Wulf's Webden

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7 September 2026
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The Art of Prophesying

It was probably about 30 years ago that I picked up The Art of Prophesying by Elizabethan puritan William Perkins. Having re-read it today I have to confess that I’m not entirely sure I made it to the end on my earlier run through. This may do the book a disservice but I find myself returning to the assessment I half-formed in the past, that the most interesting things for modern times is what we can learn from the title itself.

As you might expect from someone bearing the title “puritan” (and re-published in the modern Puritan Paperbacks line), Perkins was no posturing, self-styled “prophet”, throwing out “words of knowledge” like they were going out of fashion. Sometimes the people who do that seem to hit gold… but the same is true of self-styled “psychics” and it hasn’t been unknown to find out that some of the accurate ones spent the afternoon dining and gossiping with senior members of the host church, where they may have gleaned fuel for their so-called revelations.

Perkins would give such people short-shrift. I’m not quite sure what he would make of those who might be more deserving of the prophet label although I think there are some such. What he means by “prophesying” is what most modern Christians would term “preaching”. How do you study God’s word with care, glean understanding and convey that to your hearers? He also includes praying for the people under the same heading but it is fair to say that the preaching side takes up the majority of his work.

Although we don’t tend to use the term that way today, it makes a lot of sense. After all, if you want to hear what God is saying, a good place to start is in what he has said. The written word that we call “The Bible” is that place and he still speaks through it today. I rather like the summary I’ve heard from J John: if you want to hear the voice of God, read the Bible: if you want to hear the audible voice of God, read it out loud!

6 September 2026
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Stirring Stuff

Paint Stirrer

I’m painting some wood for outdoor use and I’ve got a big tub of fence paint that I’ve used for my shed and one or two other things. However, it needs some stirring and I decided to print off an attachment for my drill. I’ve just used it the once so far but it seemed to do the job well and I think it should hold up over time.

A possible enhancement is to think on how I can attach it to a longer shaft as there is a limit to how large I can print things on my A1 Mini. However, I could print the stirring end, the bit that attaches to the drill and something to insert a longer piece between the two (no need for that to be 3D printed). Another thing that would be handy is a pot to put the paint covered end into – the plastic pot in the picture is a little small for that purpose. I’ll probably have a search first to see if there is something I can reuse – an empty tin can may do the job well enough.

5 September 2026
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Hear ’em and weep…

I caught a bit of Radio 4’s Any Answers programme earlier today. Callers were responding to earlier discussion about the recent filmed report showing Nigel Farage and his colleagues discussing with a (fake) would-be donor how to get around rules about financial gifts from overseas. At the time of the sting, Farage was already under serious investigation for the donations he received so you would expect him and those around him to be up to date on the rules and on their guard but they were complicit in offering bad advice and Farage later claimed that he wasn’t really listening and that it was just loose pub talk.

What made me weep was hearing his supporters proclaiming that they didn’t care how Reform got its money. One said they didn’t care if it came from Al-Qaeda (yes, the international terrorist network who could be said to be one of the drivers of migration) as long as it kept their fuel bills down and meant they weren’t paying for room service for migrants. Oh, the turkeys sure do love the tinsel-wrapped Christmas Party!

4 September 2026
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Damson Wood

We kindly got given some damson wood this week… so I’ve been working on processing it today. Logs sliced down to the length I need for the log burner fit more neatly on the shelves I’ve built. Chopped up from rounds into sections will season quicker. Therefore, I’ve been busy sawing and splitting. Some progress, some aching muscles but at least we’re taking steps in the right direction to make for some cosy evenings in the cold season.

3 September 2026
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HolidAI planning

I’ve got a few days away coming up later this month so I’ve been looking up some travel information online. Since you tend to get fed AI responses and those tools are quite good at digesting useful information from the huge number of potential results, I decided to lean into it.

