to watch a short 3D computer-animated film and have air and water sprayed at you. This was also Hallowe’en themed. This is all included in your entry fee.

Paid-for extras

Without realising, I booked the ‘Legoland Discovery Package’, which includes some paid-for extras. As I write this, these cost an extra £5.50 per ticket when booked in advance, which is cheaper than buying on the day.

These included the Lego VR Experience, where you sit in a pod and put on a virtual reality headset. The pod then moves in time with a virtual reality film. You get to choose one of two films – a Lego race, and a roller-coaster, which our ten-year-old chose for both of us. The roller-coaster is actually set in nearby Salford Quays, just by the Imperial War Museum North, and has you descending a huge tower on the roller-coaster.

We also got two bags of Lego (presumably one each) on entry, which were probably worth the extra £5 or so each on their own.

The other thing we paid extra for was a green screen photo. We went for the £20 package, which got us two large printed photos, the same two photos on keyrings, and digital downloads of all the photos that were taken, including one on the Kingdom Quest ride. A bit pricey, but these things always are.

In all, we spent a little over two hours at the Legoland Discovery Centre. Having booked in advance and used a discount (see below), it was merely moderately expensive. I would not have wanted to pay the full, on the gate price.

Accessibility

There is full step-free access to the attraction, and inside there is a Changing Places toilet. The regular toilets are currently closed for refurbishment, but there are plenty of toilets elsewhere in the Trafford Palazzo.

It’s always cheaper to book at least 24 hours ahead of time, and entry charges vary depending on the time of day, so you can save even more if you’re willing to be even just a little bit flexible. Like all Merlin attractions, there are lots of ways to save money – I got 15% off via the CSSC, but you can also get a similar discount with a Max card when booking in advance. It’s also worth checking the Merlin Deals page on MoneySavingExpert.com – right now, you can save 25% by buying a packet of Kellogg’s cereal (although I’m not 100% sure that the Legoland Discovery Centre is included).

There’s a café inside, and a Lego shop on the way out.

The nearest car parking is at the Trafford Palazzo itself, and there is plenty of car parking at the nearby Trafford Centre too. Electric car charging of all types is available across the site.

We got there by tram; the Trafford Palazzo tram stop is right outside, and it’s the penultimate stop on the Trafford Park line. The Trafford Centre bus station is a 10-15 minute walk away, but at least it’s an indoor walk.

There are multiple Legoland Discovery Centres across the world; the other UK one is in central Birmingham, near Brindleyplace.

Getting free prescriptions in England

October 13, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of my NHS Medical Exemption Certificate which entitles me to free prescriptions

As well as a free bus pass, one of the silver linings of being diagnosed with epilepsy is that I no longer have to pay for prescription medication. Epilepsy is one of several medical conditions which makes me eligible for a medical exemption certificate which you can get from the NHS Business Services Authority.

There are several other reasons why you may qualify for free prescriptions:

You live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The devolved administrations in these countries have abolished prescription charges, so all their residents get free prescriptions. Yorkshire hasn’t yet obtained sufficient devolution from the rest of England to roll this out, and we’re not in a position to move over the borders at the moment.
You’re under 16, 16-18 and in full-time education, or over 60. Children don’t pay for prescriptions, nor do those receiving full-time further education, and once you turn 60, you don’t have to pay either.
You’re in receipt of certain benefits. Some recipients of universal credit, pension credits or who are on low incomes can claim free prescriptions too.
You have a medical condition that requires regular medication. This is the one I now fall into.

Asthma and free prescriptions

Now, I’ve been asthmatic since I was three, and have had to take prescription medication every day since then to literally help me breathe. However, asthma is not one of the medical conditions where you can claim a medical exemption certificate. This means that, since I turned 19, I have been paying for my asthma medication – until this summer, that is.

In recent years I have had an NHS Prescription Prepayment Certificate (PPC), which is like a season pass for prescriptions. I make 10 monthly payments by direct debit, and can then get as many medicines as I am prescribed without having to pay for them individually. If you need at least one item of medication each month, then a PPC will save you money.

How to apply for free prescriptions

Once it became clear that I would need to take Levetiracetam twice a day, every day, probably for the rest of my life, I filled out an exemption form. Most pharmacies should have a supply of these forms (which are on paper), and you’ll just need to take it along to your GP practice for it to be signed and stamped. Within a few weeks, I had received my medical exemption certificate – a credit-card sized piece of card which gives me free prescriptions for five years. Notably, my direct debit payments for my PPC were also automatically cancelled when this was issued, which was nice.

It would have been nice if my asthma would have been enough to get free prescriptions on its own. Over the years, I have literally spent thousands of pounds on medication just to ensure that I can breathe. But at least now I probably won’t have to pay any prescription charges again – unless we manage to somehow cure my epilepsy within the next five years.

Setting the Stage at the Media Museum

October 11, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of the inside of the Setting the Stage exhibition about the Eurovision Song Contest at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford

2026 marked 70 years since the very first Eurovision Song Contest, and so the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford is holding a special exhibition called Setting the Stage. I visited a couple of weeks ago, along with our ten-year-old and some friends from university.

Setting the Stage spans two floors, taking up both of the museum’s temporary exhibition spaces, so it’s a large exhibition. You start off on the first floor, and with it the beginnings of the European Broadcasting Union. Here, there’s a lot about the technical challenges that had to be overcome in the 1950s to be able to broadcast the same TV programme live across multiple countries. A network of broadcast masts had to be set up across the continent to relay TV pictures and sound, and mountain ranges like the Alps provided particular challenges, as did differing TV standards in use in different countries.

Even now, the Eurovision Song Contest is a massive technical undertaking for the host nation, requiring a huge venue, multiple cameras, microphones, staging, lighting and crews to make it all run smoothly.

