Posts on Yunzi's Blog

Leaving BearBlog

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 10:00:25 +0000

After giving it quite a lot of thought, I’ve finally left BearBlog and moved to a self hosted setup with Hugo. Happily I have the knowledge and means to do this and hopefully can keep finding the inspiration and time to keep writing and maintain the site as well. If anything doesn’t work then someone please let me know. It should all be nicely setup, fully https, images on a subdomain and everything logging and lovely, but still its possible I’ve missed something.

Orchids at this point

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 07:53:01 +0000

This summer has been brutal, amongst others, I grow a fair number of cloud forest orchid species in a grow tent in my garage. This summer got hot in May and stayed hot until about a week ago. Normally in UK summers I can ride out short periods of temperatures above the low 20s (°C of course, I don’t use the ridiculous US measurements). By giving the plants high air movement and high humidity. This year however, things started well above 25° in may and reaching well into the 30°s inside the tent on very regular occasions. Combine that with the fact there was little nighttime temperature drop meant a lot of very unhappy plants.

Return to the Red telephone box book swap

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:43:34 +0000

My blog a few weeks ago talked about the 3 book swaps I’ve visited in my home county over the last few weeks. Two are housed in old red BT phoneboxes. There is also a fantastic website that tracks all these old boxes, categorises them on location or current usage (book swap, defib etc). Check out the K6 project;

https://www.thek6project.co.uk

If you’re interested in seeing what your own county has to offer in terms of old phoneboxes.

well akshually

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 18:34:00 +0000

Cool - without fail the toxic Bear blog meta (that I’m now adding to I know) kicks in and a post responding to mine points out that obviously I’m wrong and stupid and using the wrong search engine. The search engine called ‘small web’ akshually doesn’t search the small web - who knew (not me). no seriously, is Kagi evil?

“I realise there are lots of other places to find blogs” and “doesn’t necessarily lead to content. Also a large pinch of English sarcasm here too.”

Lets try searching the small web.

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:08:00 +0000

There’s been a lot of discourse about the small web self selecting for AI and Tech and that being the bulk of the content.

E.g the very good post here from Hakker in response to this (also very good) post from Gordon

I have my own thoughts on this, so thought I’d try an experiment. All using Kagi Small web search, which I believe is designed to focus on blogs and smaller websites.

Thoughts on Gemini (no, still not the AI)

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 13:27:00 +0000

Since my (surprisingly popular) blog on Gemini protocol I’ve continued to poke around with it and these are some very unstructured thoughts.

Seriously - I'm typing this as I go, its not a coherent blog, its just me rambling.

First off - gemtext, the text format used with the gemini protocol seems to be utterly pointless. Its neither one thing or another. I understand the need to minimalistic, easy to parse text handled by this minimalistic protocol, but you might as well just use just text. The very few options given in gemtext include

More on the Teme River (No28) WW2 Stop line

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 05:38:00 +0000

I understand that this is now getting into the realms of the extremely nerdy.

As part of my on-going investigation into the Western Command Stop Line Number 28 based around the Teme river I came across some further HER records¹ for extant anti-tank cylinders that whilst also featuring on the Defence of Britain records do, oddly, not feature under the subset of records for the Teme river stop line.

Now this might be oversight, as I can’t see any reasoning that given their location, these anti-tank cylinders wouldn’t have been part of the defences involved in the Teme river defence line. Not all that far from the Rochford anti tank cylinders that I managed to find under a hedge, these near Eastham on the South side of the river Teme are much more easily visible and numerous. They are placed along a small North-South road, which is one of many in the area, but between the larger ‘A’ roads of the A456 and A443 which would allow invaders to cross the river Severn at Bewdley or Holt respectively. The Defence of Britain (DoB) records for these actually make reference to how these (and I assume many others) are made.

Book swaps and bookcrossing

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:26:00 +0000

Over the last few weeks, largely in an attempt to inject some whimsy in my life, I’ve managed to visit 3 free book swap locations (4 if you count Tesco).

One of the many joys of living in a fairly rural county is such things are possibly and all blessing go out to those people who maintain them. Two were converted former phone boxes (the classic British red phone box) and the other is a shack on the edge of someone’s garden.

The last acceptable discrimination

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:59:00 +0000

For some reason over the last week, Insta has shown me videos of disabled British people having problems with accessibility, flights, railways, coffee shops. Its appalling that in this day and age accessibility isn’t simply the default and should something break alternative arrangements not be made immediately to accommodate people.

However - there is one form of discrimination that still pervades society and needs to be stamped out. I speak of discrimination against the tall. I’m 2m tall (6'5") in my boots and the world in which I live is an endless stream of problems against me. I go to a supermarket and the automatic tills are at knee level. If I use the manned checkouts then I’m forced to stoop down in order to input my pin.

Messing around with Gemini - No NOT the AI

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 18:22:00 +0000

After quite a lot of wine fuelled reading of Brennans Blog I got a little interested in the Gemini Protocol designed as a new internet protocol for “supporting an electronic library of interconnected text documents”. Sounds good to me.

I don't often write about tech, because everyone else on the smallweb does. But I've been a Linux obsessive since Redhat 5.2. If you search my real name, there are contributions I made to the Fedora project back when I had free time. I have made my living for 20+ years in the 'just past the cutting edge' of tech, first Linux focused architecture, then increasingly DevOps... I now rarely get to play and instead guide my team in k8s and cloud and frankly they're better than me now(certainly at the later). Somewhere along the way I got less excited about tech...but sometimes, just sometimes I need to scratch that itch.

