Week 305: Experimental

July 8, 2024

[Programming note - these are late because I had forgotten i was going to see a comedy show on Sunday night when I would otherwise have written them]
POLITICS. Very exciting to see the conservative party eviscerated. Obviously, Keir Starmer is not like, my dream PM, but a win’s a win! And now France is looking left too? Stop it. STOP IT!
A stressy week professionally, even for a chill yoghurt babe such as myself.
It’s maybe not obvious what happens to a news site like the FT’s when there’s an election. Firstly, your biggest traffic surge might be from the push notification telling people there’s going to be an election in the first place. Everything did get a bit sweaty for that. On the day of the election, the live blog will start limbering up and then overnight is when the journalists really get experimental with them. Putting mad shit together we could never have planned. In terms of site visits, it’s a lot higher than usual from about 4am but real people are no match for the continued DDoSes we have weathered this year.
We had a team in the office overnight just to support the editorial efforts. It was a good thing they were there because the TVs all turned off automatically at some point and so naturally someone with a solid grasp of technology was needed to turn them back on.
We were briefed (as all news orgs were) by the NCSC of the increased risk of foreign interference, but you know, we aren’t the BBC so… probably fine.
Albino Tom grew his legs, and Lachie found him on the worktop surface one day. So we knew it was time to set him free. A couple of photos of him are at the bottom here for those curious.
Wee Chaz completely inexplicably turned 4 this week too. I don’t understand that either? I thought he was a wee silly little baby? Anyway. We went to a place called “Funplex” with many of his kindergarten friends. A rundown of the cakes follows:
- Car themed because of course, he loves cars
- Vegan cake for his vegan mates
- Icing disk to put the candles in to blow out because Chaz had been sick a few days before and I didn’t want anyone to catch it from him doing a slobbery blow all over a birthday cake.
On Sunday night we went to Brighton Comedy Garden, which is right by our house, to see Tim Key and some other people I wasn’t that bothered by. Tim Key, once again, had me shrieking with laughter. Ross Nobel did a very convincing impression of a type of man I remember from university CompSci.