Forever Autumn

One of the songs in the Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds I like the most is called Forever Autumn. It’s about loved ones who aren’t here anymore and works well for any kind of relationship, which is perhaps a large part of why it appeals to me so much. The whole song is great but it is the third verse which really brings it home. In the radio play the narrator steps in for a moment to advance the story and then the song comes back.

Through autumn’s golden gown we used to kick our way

You always loved this time of year

Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now

‘cause you’re not here

Turns out listening to it is a bad idea as I just stopped everything else and started to lose myself in the music, and all of the many happy memories I have associated with the radio play and the music. The themes of loss and separation feel especially poignant as many of the people I love and care about are elsewhere. Either because relationships have changed or ended, or because they are busy pursuing their own lives.

On a less serious note, the thought which got me started writing this morning was yesterday’s attempts to configure my blog more closely to how I want it to be. I realise I need a few pages to explain my position on things like advertising, privacy and the use of AI. I like the open and uncluttered feeling the site has at the moment, but would also like to change some elements, like making the date more prominent on individual posts and on lists of posts.

These are simple tasks and I used to know how to do them, how to work my way through the menus and options in WordPress, the occasional bit of direct coding or code adjustment to get something to work just the way you wanted it to. And the notion of child themes so that when updates came through you wouldn’t lose the changes you had made to your own site.

There were things I used to know how to do

Having been hacked once I am feeling a bit more cautious about updates and patches and especially plugins. Plugins are super useful and in some ways it is almost impossible to imagine running a simple site without using at least two or three of them. On the flip side, they’re maintained by individuals and organisations who may not be anywhere near as fastidious or prompt as I would like them to be in addressing new security problems.

The internet is a big place, and it’s easy to get around, so when you use a common platform rather than your own bespoke arrangements you are exposing yourself to considerable risk because it is just so easy for someone to write an attack once and then apply it to many sites.

So today I will try to find a little time to reacquaint myself with WordPress as it stands today. I will also try to gently accept the reminder that the world continues to turn and perhaps ask myself which other of my opinions or knowledge or ability have quietly become obsolete or out of date in some way.