So first off, setup some DNS pointing at my Ubuntu 24.04 server, then setup the molly-brown server which helpfully was an apt package in the Ubuntu repo. Create some certs (guide for all of this are better written elsewhere). Create some files. And finally work with hateful SystemD to get it to startup. Done, took about 10 minutes and 7 of that was System-bloody-D config.

The 17th September - 86 years ago

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:30:00 +0000

In the previous blog about Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion of mainland Britain, I wrote how to achieve their stated aims, the Luftwaffe would need full control of the British skies. The German navy, the Kriegsmarine would also need dominant control of the sea in order to allow the invasion barges filled with troops to safely make it across the channel.

Britain had spent the summer of 1940 expecting an invasion. After Dunkirk, the German forces were massed on the channel coast and preparing to push forward. The had assembled heavy guns at Pas-de-Calais region in northern France, massed troops and landing barges on the coast. As September dawned, the RAF still had control of the skies and started a bombing campaign deliberately designed to take out the landing barges the Germans had assembled.

The Knights Templar (The Tomar Hoard)

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 19:25:00 +0000

Following on the the intro blog this is actually about the Tomar horde of Templar artifacts. Some is undoubtedly true, some likely/possibly/maybe isn’t, but I’m presenting the facts as told to me.

When I saw the advert on Insta for a Knights Templar hoard being displayed in Kidderminster just up the road from me, I had to check twice. Turns out, absolutely the case. The antique dealer, sometime TV star and eccentric, Hamilton White was displaying his hoard from the Portuguese city of Tomar in Kidderminster so I went along.

The Knights Templar (Intro)

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 19:24:00 +0000

Now, I’ve said elsewhere in this blog, Medieval history is something I’m fairly weak on and its not previously been something I’ve learned a lot about although that’s changing. I do however, like a fun conspiracy theory and when it comes to historical conspiracy theories, the Templar Knights probably come first (or perhaps 2nd after JFK). I need a note note, but anyway, this is a intro blog for the next one as I decided to split them up.

Self referential book anecdotes

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:04:00 +0000

Feel like telling a story or two that both relate to previous ‘book’ blogs. So permit me, this one gets a bit pretentious.

Relating to my blog On the value of books;

When my father passed away, I took the few books that he’d kept hold of (and my mother had left alone). One of the things we shared was a love of books and reading so I got the books, my brother the DVDs. I took a few special editions I’d bought him, a copy of his favourite play, a few other things and one particular hardback that not only I wanted because it was his, I wanted to read it too.

International Orchid day

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:52:00 +0000

Who knew… apparently today (first Thursday in September) is international orchid day.

https://orchidsinfo.eu/en/tag/international-orchid-day/

All my cloud forest species are sulking and dropping leaves thanks to the insane hot weather we’ve had between May and now. So here is one of my Neofinetia falcata (Technically Vanda falcata now) from back in June when they at least were happy on my windowsill.

On English churches (part 1A) - Return to Kilpeck

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 20:42:00 +0000

I said in my original blog on Kilpeck I should return and learn more. Well a year after my original visit and 8 months since I wrote the original blog, I thought it was time.

That, however isn’t the only reason; Fresh from our visit to the Templar church of Welsh Newton where Mrs Yunzi has relations buried, it appears as if she has family in all the amazing churches of Herefordshire, after her brother casually informed us about past generations of her family in the graveyard of Kilpeck.

Operation Sea Lion and Worcestershire defences

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:31:00 +0000

The battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.

Winston Churchill - June 18th 1940

Churchill’s famous speech on the 18th June in 1940 came a few short weeks after the British Expeditionary forces (BEF) retreat at Dunkirk. The German army had swept through France and the Low countries and reached the channel coast.

By early July, various areas of German command had started putting together preliminary plans for dealing with the British. Ranging from pushing for a negotiated peace, to a full on invasion. In pretty much any scenario, it was assumed the Luftwaffe would have control of the skies and the Kriegsmarine had limited the impact the Royal Navy could have in the channel and north sea. Then on July 16th 1940, Hitler issued directive 16;

Moses Itauma vs. Filip Hrgovic

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:46:00 +0000

Why is a guy who normally writes about old churches, WWII defences and ancient sites suddenly writing about heavy weight boxing? Well I like boxing, and as its one of the top 10 most popular sports in the world and I never see blogs on it, and mostly I’m writing things I would like to personally read - so here we are. Everyone else can keep writing ‘AI is killing kittens blogs’ or ‘blogging is aces isn’t it!?’ until such a time as the upvotes all disappear.

On English churches (part 7) - Old St Bartholomew’s - Sapey

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 14:30:00 +0000

Been a bit church heavy on the last few blogs, but not to worry, there is more old metal and concrete from WWII posts coming soon.

Specifying this church as ‘Old St Bartholomews’ as there is a Victorian era St Bartholomew’s built up the road in around 1877 that would be classed as the ‘current’ parish St Barts. I’ll get to why that is shortly;

This site was mentioned in the doomsday book of 1086, so a church has sat here for a very long time although there doesn’t appear to be any sign of the pre conquest version. The current ‘old’ church is Norman, built probably at the end of the 11th century. Its a simple nave and chancel layout and 3 small Norman windows remain, one of which is pictured below.

On English churches (part 6) - St Mary the Virgin - Welsh Newton

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 19:40:00 +0000

Something of a sequel to Part2 - Garway.

In around 1170 - The English King, Henry II granted the Knights Templar the rights to a preceptory at Garway. A preceptory being a local administrative centre both for spiritual needs as well as more earthly matters like getting rent out of farmers and producing food for the knights.

As part of that same land grant, the Templars also built some smaller chapels including the church of St Mary the Virgin sometime in the 13th century and kept control until around 1312 when their persecution in Europe meant, even in England, their holdings, including this church, passed to the brother order of the Knights Hospitaller.

