Welcome to July! I hope everyone had an excellent Pride month. I spent most of June being hot (in the queer, trans, exciting way) and also being hot (in the sticky, unpleasant, heatwave kind of way). Both will continue into July and beyond, even if I wish one of them would stop.

My partner came to stay with me again for the 30+ UK heatwave, so we could both look after each other. This time I did a better job of keeping us both cool, without any expensive changes – using towels and cardboard to cover my windows and keep heat out; wet flannels to cool us down; timing our fresh air breaks to the cool part of the day. I still don’t enjoy heatwaves, but I’m adapting to them.

When I’ve made it out of the house, I’ve been enjoying the last few weeks of baby birds. Here are some cygnets I saw while visiting the Watermill Theatre in Berkshire:

While my partner was visiting, we got even luckier with birds – we walked round a local lake and saw ducklings, goslings, teenage geese, and even what we’re fairly sure was a teenage cormorant. Birbs!

I’m still trying to sell my house, and there’s frustratingly little news on that front – but the slow burn has given me plenty of time to review my possessions, and gradually get rid of stuff I no longer need. When I eventually move, it’ll be a smaller pile of stuff to shift.

Finally, in happier news, I finished not one but two cross stitch projects in June (both of which are personal gifts on their way to the recipients). I’ve started picking out colours for my next project, which will be a big one:

July will be a busy month – I’m travelling to see my sister at another brass band competition, and I finally have some house viewings. Let’s hope the heatwaves stay away!

What have I been writing?

My favourite article this month was Rebuilding the computer room. It’s about how computers have become a ubiquitous physical presence in our lives, and how I’m trying to reintroduce a dedicated space so my digital devices can’t always get to me.

I also continue my exploration of fun things related to web browsers, with a trio of web-adjacent articles:

• Using Pytester to test my Playwright fixtures is about writing tests for your tests.
• I used the Screen Capture API to record a browser window, so I could save a cool animation I saw on the LEGO website.
• What can wonky APIs tell us about the web? is about a web API that has an explicitly unused parameter, and why I think it’s cool the web takes such a strong approach to backward compatibility.

Plus three notes:

• Notes from The Cornishman No. 176 (Spring 2026), a heritage railway magazine
• Goodhart's and Campbell's Law are different – Goodhart describes the value of a measure, while Campbell highlights the social pressure and corruption caused by one
• Managing the caption of a photo with AppleScript (but not PhotoKit) is some code for managing my photo library, and a hint toward an upcoming article.

What’s been making me smile?

👠 Last week, my sister took me to the West End production of Kinky Boots, a delightful musical I knew nothing about. Fun music and drag queens is exactly what I needed for Pride. (And I’ve had Land of Lola on repeat since I got home from the theatre.)

🪛 I enjoyed Charles Liu’s video about furnishing a New York apartment, which is a cinematic construction of a beautiful space. I normally watch DIY videos as background to my embroidery; this was good enough to distract me from my stitching.

🚀 I’m loving Star City, an alt-history set in a Soviet Union that beat the USA to the first Moon landing. It’s a blend of sci-fi and spy thriller, and everyone is on top form. Anna Maxwell-Martin shines as an unhinged villain, and I’m more sympathetic to Alice Englert’s character than I expected to be.

🛟 Dominic Gregory’s Lifeboat at the End of the World is a gripping, raw account of a lifeboat volunteer at Dungeness, dealing with some of the most tragic and politically-charged rescues of the modern RNLI. Stories about the RNLI are often carefully chosen to present the best side of the Institution’s efforts, and I enjoyed a less airbrushed take on how things work.

I hope you all have a lovely July, and I’ll speak to you again in a month.

Best,

~ Alex