Phil Gyford
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phil.gyford.com
Phil Gyford
@phil.gyford.com
More active on Mastodon. Can't read DMs here because I won't upload my ID.

At https://www.gyford.com
In Herefordshire, UK.

Also runs @samuelpepys.bsky.social and @ooh.directory
I did not expect my find myself on the Royalist side in the second English Civil War and yet
Could the idea of making Rupert Lowe the King instead be "mainstreamed", ask the online racist right!
December 26, 2025 at 4:45 PM
@thebeautyoftransport.com The "click here to find out how to join in" link near the bottom of stationheritageartefacts.org.uk/about/ is broken. I love the project!
December 16, 2025 at 9:46 PM
One of the Barbican's maintenance staff and his family – two adults, three young kids – lost their home and all their belongings in a house fire in Leyton. www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-n...
Donate to Help for Naches, organized by Alba garcia
This account has been created to help a friend who just lost his house in a house fire last night leaving… Alba garcia needs your support for Help for Naches
www.gofundme.com
December 12, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Everyone: The government should leave X, the extreme-right-supporting platform.

Starmer: Welcome to my Substack! keirstarmer.substack.com/p/politics-t...

Everyone: FFS.
December 7, 2025 at 11:25 AM
@yoz.bsky.social I'm sorting through old photos and found this happy memory.
November 29, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Original sin, 2005.
November 26, 2025 at 10:14 AM
I like the Apple Weather app but even if its daily summaries of precipitation chance are statistically accurate (although I don't understand how) I'd say they usually give a less-than-useful impression.
November 23, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Out to whoever was in charge of moving the British Library blogs to a new platform, breaking all existing URLs to posts, and not including an RSS feed in the specs for the new system.

www.bl.uk/stories/blogs
Blogs and updates from curators, staff and guests - British Library
Get the latest stories and updates from our curators, cataloguers, reference staff and guest contributors. Find out more about amazing items in our collection.
www.bl.uk
November 20, 2025 at 1:10 PM
It's tempting to rejoin the Labour Party just so I can have the satisfaction of canceling my membership and burning my membership card.
November 16, 2025 at 12:46 PM
I hope to finally make it to this one.
Hello, here are most of the artists playing WGP 2026!
No clashes!

HEAVENLY, PROLAPSE
EVEN AS WE SPEAK, BRITISH BIRDS
STUART MOXHAM, RACHEL LOVE
SWANSEA SOUND, LANDE HEKT
THE CORDS, THE BOOJUMS
YNYS, LILITH AI, THE SCHOOL...
👇
November 13, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Last week I watched the BBC's 'Girlbands Forever' and was frustrated so many interviews kept cutting from one sentence to the next. "How do I know if they're making them say things they didn't mean?" I thought.

I'm sure normalising this kind of editing won't have any more serious consequences.
November 10, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Need to remove the Duke of York's titles ASAP
He tells me also how the Duke of York is smitten in love with my Lady Chesterfield (a virtuous lady, daughter to my Lord of Ormond); and so much that the Duchess of York hath complained to the King and her father about it and my Lady Chesterfield is gone into the country for it.
November 3, 2025 at 9:53 AM
I've updated my post about my 1995 internet experience with a few more period documents, but rather than read it again you can see all of the scans on this page instead archive.gyford.com/1995/interne...
October 24, 2025 at 2:04 PM
I wrote about what it was like to go online for the first time 30 years ago. How hard and complicated it seemed, and then how amazing this entirely new world was. Including some extracts from my 1995 diary.
www.gyford.com/phil/writing...
My first months in cyberspace
Recalling the difficulties and wonder of getting online for the first time in 1995, including diary extracts from the time.
www.gyford.com
October 15, 2025 at 3:10 PM
This, but about my career making websites. Getting going when it was nothing but HTML and – if you were fancy – a dash of Perl, grinding to a halt just as AI was being spaffed over everything.
glad to be born at a time when i got to see what life was like before the internet and will be dead before AI completely destroys humanity
October 8, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Phil Gyford
View source

<!-- Replace with Bev's actual image -->
<img src="./brand_closed.png" alt="Closed for Business">
<h1>Typepad is closed for business!<br>Thank you for being a valued customer.</h1>
October 1, 2025 at 8:08 AM
I remember around 1995 a woman knocked on the door, doing a survey about air fresheners. I never bought any so it didn't last long but I was quite excited that someone was asking my opinion about a product or service. At last! Finally, Gen X was being consulted!
Social scientists often bemoan falling survey response rates. A big part of the story has to be the proliferation of survey requests.

I took every survey I was invited to in an 8 day period and took 27 surveys totaling 33 minutes.
September 24, 2025 at 3:46 PM
After Saturday's far-right march, police would like you to let them know if you recognise those suspected of violent disorder, using the platform owned by a man encouraging violent disorder.
September 16, 2025 at 11:46 AM
"Mr Moseley is free to say whatever he likes and, if I may say so, he looked jolly smart in his black shirt and jackboots. His video chat with Adolf, perhaps the world's greatest innovator and entrepreneur, shared some robust views but our government will happily continue to use his media platform."
As it is ever more clear that the right’s invocation of freedom of speech isn’t remotely content-neutral, the government adopts a position which is content-neutral to the point of vacuity: isn’t it great that there was so much freedom of speech yesterday? Never mind the message, taste the liberty!
September 14, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Reposted by Phil Gyford
26 Police Officers were injured in Londons fascist riots, but only 9 people were arrested.

At last week's Palestine Action protest 0 Police Officers were injured, but nearly 900 people were arrested.

The UK govt is chasing Reform votes & colluding with fascism, home & abroad.

#fightfascism
September 14, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Odd that the Banksy had to be removed because the building is “listed and therefore legally protected”.

The two Banksys that appeared a few years ago on the Barbican, also listed, were preserved under clear plastic.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Banksy 'judge' mural scrubbed from Royal Courts of Justice wall
The artwork of a judge hitting a protester with a gavel has been removed from the listed building.
www.bbc.co.uk
September 10, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Metadata nerds: If I’m archiving a TypePad blog to a new domain and URL, and fixing links etc to work in the new location, should I also change rdf:about and dc:identifier values to use the new page's location? Or should they remain as they were because that's what the page "is” even if it moves?
September 4, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Phil Gyford
"I'm being as racist as I can" tearful Starmer tells voters
August 31, 2025 at 8:20 PM
I'm imagining non-techy people with TypePad blogs waking up and learning they need to do… something… to move 20 years' worth of posts and images and comments to… somewhere… somehow… in a few weeks or lose it all.

Fuck me, I swear it'll be this kind of thing that'll send me all Falling Down one day.
August 27, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Phil Gyford
Just for perspective, a few weeks ago roughly 100,000 turned up for the London Trans+ Pride march. By contrast fewer than 3,000 ACROSS THE WHOLE COUNTRY, have turned up to anti-asylum "protests". Yet we are meant to take the latter as "the voice of the people" and the former as "the minority".
August 23, 2025 at 1:30 PM