On English churches (part 5) - St James’ (sort of)

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 14:52:00 +0000

St James’ Church in Tedstone Delemere Herefordshire

We are the Village Green Preservation Society (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

The Kinks - The Village Green Preservation Society.

When researching churches, sites like National Churches Trust and Churches Conservation Trust and indeed the churches themselves, make it very clear they want people to visit, to sign the visitor book and perhaps drop a little donation into the provided wall safe. Its how they stay open and get money from the Diocese. These days, if they don’t, then churches are likely to end up as ‘unique period 4 bed-room property. Room for a pony’.

Neolithic Ireland - (Ardgroom stone circle)

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 11:16:23 +0000

Down the road a bit (and by road I mean overgrown single track with grass in the middle) from the ogham stone is the Ardgroom stone circle and the only other stone circle I got to see on this trip.

Seriously atmospheric, in the shadow of mountains and the two drumlins ( Dromárd, and Drombeg) that give it its name in Gaelic. There are 9 of the 11 total stones standing upright in a tight rough circle although there are others dotting the landscape around.

Ancient Irish graffiti and a standing stone

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:49:08 +0000

As a fairly regular ‘stone botherer’ I’ll always try to see some stone circles, burial mounds, landscape features etc when I’m out and about somewhere. This time my travels took me to the beautiful south west of Ireland and despite limited time, I was able to see something really special.

The ‘Ballycrovane stone’ is the tallest ogham stone in Ireland, stands 4.7m (or 5m something depending on what website you read) in height in an area with amazing views of the surrounding hills and water below.

The joy of a good old device

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:23:00 +0000

1 : something devised or contrived: such as a(1) : a piece of equipment or a mechanism designed to serve a special purpose or perform a special function

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I’m not, it must be said, the worlds most practical man. I can do a few things however, and have enough practical background to recognise when something is a truly beautiful example of a tool. Something made to be used, but also made itself of metal and wood and human ingenuity and a thing of beauty in its own right.

Pure orchid filth

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:53:51 +0000

Day out to an orchid nursery - pretty pics below.

Came back with a new Paph (one of those photographed, but mine isn’t in bloom and a very cute new Neo (vanda) falcata

Is bookcrossing still a thing? (yes apparently)

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:03:00 +0000

Since doing an awful lot of thinking about the value of books my brain has gone down some weird rabbit holes.

20 odd years ago, in a different life when I was a different person, I very briefly worked for a company involved in book data. At the time, as now, I had a deep love of books, but the company and life moved in other directions and I was only there for about 9 months. In the same period I spent a lot of time on sites like LibraryThing and Bookcrossing.

I know the law is stupid - but bloggers really

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:32:17 +0000

I’ve been going down lots of rabbit holes on finding new blogs last day or so - mostly tech as that’s what there is, some accessibility (in tech), some books (about tech) etc etc.

Today I was met with this.

Look I know I know only too well this is a result of ridiculous UK Internet law. I know its a problem brought about by various streams of idiotic, tech illiterate, hateful UK political parties… but please please if you’re a blogger and you want things to be accessible to the UK audience, don’t host all your bloody images on imgur. Why host images externally at all really, especially if you’re a tech blogger.

Minor orchid update

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:15:48 +0000

Time for a minor orchid update. First off the UK has essentially been seeing temperatures in the high 20s°C and regularly over 30°C since May. This summer has been the hottest and driest I can remember. I largely grow cool growing cloud forest orchids in a grow tent under L.e.d lights in my garage. It should be cool enough in the summer and able to be heated easily and cheaply in the winter. This year however the extreme temps and lack of cooling at night has meant utter disaster for my plants.

The value of books

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 18:18:19 +0000

They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em.

Rage against the machine - Bulls on parade

There’s been a lot of discourse on my remaining social media this week about certain AI companies purchasing what used to be called ’long tail’ books when I worked in a book data company (admittedly it was a long time ago). The purpose being, that these books of all types are a form of undigested, pre AI information/sentence structure ripe to be absorbed.

On English churches (part 4) - St Michael’s

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:40:00 +0000

I wasn’t going to give this church a full post as it was more an amusing distraction on a hike than a destination in its own right, but I decided it had enough interest to warrant its own post.

First off, I’m not going to say where this church is, although its not a secret. I am in a round about and slightly pretentious way, making the point that the breadth of the UK is filled with places like this. Remote, calming, beautiful and nearly a 1000 years old. Go out and find your own, visit and hopefully appreciate what’s there. Sign the guest book (most churches have one) so hopefully its kept open for another 1000 years.

85 year old blocks of concrete in the Worcestershire countryside.

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 15:07:00 +0000

This is a slight precursor to launching my other blog page on fully researching and documenting the entire remaining parts of Western Command Stop Line No 28 / Teme stop line.

Of the defences put in place in 1940-41 to prevent an assumed German Nazi invasion of the United Kingdom and especially the defences around Worcestershire to prevent or slow the invasion reaching the industrial heartland of the English Midlands. The defence lines based around the Teme river are amongst the smallest. Despite that, they are the most interesting to me as a number were in what would even now be considered to be remote locations. The idea of using the Teme river as a natural barrier then re-enforcing with road blocks, removal or blocking of bridges combined with weapons dumps, machine gun posts and pillboxes was designed to slow any invasion party from getting up from Bristol or the Devon coasts towards the arms factories of Birmingham and the Black Country. Remote locations or not, obviously post war the weapons dumps, machine guns and active roadblocks were removed, but a few sites remained untouched.