Tonight’s particular task was identifying some options that aren’t too far from where we are staying and which would work for us if the weather is particularly wet. I started with typing a fairly detailed question into Google rather than two or three keywords, which prompts it to prioritise an LLM generated response. Initially it gave me some information about four places within the 45 minute drive I had indicated. I asked it to give me another four options but allowed it to expand the distance to a 60 minute drive (we will be quite in the wilds). I then asked it to combine all the options and to include some information about pricing.

So far, so good. Where Google’s built in system fell down was after I’d tried to copy the results into an email to Jane and realised that they needed reformatting. It seemed to give up and I suspect I’d reached the limits of what it was willing to give me for free. However, since I’ve got Windows 11 on my main machine, I’ve also got CoPilot. I pasted in the table and my specifications for reformatting and it did a fairly good job – not quite what I asked but a usable result. It also came up with the goods when I asked it to replace all the google.com URLs with URLs that pointed directly to the locations in question.

I decided that was the point at which enough had been done. If I kept playing around, I’d end up spending more time on the prompting than I would have done on manual reformatting! However, that’s plenty of options that I can now do further research on – for example by visiting the URLs of the ones that seem most interesting and confirming opening times, prices and the like. I could also take my shortlist and, for example, ask for other attractions that are nearby, including ones that would work if the sun comes out.

Is it demonstrating true intelligence? No, but it is an enhanced form of searching as long as you know when to stop and remember to check the details before acting on them – in other words, very similar to the “wonders” that we’ve grown used to in our SatNav systems.

2 September 2026
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Out of Proportion?

Raspberry Conserve

I’m beginning to harbour a suspicion that the amount of raspberries and blackberries we are producing at the allotment is rather out of proportion to what we need. We produced a batch of raspberry conserve recently and I discovered that we already had enough homemade jam in the cupboards that we probably don’t need any more for several years!

Time to start thinking about rejigging the balance – for example, we could do with a lot more blackcurrant bushes, which produce fruit earlier in the year and which aren’t presently producing anything like a glut.

I’ll probably also drop or at least seriously reduce the jostaberry bushes, which are now quite large but barely seem to produce any fruit at all. Perhaps a decent gooseberry or two would make a good substitute? They say grow what you want to eat but I’m definitely ready to add the second part, “… but not too much of it”.

30 August 2026
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Pork Belly

Today’s dinner was pork belly in the air fryer. I more or less followed the method given in this video:

My results weren’t quite as good as illustrated but starting with a piece of pre-scored pork belly from a supermarket rather than an unscored surface would then be pierced with tiny holes probably contributed. It was still pretty tasty.

Bonus points to the courgette accompaniment. I cooked up wedges that I’d season with salt, pepper, five spice, onion powder, courgette powder and beetroot powder. That last one gave an excellent colour and the result was almost as “meaty” as the pork belly!

29 August 2026
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Design and Print… with a time limit

This morning we were helping with a work party at church and one of the tasks was cleaning all of the children’s toys. One was a toy kitchen and I spotted that the latch for one of the doors had broken, meaning the door wouldn’t stay shut and making the edge of the door into a hazard as it projected out. Since there were quite a lot of other people working there, I decided to pop home to design and print a replacement. The twist here was that I was under a strict time limit – Jane and I needed to be gone by midday so I had about 1.5 hours to design the part, get it printed and get back to church to install it.

Door Clip

Measuring and design takes a while but the real challenge is that, to see how a piece comes out, you need to print it – 15 minutes plus cooling time before lifting it off the bed for the final piece. That meant I couldn’t work through many iterations.

I started with the base plate – fairly simple but a bit more than just a rectangle with a couple of holes. Only having the broken piece to hand, I had to stick fairly closely to it otherwise I might have got back to church and found it didn’t fit. I did print a base plate while I worked on the next bit of the design, to check that my measuring up was good.

Where I did slightly fall down was the two cylinders that catch the other bit of the latch. On the first complete version, they were a bit on the small side. I redesigned to what you see above in grey but time was running short and I had to get back. It turns out that first version did work although I think this one will be more robust and I’ll switch it round sometime soon.

Anyway, it was a good exercise to push my skills by working under a time limit and, pending seeing how it works out in use, I’m pleased with the result.