For donkey’s years I have been developing web applications with Apache httpd, Perl, CGI and MySQL, because that has always been the default setup on my web host. I know I should be moving away from nearly all of these, with the exception of Perl, but that would involve me doing something funky with a new server environment, containers, droplets or, sigh, anything that gets kicked into next year’s resolutions.1

Another great story I came across while indexing Blackwood’s Magazine. This was published anonymously in July 1879, but a later compilation of short stories published by Blackwood’s revealed the author to be M. C. Stirling.

In 1991, six of us chartered our favourite yacht, Sea Tramp, and sailed over to Alderney. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon after a seventeen hour crossing, we were eager to tuck into any food more substantial than sandwiches and Cup-A-Soups. We picked a restaurant near the harbour and grabbed a table. The restaurant was divided into several rooms. Our room contained our table and a larger table which had been empty when we arrived, but was soon filled with a party of eight as we enjoyed our starters.