On English churches (part 3) - St Bartholomew’s

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:50:00 +0000

In the earlier blog about the actual castle at Richards Castle, I looked briefly at the history of the castle ruins, but this also is tied to a rather nice church just in front. St Bartholomew’s, Richard’s Castle is no longer a working parish church, but is still consecrated ground and now run by the Churches Conservation Trust (to whom I really should become a member). The church was originally established by Richard Fitz Scrob or his son just outside the castle’s outer bailey and so dates from 1100 and something most likely.

XTEINK X4 e-reader

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:01:00 +0000

I’m a bit late to this party, a number of bloggers and social media people have been posting about the XTEINK x4 e-reader for some time. But mine has turned up so I’m now getting around to doing my version. I ordered mine direct from the manufacturer and it came from China in around a week. Apparently 3rd party sellers might be cheaper but lock the firmware (not entirely but its an added inconvenience).

2nd oldest castle in the UK

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 06:29:00 +0000

I originally sat down to write about the nearby church, but felt like these ruins deserved a post all of their own and it sets the history for my next post.

What is the oldest castle in the UK? Well I guess it depends how you define a castle, the ancient hill forts like British Camp at Malvern and others probably qualify, but if you want a real castle the way most of us think of one, with a stone walls and keep it gets even more complicated.

Neolithic landscape of Dorset again, a holy well, a grotesque or three and a man with a giant....

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 20:50:21 +0000

One of those blogs that’s probably more personal than purely historic, so please excuse me if you’re looking for pure history. In my earlier blog Neolithic landscape of Dorset which was also a little bit ‘what I did on my holidays’, I looked at some small Neolithic sites starting with Long Bredy bank barrow. Now shown below in considerably better weather than back in April.

This site was well worth a visit again as its actually far more imposing than it looks in the photo, a large bank with a ditch (on the right side of that photo) that is very well defined when standing in it. The trouble with dry grass against dry grass is its hard to distinguish features from my photo camera photos, shown below are actually two round barrows (described on the OS map as tumulus)

Who wants a freaky little orchid?

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:34:08 +0000

I accidentally hit ‘back’ on a post about growing cloud forest orchids through a heat wave and can’t be bothered to re-write it. So instead - have a freaky little cloud forest orchid that is making it through.

Pleurothallis tribuloides

Native to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean. Grows in wet forests at elevations of 300 to 1300 meters. Described as a cool to hot grower which I suppose means its not fussy. Mine is grown mounted, in the same grow tent as my other cloud forest species so suffering from the crazy temperatures this year but 80+% humidity with constant air movement.

The Nailmakers of Halesowen

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:01:00 +0000

The Nailmakers of Halesowen

Yo’ gets a piece of wire,
Yo’ puts in in the fire,
Yo’ teks it out,
Yo’ giz it a clout,
Yo’ yods it,
Yo’ got a nayul.

I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs that whilst I now live in and write about Worcestershire, I grew up over the border in the West Midlands in an area known as the Black Country¹ specifically the town of Halesowen. The town itself was once upon-a-time part of the historic county of Worcestershire, but become part of the West Midlands county designation in 1974 (before my time). Halesowen naturally is where I started getting interested in local history a bit, then I buggered off to live a life in London before returning as a much older adult and again starting to research history of the surrounds where I lived at the time and now Worcestershire.

What of the orchids?

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Time for an update on the orchids.

I wrote previously here about my modern take on orchid growing and its one of the things I keep wishing to share with the indifferent internet, so here we go.

First off - the big cool cloud forest grow tent. Now pretty much this got a bit neglected and I missed the fact things were suffering for a little while. Its too crowded and things were getting too much light so I’ve moved things around a bit which has helped. Then we had a week of insane temperatures. I then went on holiday and left them in the care of my plant sitter… I think she watered them, but they need some general tlc in the next few weeks. I need to remove some of the duplicates and throw them in the recycling¹. That will free up some space. Then whatever is left probably needs multiple re-pots and shocking no-one I will then buy more plants.

Battle of the river Teme

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 20:40:00 +0000

Battle of the river Teme (Leominster canal and WW2 shenanigans)

I wrote in a previous blog The bridge of a million bricks about the Leominster Canal and its total lack of success in construction. I also mentioned in passing about one of its other aquaducts being blown up. This is the result of some further investigation and a nice little visit to take the pictures. Anyone interested in more history on the Leominster canal should check out my previous blog (above) and the lovely Friends of Leominster canal.

Junited-2026

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:57:00 +0000

I’m developing a deeper appreciation of the small web, so deciding to put my head above the parapet and actually participate which isn’t always an easy thing for me.

I’d been thinking for a long time about the internet, social media and how it changed the web I remember from about 1999-200? maybe up to about 2010 before social media really got a foot hold. Then a year ago on holiday, I spent a lot of time reading Kev Quirks blog and seeing a guy similar in employment, age and location (UK) to me, talking about the same stuff I was thinking about. Since then I’ve tried to spend less time on social media and more time reading and writing on the indie/small web. I’ve had blogs before, but usually ran into the problem of making them about 1 thing that interested me rather than a more general thing. This is my first ‘general’ blog - started with history then drifts a bit between whatever else I’m interested in, but mostly comes back to history as a means of writing up my notes, showing off pictures and generally looking at stuff that I find interesting. Maybe someone else out there will too and that surely is the aim.

British orchid hunting (part 2)

Sat, 30 May 2026 21:05:00 +0000

My walking boots finally lost their long struggle with life and got replaced recently. The just as I was about to go and try breaking them in, the British weather did what it normally does and decided to complete mess all my plans up. I spent the bank holiday weekend here the UK lying in the shade panting like an old dog as the country was suddenly subjected to 30+°C temperatures. In May. Crazy.

