WordPress problems – or 34SP problems?

I’ve got some strange issues with this site, but I can’t fathom if they are WP or 34SP problems, or even a problem with the database.

Whenever I try to edit the recent posts, I get a 404 after hitting “save”. Sometimes I get a 404 when trying to view the site or the wp-admin pages (which sounds like a 34SP problem, although they promise me that there is no known issue with the server – I’m on Holly, for those who are also on 34SP). The RSS feed works only intermittently. And del.icio.us (I hate those dots!) is having problems with the automatic daily posting of links, sometimes getting a 500 error and sometimes not posting to the correct category (27). I’ve disabled and uninstalled Bad Behavior. I’m running WP 2.02. I’m confused.

Any ideas?

UPDATE: see the comment thread for more.

Infamy

You know you’ve hit the big time when you make it on to the UK Plant Health Interception and Outbreak Chart. That’s me at the bottom of page three, due to an official in California doing his paperwork incorrectly.

All I need to do now is start handling dead turkeys and then I’ll hit the international media scene.

Not a good Weeze?

Ryanair. Bless ’em. Don’t they just love to fly you to airports that they name after an attractive city that are actually located miles and miles away?

This week, they’ve announced that, instead of making Eindhoven airport their hub for the lower Rhine area (which is an airport close to a major city, handily convenient for much of central and southern Netherlands and not too far from the Ruhr conurbation – and useful for PSV supporters, I’d expect), they plan to make Weeze their hub instead.

Weeze? Where? I had to look it up on my (very good) road atlas of the lower Rhine and it took me a while to spot. The airport is so small that it isn’t even marked.

And, in true Ryanair fashion, they will call this airport Düsseldorf (Weeze). Bear in mind that it is nearly 80km away from Düsseldorf city (75 minutes by bus), is closer to Arnhem, Venlo and Den Bosch and could easily be confused with Düsseldorf Flughafen, which is actually right next door to the city.

And from which London airport will they fly to their new “Düsseldorf” base? Why, Stansted! Clearly this is aimed to directly compete with Air Berlin, one of their major competitors, which is fair enough in itself but for one thing – Air Berlin fly to Düsseldorf, the real thing. I’ll bet there will be some cheesed-off Ryanair passengers when they discover they have landed in the middle of nowhere.

Hard of hearing

I referred in my last post to having "man flu". In truth, Tom first caught a heavy cold about two and half weeks ago and, whilst cheerful throughout it all in that Tom way, he was laid pretty low by it. Inevitably, Hels and I both caught it – it’s one of the worst colds I’ve had for years, causing aching muscles and particularly high levels of discomfort.

On Saturday, it took a new and more unpleasant turn for me. Neither of us had been sleeping well for several nights, so we were pretty run down. During Friday night, I got acute discomfort in my jaw which I guessed (correctly as it turns out) was down the the virus shifting around in my sinuses. Very early on Saturday morning, I started to get severe pain in my left ear which got worse and worse as the morning went on, with pressure building ever higher. As I found out later, what had happened was that the virus had got into the Eustachian tube causing it to swell up and close. Consequently (turn away now if you are squeamish) there was a mucus build up in my inner ear (hence the pain). In these circumstances, something has to give and, at around lunchtime on Saturday, that something was my ear drum. My ear has been oozing unpleasantness ever since, and I’ve lost most of my hearing in my left ear.

Thankfully, my parents came to our aid and took Tom for a couple of days. Hels took me to casualty and we were seen promptly by an excellent doctor who explained it all clearly (and spoke into my good ear!), and prescribed some painkillers and antibiotics.

I can assure you that this experience is really quite distressing.

On the plus side, most perforations of the ear drum heal well and quite quickly, with normal hearing usually restored. Let’s hope that that is the case. I’ve made an appointment with my GP for next Monday (as advised by the doctor in casualty) who will check the progress of the healing and will either send me on my way if things are going well or refer me to the ENT clinic if there is a problem. If I get to ENT then, depending on the severity of the problem, I might have to have surgery ranging from a graft to repair the ear drum through to more invasive surgery if there is damage to the inner ear. These are not prospects that I particularly look forward to.

Can I be honest? I hate the fact that my hearing is gone. I’m filled with dread at the notion that Tom might grow up and I might not be able to hear him properly. I’m also scared about what this means for me in my business (I need to be able to communicate). I am not a happy bunny at the moment. And I still haven’t shifted the cold, which is adding to my woes.