…grayblog…

Month: May 2004

  • A case of the crabs

    Nick Bounty – A Case of the Crabs – ideal for wasting an hour or so.

  • Up and down

    To make up for my grumpiness in the preceding post, here’s a pretty picture.
    Elevador in Bica
    The Lisboetas have a love affair with their trams. The ancient number 28 creaks its way from Martim Moniz to the Basilica da Estrela and back again, invariably packed with tourists and sporting sponsorship from Heineken or Coke. The locals are more likely to be found on the modern number 5 "bendy tram" which whizzes its way out to Belém and beyond.
    But Lisbon is a city of hills, and the trams come into their own when they take the form of elevadores, trams built to match the slope of a steep hill and operating in pairs – one going down whilst the other comes up. Thankfully, the authorities seem to have taken the decision to retain the authentic yellow colouring in place of sponsorship, sullied only by a discrete logo for Carris, the public transport firm that operates them. There are three tranvias (the tram-type elevadores, as opposed to the Elevador da Santa Justa, which is a fancy lift) – this picture shows the most picturesque of the three, which operates up and down the hill in Bica. Here the tourists fight for seats with the elderly locals, usually weighed down with dozens of bags of shopping.
    Whilst Bica is the longest and most picturesque, the most useful is the Elevador da Gloria, which links the Barrio Alto – the home of trendy bars and restuarants – with Restauradores, adjacent the main railway station and linking in to the metro. Having walked up the hill at Gloria after a very filling meal, I can vouch for the merits of travel by elevador. And only EUR1.10 each way too.

  • Bloody useless

    The Inland Revenue has been actively promoting their online filing services for employers’ PAYE. Let me list my complaints:

    • if you want to use the service, you must register in advance. They then send your user ID and activation password to you by post "for security". Given that there are (I think) a million letters going astray each week, and that they do not use registered or recorded delivery, then I think that this is likely to be as secure as your average cardboard box.
    • when you actually come to use the service, you are frequently met with "service unavailable" messages.
    • once you finally do manage to get the service to work, the user ID issued to me, which I noted down carefully, and which matches the user ID confirmation letter that I got through the post, are not recognised by the system. Without this, you can’t do anything.

    I’d like to point out that, overall, I find the Inland Revenue’s online filing system to be total and utter crap.

  • It seems to be working

    This site now runs on WordPress. If you see anything that is broken, please let me know.

    I’m still sorting out the archives at the moment, and there also seem to be some CSS issues which need fixing. Give me a few days and I’ll get there. I also need to sort out the comments template.

    General comments:

    • install WP in the same directory as your blog if you want an easy life
    • the five minute install certainly works if you are starting a completely new blog – in fact, if you’re a little web-savvy, I reckon you could do it in four!
    • it is possible to run several blogs from one database using multiple installations of WP, in spite of what some of its detractors will tell you
    • the documentation isn’t bad at all
    • importing MT entries is a doddle
    • it’s free, and that has to be a good thing

    Overall, I’d definitely recommend it. It took me about three hours to do the transfer from MT to WP, including revising the templates so that they look something like the site that you are used to.

    UPDATE: I’ve been trying to get a gizmo going so that, if you should try to follow a link on another site that goes to the permalink for an old entry, you get pointed towards its new home. Unfortunately, it seems at the moment to point you to entirely the wrong entry. I am, as they say, working on it.

  • Surgery

    This site may look a little odd for the next few days whilst I change CMS. Bear with me.

  • Beer last night with…

    Lord Percy, Paul C, Kearn, Kev and Little Otik.

  • CMS problems

    I agree with Vaughan. Which is why I expect to convert to WordPress this weekend.

  • Heads up

    You lucky people – five new header graphics, all based on photos I took in Lisbon. Of course, you haven’t seen the Lisbon pictures yet, but hopefully you should get to see them by the weekend.

  • An Odd Man

    Felix Unger, RIP.

  • Just fixed…

    From Lisboa, in the Alfama district…

    do as you're told...