Neolithic Orkney (Part 3 - Villages and massive stone circles)

Mon, 25 May 2026 18:47:00 +0000

Just outside of the town of Stromness in Orkney sits a piece of land around two lochs - the loch of Stenness and the Loch of Harray. This piece of land is probably one best collections of neolithic sites until you reach Turkey. I’ve already discussed the amazing Maeshowe and the chambered cairn at Unstan but there are other sites here and all warrant a viewing.

Prior to my schedule booking I had some time to spend in the area around Maeshowe and Stromness. I’d started off with considerably more recent history, exploring a WWII gunnery battery but eventually the rain stopped and I fancied doing the 5000 year old stuff.

Neolithic Orkney (Part 2 - Maeshowe)

Sat, 23 May 2026 11:55:00 +0000

(Or Chambers that are Maeshowe)

I did start struggling to write a blog on Maeshowe so I started with the other chambered cairns I visited first. Not because the visit wasn’t excellent (it was), not because Maeshowe isn’t one of most amazing neolithic sites I’ve visited (it is), but simply because Historic Environment Scotland makes some of the experience so utterly unpleasant. First off, the booking problems I mentioned previously. When I’ve been on Orkney prior to this trip, I’ve tried to get in on a tour on the only day I’ve had free, and been denied every-time. This time, I had to book 3 months in advance to get the day (but not the time) I wanted. There were empty seats on my tour which suggests they can fit people in - they just couldn’t be arsed with me.

Neolithic Orkney (Part 1 - Chambers that are not Maeshowe)

Fri, 22 May 2026 16:15:00 +0000

Neolithic Orkney (Part 1 - Chambers that are not Maeshowe)

I’ll get to Maeshowe in a later blog and following from my moan about Scottish tourism, I was able to visit. The moan stands (there were two unused places on my trip) but the site is remarkably and I’ll discuss my visit when I have time to write it up.

Someone will have to fact check me, but it feels like mainland Orkney (which is the largest island, not the actual British mainland) must have more Neolithic ruins per metre than anywhere else in the British Isles, and unlike the modern landscape further south, here it really feels like you can see why our ancient ancestors chose these spots, even if their reasons for doing so remain opaque. There are stones here too, huge solo standing stones as well as stone circles. Also neolithic villages showing a life and housing beyond the more ceremonial buildings.

WW2 In Orkney - Barriers and POWs

Fri, 15 May 2026 06:40:00 +0000

The Orkney islands off the top of Scotland form almost a ring around Scapa Flow a piece of water that was used by the British Navy as a deep water achorage in both wars and held the intered German Imperial fleet at the end of WWI.

It was in the 2nd world war however when one of its greatest tragedies occurred. On October 14th 1939 - HMS Royal Oak was at anchor with a crew of 1234 men and boys (teenage sailors in training) when U Boat U-47 was able to penetrate the defences and get into Scapa Flow. There she unleashed torpedoes, an action resulting in the death of 834 men. I may do a full blog on the story of the ‘Bull of Scapa Flow’ commander of U-47 and how she was able to negate the British defences at some point, but for now, the story is well documented elsewhere.

English politics is making me want to chew my own face off.

Thu, 14 May 2026 15:16:00 +0000

This blog will contain a large amount of swearing. Don't read if you're of a sensitive disposition. Also if you disagree with me, I don't care and don't wish to hear about it - good for you, call me something under your breath but don't post or email me

And I’m not even talking about the absolute shit show that is the current administration in number 10. A Prime minister that no one wants challenged by no one, probably leading to months of a neutered government that won’t do anything as they wait and hope Andy Burnham gets elected somewhere and can come and take over.

British orchid hunting (part 1)

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:28:45 +0000

Pretty much this is now a yearly ritual - go out of find species of British native orchids growing in meadows, woodlands, and roadside verges. I now have a list of sites I return to year after year where I know I can find a specific species.

Last night - Anacamptis morio or the green winged orchid. Growing in a lovely meadow, surrounded by bluebells and cowslips this early orchid so called (common name) due to the green veining on its flowers.

Chernobyl 40 years on

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 01:30:00 +0000

I may use Russian words for places in this article, this simply reflects both the history (Ukraine was part of the USSR at this point in history) and the fact I'm more familiar with Russian language than Ukrainian. This doesn't imply any political bias on my part!

Forty years ago on 26th April 1986 the Chernobyl (Чернобыль) nuclear power plant reactor 4 exploded. Located close to the city of Pripyat (Припять). The story of how this happened and the aftermath is covered in extensive depth in a number of places and I’m not going to go over that ground in this blog. The HBO series and a myriad of books, documentaries, podcasts and such will explain the background for those curious.

Neolithic landscape of Dorset

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:37:00 +0000

Away from home for this blog, I recently got to stay in the county of Dorset in the UK, and whilst I had a very very limited time to explore, the property I was in was very close to a fascinating neolithic landscape. Staying inland, the landscape isn’t really different to that of Worcestershire with rolling farmland bisected by roads and in this case the busy A35 that every year ferries tourists like myself into Weymouth and Portland. However, unlike Worcestershire they have not destroyed all remnants of the past. There are a lot of features in one very small area but also more along the coast. Focusing on the area I was in, as that’s really all I had time to explore, there was a long barrow, lots of bell barrows, a lone standing stone, and as I’m cheating and counting in a previous visit to the area, just down the road a really nice little stone circle.

Growing Paphiopedilum bellatulum orchid in the UK

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:25:24 +0000

A look at modern orchid growing, and which plants I've had success with in UK conditions that don't involve a greenhouse. Hopefully helpful to other growers.