Outfits worn by Julia Sanina, Alesha Dixon and Graham Norton for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, on show at the Setting the Stage Exhibition

Fan stories and Objects

The Media Museum has used the Setting the Stage exhibition as an opportunity to put on show various objects related to Eurovision in its collection. It helps that the UK was a recent host of Eurovision, as we hosted the 2023 competition on behalf of the 2022 winners, Ukraine. The exhibition has the outfits worn by the hosts, Julia Sanina, Alesha Dixon and Graham Norton on show, pictured above. There’s also one of the flight attendant uniforms worn by a member of the band Scooch, for their 2007 entry Flying the Flag.

There are also plenty of objects donated by fans, including some home made items. Expect to see more than one star hat based on the one worn by 2007 Ukrainian act Verka Serduchka, for example. It’s similar to an earlier exhibition that I visited in 2014 about Doctor Who which focussed on the show’s relationship with its fans.

Upstairs, you have a chance to do a bit of karaoke with a choice of songs. Thankfully, no-one videoed my rather poor attempt at Oooh Aaah, Just A Little Bit by Gina G.

Setting the Scene is running at the National Science and Media Museum until the 24th January, so you still have some time to go and visit. If you’re a Eurovision fan, then I’d definitely recommend it, but even if you’re not, you may learn quite a bit about what it’s like to put on a massive live show across an entire continent (and Australia, for some reason).

Accessibility

Accessibility at the National Science and Media Museum is good; all floors are level and there’s lift access available. Disabled and Changing Places toilets are provided.

Entry to the museum is free, as it’s home to several national collections, but a £5 per person donation is encouraged. There’s limited pay and display parking behind the museum, and there are apparently two electric vehicle charge points (standard AC, Type 2) here which show up on Google Maps, but not on Zapmap. I personally park at the Broadway shopping centre and walk across. The museum is only a short walk from both Bradford Interchange and Bradford Forster Square railway stations and indeed we visited by train on this occasion.

My disabled bus pass

October 9, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of my Disabled Person’s Travel Pass - a bus pass giving me free off-peak bus travel

As I’m currently unable to drive for health reasons, I’ve applied for a Disabled Person’s Travel Pass to give me free bus travel. Indeed, the letter I received from the DVLA notifying me that I was unfit to drive was sufficient proof that I’m eligible for a bus pass.

I wish I’d known this when I first got my letter through in June. As it was, it took me until mid-August to apply, and then it took around a month for my application to be approved. The card then arrived in the post around a week later. In that time, I’d made a number of bus journeys that would’ve been free, had I received my card sooner.

Applying for your bus pass

Generally, you apply for your bus pass via your local authority’s web site, or in person at their offices. However, some counties, like where we live in West Yorkshire, have county-level passenger transport organisations. Ours is currently called Metro, hence the big red ‘M’ on my card, but they’re in the process of re-branding to the Weaver Network. This in the same way that Transport for Greater Manchester is now more commonly known as the Bee Network, thanks to Andy Burnham’s time as Mayor of Greater Manchester. Information about bus passes for blind and disabled people is here on Metro’s web site, if you live in West Yorkshire.

If you think you’re eligible for a disabled bus pass, then generally your local authority is a good starting point. Their web site should signpost you elsewhere if it’s handled by another organisation.

What your bus pass entitles you to

As I write this in October 2026, having a Disabled Person’s Travel Pass entitles me to free bus travel between the hours of 9:30am and 11pm, Monday to Friday, and all day at weekends and on public holidays, across the whole of England. However, one of the first things that Andy Burnham announced when he became Prime Minister was that time restrictions would be abolished from the 1st April 2027. That means that, in just under six months time, my disabled bus pass will be valid 24 hours per day, across England. Because we’re disabled, not werewolves, and sometimes disabled people have places we need to be before 9:30am. Some of my hospital appointments require more than one bus to get to, and each journey is £2.50, or £6 for an all-day ticket when my bus pass isn’t yet valid.

Individual counties and local authorities can also offer additional benefits to bus pass holders from their area. For example, on buses in West Yorkshire, my pass can be used until midnight, rather than 11pm. I can also use it on train journeys within West Yorkshire, although not for free travel – instead, I get half price off-peak travel. This doesn’t help me with commuting, although my Disabled Person’s Railcard is valid at peak times so I can still use that on the way to work. I’ve used my 50% bus pass discount once on a weekend recently, and most online ticket booking web sites seem to have an option to use it as a railcard when buying tickets.

If you live in Greater Manchester and have a Disabled Person’s Travel Pass, then I believe it’s already valid 24 hours per day within Greater Manchester. In effect, come April 1st, Andy Burnham is rolling out one of his Manchester mayoral policies nationally. You also get free off-peak travel on all trams and trains within Greater Manchester.

Within my local authority area, it can also be used at many of the places that a Passport to Leisure card can be used, which offers discounts at council-run gyms, and discounted entry to some local attractions.

Eligibility

Whereas the Disabled Person’s Railcard has wide eligibility – I was able to get one simply because I’m a hearing aid user – you have to me more profoundly disabled to qualify for a Disabled Person’s Travel Pass. As mentioned, having the DVLA declare you medically unfit to drive is one such criteria. For West Yorkshire, here’s the list along with the evidence required.

My pass has only been issued for a year; hopefully, I’ll have no more seizures and will be back to driving, at which point I’ll no longer be eligible for my bus pass. Which would be okay – when I could drive, I rarely used the bus. The few occasions that I did use it were when our car was in the garage, or I needed to get home when all the trains were cancelled. But at the moment, I’m using buses at least weekly, and so having a free bus pass is a great help.

By the way, if you’re wondering why I have blanked out my face on my card it’s because:

It’s an awful photo
The same photo is on my passport