1) I got Wordle right in three. Nobody cares that I got Wordle right in three, nobody cares if anyone gets Wordle right in three, it's just nice to tell people sometimes. I've got Wordle right in three 102 times. More to the point I've got Wordle right in two 16 times, which is 5% of all my attempts, and Wordle right in 1 once. That'll never happen again.
2) I bought a rail ticket to a station outside London and then I had to collect it from a machine. I presume you know you don't have to use the plastic card you bought it with, any credit/debit card will do, and that you don't have to collect it from the station you said you were going to collect it from, any station with a National Rail ticket machine will do. But what you may not have realised is that the eight-character collection codes only use half the letters of the alphabet.
Letters that get used: BCFGHJKLNRTWX Letters that don't: ADEIMOPQSUVYZ
The unused letters include those that might resemble numbers like IOQSZ, and letters easily confused with other letters if you scribble them down badly like DEMUV. It's clever because you don't want to turn up to retrieve expensive tickets and be thwarted by your own sloppy handwriting. Also the digits 0 and 1 don't get used, but you probably expected that.
3) I threw some Mini Cheddars, a spy novel, a pencil, a refillable bottle, two Twix fingers and a newspaper into a rucksack.
4) I was delayed by a pheasant. The train was making good time but suddenly started braking more than usual and came to a halt on a viaduct. Passengers looked at each other. Eventually the driver made an announcement saying a pheasant had hit the train hard enough to jolt the evacuation door on the front which had tripped a failsafe and now the train wouldn't move. Passengers sighed. Eventually the driver said some engineers were on their way to reset it but they'd probably be about an hour because you can't just drive to the middle of a field. Passengers tutted. The lady opposite rang up her friend and cancelled their day out. Eventually the driver learned how to reset the system himself and we crawled into the next station where we all got turfed off to wait for the next non-cancelled train behind us. Passengers grumbled, but they'd got off more lightly than the pheasant.
5) On the platform I observed human nature under mild pressure and wasn't impressed. One passenger asked the driver how there could be a train behind us when the internet said it was cancelled. Another passenger asked the engineer why they couldn't build trains to withstand bird strikes. Another passenger asked them both where the pheasant was because they couldn't see any blood. It's a very British thing to complain by asking a question through a fixed grin under the false assumption that you know more than the expert you're talking to. Don't be a smug ignorant questioner.
6) I explored a town I think I've only been to twice. It needed blogging. I walked 10 miles.
7) I received a message from a friend saying "Hey, when Twitter dies how are we still going to keep in touch?" or words to that effect. They sent it via Twitter because that's the only way we have to talk. Over the years I've built up quite a network of friends/acquaintances/contacts on Twitter, many of whom I have no means of contacting any other way. I hope Twitter doesn't implode else I'm going to lose touch with a lot of people I assumed I was connected to for the long term. See also all the people I used to chat to on ICQ, MSN and numerous other online chat services that suddenly expired and now I have absolutely no idea what they're up to, nor any way to ask. Online relationships are fragile and oh so easily extinguished.
8) I walked out of town to the old church. I hoped it would be unlocked. It wasn't. Never mind, I thought, I'm not missing anything unique or awesome. I'd done my research before I left home by downloading a lengthy guide from the church's website and reading it and nothing properly stood out. It read more like "yes, there are stairs in the Bible too" and "effigies just remind us there is life after death" and it was all a bit preachy. So I was really peeved when I got home to discover I'd missed something unique and awesome in the corner of the churchyard which the guide had completely ignored, other than a small thumbnail beside some text about God's glorious creation. I'd walked really close to this properly geeky thing which would have been a highlight of my trip but I totally missed it, for God's sake.
9) I was amazed how mild it was. It's just ridiculously mild at the moment, not by summer standards but mild for mid-November. Last night was really mild too, indeed there've been records broken not just in the UK but across Europe. We keep breaking "warmest" records not "coldest" records, and every month so far this year has been warmer than average, and this is so going to get worse, slowly, inexorably, like boiling a frog.
The last three times the UK broke a monthly warmest temperature record: July 2022, December 2019, February 2019 The last three times the UK broke a monthly coldest temperature record: December 1985, January 1982, July 1977
10) I submitted my Delay Repay claim when I got home, and that'll have paid for my newspaper.