Paphiopedilum bellatulum or the egg-in-a-nest orchid with the Latin etymology appropriately coming from ‘bellus’ meaning beautiful, grows in Myanmar, Yunnan province in China and nearby areas of Thailand. It entered cultivation initially as a result of the British Raj (well indirectly!). During the 2nd Burmese war, the British founded Fort Stedman on the shores of lake Inle in modern day Myanmar and its later commander, a Mr Moore, was responsible for collecting the first specimen plants and shipping them back home to the nursery of Messrs Low & Co in England. Described in 1888 as a Cypripedium it was reclassified in 1892 as a Paphiopedilum.

Tyson Fury vs Arslanbek Makhmudov

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:13:53 +0000

I started writing a big post on the small/Indie web and its limitations, but decided that wasn't worth the drama. So in the spirit of writing about what you’d like to read, I decided to write about boxing. I’ve never seen anyone else do this on the Small/Indie web so here's my effort.

This Saturday on Netflix (so I don’t even need to get a dodgy stream) the heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury faces the big scary Russian, Arslanbek Makhmudov (here on referred to as Mak). Now first off, I’m really not a fan of Fury. I will acknowledge he has some skill as a boxer as well as a bullshit artist but generally I’d be hoping he’d lose. I have no real thoughts on Makhmudov but in both cases I’ll try to be objective.

Mak is coming off a win against the British fighter Dave Allen, where he took and gave a fair amount of punishment. Both men have the gas tank of a Harley Davidson and had run out by the later rounds, but both showed a lot of heart, despite, (Mak especially) leaning all over each other. His record is 21:2 against fairly ropey opposition. His skills are not top level, he’s slow with the Russian ‘tick tock tick’ style, like a wind-up toy without great foot movement. All of that taken into account, he does punch like a horse and takes shots that would floor basically anyone. He’s a scary looking guy as well and certainly in the Allen fight showed he would keep coming forward and keep swinging as long as his gas tank allowed.

Yet more on Worcestershire's forgotten WW2 history

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 21:40:41 +0000

My first blog outlined in brief the various ‘stop lines’ created on the orders of General Ironside in 1940 based on the assumption of German invasion (later shown as Operation Sea Lion). Had the invading forces been able to move away from the coast and continue inland, they’d have been met with resistance from the famous Home Guard units, secret auxiliaries and a hostile population. All this combined with the logistics of navigating small country lanes with removed road signs or choosing the major roads which were defended. As the forces would have been aiming for the industrial heartland of the West Midlands, the Black Country¹ and Birmingham foundries and factories in addition to the GHQ line there were smaller regional stop lines created around natural features on the landscape as well as existing man made features like canals. These lines were designed to slow the advance into the area producing hardware for defence.

Modern Orchid growing

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:18:00 +0000

As I continue to seek to wean myself off Meta owned social media, but also continue in my desire to share my interests with an indifferent internet, I bring another interest to my blog here on Bear. Growing orchids. I grow lots of different types in various conditions, but my largest collection are Masdevallia/Pleurothallids cloud forest orchids from Colombia,Ecuador and such places.

Orchid growers in the UK are generally 90 years old at the youngest and grow in greenhouses they can afford to heat thanks to the fact the government gives them £300 of my tax money each winter to assist with their bills. I can’t afford that method, so I’ve developed alternatives. Thankfully the UK also has plenty of people wishing to grow another very different type of plant inside (one that has big leaves and smelly flowers) and they have lots of kit I can purchase to help.

(Still) Hunting Worcestershire’s forgotten WWII History - where did that one go?!

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:59:26 +0000

My very first post was on hunting the remains of World War two defences in Worcestershire. I’ve now started treating this sort of like a treasure hunt or geocaching, but instead of a prize or a sodden container, its 85 year old concrete with bits sticking out of it.

Google Earth is proving very useful in doing simple investigation into sites, but today I found another small puzzling question. I found a record of a anti-tank cylinder that shows it as literally in someone’s suburban garden so went to Google Maps and took a look. Most recent images show a paved driveway, looking very nice and probably recently pressure washed, but no anti-tank cylinder. Going back to the first Street View image however, shows the cylinder literally inside a flower bed in between two bushes… so the question in my mind now is, where did it end up? Its a bloody big lump of concrete, was it put in a skip? Was it broken up into rubble and removed so the homeowner could extend the drive? I can’t check the HER record as obviously that’s still not working - https://yunzi.co.uk/why-do-those-responsible-for-our-heritage-seem-to-hate-it-and-us/ - and to be honest I’d have happily had got it and put it in my garden. As ever, small questions surrounding our forgotten history and quite possibly one less item linking us to our past, all for a nice driveway.

Why do those responsible for our heritage seem to hate it (and us)

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:41:37 +0000

I’m feeling a bit ‘punchy’ which usually gets me into trouble - but here goes…

Today alone I have three distinct things annoying the hell out of me when it comes to being interested in local (or national) history, all very different, all involving different groups and all showing a distinct lack of giving a s**t about historic sites, data or the people who choose to come and see them.

On the trail of St Kenelm, saint and boy king

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 21:01:00 +0000

English myths and legends leave breadcrumbs throughout history. Little references in popular culture. When it comes to things 1200+ years ago, even some of those references can be pretty damn ancient. This one is even referenced by the great Middle English writer Chaucer;

In ‘The Nuns Priests Tale’ by Chaucer.

Lo, in the lyf of Seint Kenelm I rede,
     Lo, I read in the life of Saint Kenelm,
That was Kenulphus sone, the noble kyng
    That was son of Kenulphus, the noble king
Of Mercenrike, how Kenelm mette a thyng.
    Of Mercia, how Kenelm dreamed a thing.
A lite er he was mordred, on a day,
    A little before he was murdered, on a day,
His mordre in his avysioun he say.
    He saw his murder in his vision.
His norice hym expowned every deel
    His nurse completely explained to him
His sweven, and bad hym for to kepe hym weel
    His dream, and ordered him to guard himself well
For traisoun; but he nas but seven yeer oold,
    From treason; but he was only seven years old,

Items of the Cold War - A Soviet watch in Britain

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 15:45:00 +0000

This short article is something I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time and never got around to. My interest in Russia diminished somewhat by the appalling war in Ukraine (a place I have visited) and the general geopolitical situation. I still own and wear a number of Russian/Soviet watches and my interest in cold war history still means there is a fascination with tools and items from that era.

During the years of the cold war, items manufactured in the Soviet Union did cross from East to West, largely demonstrating the engineering or manufacturing of the block as well as ensuring a flow of western currency back to the USSR.

A short interlude on something Roman.

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:18:00 +0000

Whilst out gathering pictures for a bigger up-coming blog post, I got to play explorer in one of those small ways that makes my walks even more worthwhile. I’m not going to give exact location details although they’re not hard to find, but deep in a lush woodland this weekend, I was able to find the ruins of a Roman villa.

Now the spot even 2000 years later is still a very lovely example of the English countryside and it’s understandable why a presumably wealthy family built their home there. It’s also surrounded by water from springs and small brooks which presumably would have been present in some form. The surrounding land is rich and still largely farm land and nearby is a road that still bears the name ‘Saltway’. This straight road would almost certainly have been Roman and heading up to the salt town of Droitwich. Known as Salinae to the Romans, the town has its own Roman ruins (now largely under an industrial estate) and would have been a major salt producing town hence the name. I suppose that after nearly 2 millennia it’s surprising that any remains still stand, never mind visible short walls and a Victorian preserved, but still Roman mosaic left covered over and sheltered from the elements.

Museum of Danish Resistance in Copenhagen - on a romantic weekend away

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:26:21 +0000

Almost titled this blog ‘what I did on my holidays’ - a recent weekend away with Mrs Yunzi took us to the Danish capital city, Copenhagen. On the Saturday we walked ourselves to exhaustion trying to see a number of tourist sites across the city. First off was the statue of the little mermaid which was entirely underwhelming, but second we decided to stop (we means I in this instance) off at the Museum of Danish Resistance nearby and on our walking route to the rather more picturesque Nyhaven.

Neolithic Worcestershire - or lack thereof

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 15:04:55 +0000

Lets be clear, if the ramblers association had a militant wing, I’d most probably join up. I’m a keen walker of Worcestershire’s footpaths and frequently have to contend with barbed wire, electric fences, damaged stiles and curiously holly bushes that only grow next to and over access gates. This is before we mention the missing signposts, overgrown footpaths, violent cows and on one occasion, an actual farmer with an actual shotgun (I’m not kidding).

Just give me the damn data

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 14:04:43 +0000

For most people doing basic starting level historical/archaeological research in the UK the search starts at Heritage Gateway - This website, probably designed for Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer 6 is gloriously, terribly awful. Probably some usual Government IT project that cost many million, it in turn queries the Historic Environment Records (sometimes referred to as Sites and Monuments Records) which are held by County Council and District Councils in the UK. It queries all of them, even when you don’t need that and returns links through to another awful service that lists records that have no sorting or reason and may number in the many hundreds for you to click through. This will cover everything from Stonehenge to a single field find from back in the early 90s.

On English churches (part 2) - Garway

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 12:57:00 +0000

As mentioned in Part1 - I like a good church. I also like weird conspiracy theories and history. Where would the intersection of those things lead other than to the Poor Fellow soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, much better known as the Knights Templar.

Formed in 1119 as a Monastic order of originally 9 knights whose purpose was to protect Christian pilgrims on the road to the Holy land. Over the next 20 years their wealth and influence grew, until in 1139 Pope Innocent II issued a papal bull - Omne datum optimum (Latin for “Every perfect gift). The papal bull contained a number of things, but mostly allowed them to pay no taxes and be holden to no authority other than that of the Pope. Although in reality not p^ssing off various European rulers proved to be diplomatic at the time and a failure to avoid doing that lead to serious problems many decades later but that’s not the subject of this post.

Boots on the ground local history (P.o.W camp Worcestershire)

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 18:33:00 +0000

Normally when researching local history I’m looking for some tangible evidence of the past. I’m not an academic and theory is fun to read, but for me to be really interested it’s a part of exploration. Going out on a walk to find a place that connects back to a previous time. My historical time line is always a bit weighted. I love ancient history and the evidence that man left on the landscape 4000 years ago and I love things remaining from WW2 and the cold war which is an area of history I read about the most. My bio says I’m a bit hazy on the other 3020 years which is broadly true, but I’ve also gone out looking for mediaeval and later.

Well....I caused some drama

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 11:10:00 +0000

This was a personal blog albeit with a slight preference to regional history. I also have a interest in tech and numerous other things I wanted to share and write about. It was always about things that interested me, and a chance to add words to my photos of places I’ve been and the details surrounding them.

I posted something, perhaps overly harsh, at a moment of frustration at the end of a bad week and got slapped for it very publicly on Bear, which then caused some other people to weigh in. Ok perhaps deserved criticism, but the net result of someone calling me out on it is traffic I didn’t want. So I pulled my blog for a while.

The Bridge of a Million Bricks

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:28:00 +0000

Whilst doing a fairly substantial walk in a remote part of the county, I ran into a couple walking their dog. The first time we crossed paths, we exchanged a polite greeting as walkers often do. The second time, I’d come around the apex of my walking loop and I think they were heading back to their no doubt very lovely big house nearby. This time, the gentleman of the couple stopped to chat (much to the annoyance of his wife I suspect). He asked if I walked a lot in the county and if I knew about the ‘bridge of a million bricks’. Now you can’t tell me about a place with a name like that and expect me to leave it alone.

On English churches (part 1) - Kilpeck

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 11:19:00 +0000

I like a good church, which might be an unusual statement coming from an avowed atheist, but there is something amazing that these buildings, many over 1000s years old, dot our country and still show some amazing features created with care so long ago. When I’m walking I’ll often try to pass and investigate churches out in the countryside of Hereford and Worcestershire. This awareness of what churches may offer was triggered by someone from an era of my life long since past, who introduced me to Simon Jenkins and his book ‘Englands 1000 best churches’. Only really as I’ve explored more local history have I really taken an interest again.

Farewell Mr von Däniken and the importance of books

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 20:37:00 +0000

Possibly a slightly confused post this one, I learned today of the passing of Erich von Däniken an author, who if he is still known, is generally though of as one of the founding members for what now tends to be called alternative archaeology or Pseudoarchaeology depending on how cynical you are. He paved the way for people like Graham Hancock and a host of YouTube and podcast presenters currently marching around Egypt and Peru speculating on if ancient aliens or some other developed civilisation before the ice age built things we still can’t really explain.

Getting Obsidian to work with Firefox on Linux

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 12:23:00 +0000

I’ve been running Linux since you had to install it from floppy disks. Its rare these days given how smooth everything normally is compared to how it was back ‘in the day’ I have to debug anything on my desktop environment (work servers are a different story!) but today I did - so documenting for posterity.

I’m testing out a number of tools to smooth my workflow going into the new year and Obsidian is one. I’m late to the party I know. I particularly wanted to be able to cross reference web pages when doing research to installed Obsidian Web Clipper on my Firefox (v143 at the moment) on Fedora Linux. Having got both Obsidian installed (AppImage) and the Firefox plugin I was driven slightly mad when trying to use it - Firefox could’nt handle the obsidian:// protocol - now fair enough this is installed in my own location but the documentation isn’t really accurate, talking about registering Firefox protocols and adding entries to about:config. Also that process has changed, but anyway.

The two AIs - problems of obscure interests on the internet.

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:31:00 +0000

The two AIs - problems of obscure interests on the internet.

Thus far, I’ve only written about local history which was one of the major things I’ve wanted to write about for some time. That said, I do intend for this blog to also be a bit more general with some of my other thoughts featuring, this is a bit of a mix between some random thoughts I’ve been trying to make sense of, reflections on tech and my day job combined with some rambling about how annoying I often find the internet and social media. Especially when it comes to connecting to other people, which it should be much better at.

Hunting Worcestershire’s forgotten WWII History (quick follow up)

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:20:00 +0000

In my first blog post Hunting Worcestershire’s forgotten WWII History where I describe looking for tank traps from the GHQ line offshoot protecting Birmingham and the Black Country¹ I mention that close to Stourport there are some that are unusually made from sandstone from the area as opposed to the more regular concrete. Well today I was able to find one site of these sandstone versions. They’re at the entrance to a nature reserve/natural area just outside the town. There are apparently 2 sites, one of 5 cylinders and one of 6. I believe this is the site of 5. Most are very heavily overgrown now, but 3 still protect the entrance to the footpath and are visible beneath the moss.

Researching RAF Hartlebury MU25

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 16:57:00 +0000

It’s said an army marches on its stomach but somewhere along the way they need not only food, but petrol and socks as well as all the other bits that make things work, and what is true for the Army must also be true for the Royal Air Force.

As the prospect of war increased in 1938, a military command was formed to provide logistical support to the RAF. RAF Maintenance command formed on the 1st April 1938 and a few months later in September of that year, a site very close to me in Worcestershire, Maintenance Unit (MU) Number 25 - RAF Hartlebury was deployed. As a large logistical hub for the RAF, MU25 handled general logistics for the RAF bases of the region as well as overseas. Certainly from records, it acted as a medicine storage and creation centre ¹. Other than medicines, it appears to have handled storage and logistics for everything not a munition or actual plane in 7 distributed sites. Certainly it handled Rolls Royce Merlin engines and likely took in parts from Gloster (Hawker) works in Hucclecote 25 miles away, as well as Vickers-Armstrong engines and parts from Castle Bromwich near Birmingham. Its proximity to the industrial city of Birmingham and the manufacturing centres of the West Midlands, presumably also meant it was well supplied from industries close by, before distributing to the regional RAF bases like RAF Pershore and RAF Defford - who were doing some very interesting things with radar development - as well as further afield.

Hunting fossils in Worcestershire (an introduction)

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:04:00 +0000

The modern county of Worcestershire is about as far from the sea as it’s possible to be in the UK. It’s 2 hours to what can be charitably called sea in Weston-super-mare down the M5 motorway and the largest body of water is probably some reservoir somewhere. It’s also notable as not a tropical place. 400million years ago however, things were somewhat different. The land that would eventually become Worcestershire was somewhere in the tropical Southern hemisphere in the middle Silurian period of around 420 million years ago. A coral reef would later become layers of limestone across the hills of the county and it swam with Triolobites, giant Nautilus and Brachiopodes as well sea lilies growing up on the reef.

Hunting Worcestershire’s forgotten WWII History

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:27:00 +0000

Mention the defence of the UK during the early years of World War two and most people of a certain age think of the comedy ‘Dads Army’. Certainly I’m just about old enough to have watched the endless repeats of this on TV. The hapless activities of Pike, Mainwaring et al are quite a long way from the real home guard and even further from the hard, trained secret army that operated on home shores at the time. I recommend the book ‘The Mercian Marquis’ for further details. Even the maligned home guard themselves, would largely have been ready, if not always entirely able, to fight and to die defending the country.