Barry Frost

🏊 Week 259 - Swim

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After our anniversary weekend in the Cotswolds, I drove home while L picked up the boys and continued on to a lodge in the Forest of Dean with her parents. For me, this meant a few nights of currys and quiet, and working from home during the day, while they were away.

I’m now officially a gym person: I paid for a full membership when my trial ended last week. I’m settling into a routine and I’m starting to enjoy the feel-good endorphins after each visit. I want to lose a bit of weight and improve my general fitness, so I’m continuing with the swimming first. Twice this week.

I continue to tinker with my new website, although it’s felt good to let it breathe this week. Like these weeknotes, its primary audience is me, collecting my content together, and I have a few other ideas to add in the coming weeks.

Somehow L and I skipped the Handmaid’s Tale when it was first on. I remember us watching the first episode and deciding it was just too bleak. We’ve given it another try, and although it’s no cheerier, the acting and storylines make it all worthwhile. 1.5 series down, 4.5 left.

We all went down to the Emirates on Sunday for our annual pre-season friendly, this year against Borussia Dortmund. We thankfully sat in the West Upper shade on a scorching day, although the ineffectual air-con on the train home was our payback. We got to see new signing, Bruno Guimarães, presented to the crowd, and the Premier League trophy was pitchside. The match sadly ended 2-3, but hot dogs were eaten, replica kits were worn, and we all got to see the Arsenal together.

BBC Radio on your HomePod

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

This may be a fairly niche topic for those in the UK, but it’s a hack I now use daily so I thought I’d share.

Unlike many other radio stations, it’s not possible to ask your Apple HomePod to directly play radio from the BBC. If I say, “Play 6 Music”, my HomePod mini starts playing the soundtrack to “Six: The Musical”. The BBC has locked away the feeds behind their Sounds app. You can AirPlay stations from the Sounds app on your iPhone, but this requires multiple taps each time you want to listen.

Instead, I’ve created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone for each radio station that automates the process. The secret is to first change the playback destination to be your HomePod so that the audio isn’t played from your iPhone.

Using this shortcut, and similar ones I’ve created for Radio 4, 5 Live, and the new Indie Forever, I can simply ask my HomePod mini to “Run 6 Music”.

Note: I’ve found that the verb you say needs to be “run” instead of “play” for the shortcut to execute.

It would be cleaner if the BBC would relent and allow you to directly play stations, but I’m assuming they would lose all the lovely data from the Sounds app. For now, this is a nice quality of life improvement that I hope helps British radio listeners with Apple devices.

🚣 Week 258 - Rowboat

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:22:00 GMT

We’re just back from an anniversary weekend at Monty’s Retreat near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, set in a private nature reserve. Our little log cabin had its own rowboat, a hot tub and a deck overlooking a semi-private corner of the lake.
The boys joined us for the first night for a row around the lake and then pizzas on the deck. They were then packed off to their grandparents’ house nearby so that L and I could enjoy some time alone. We spent a wonderful 48 hours reading by the lake, walking around the grounds, and spotting swans with their cygnets, geese, a heron and ducklings. It was perfect.
During the week I ticked off three visits to the gym/health club. I started to feel the benefits. My trial has ended, but I’m going to pay for a membership and keep the momentum going.
And finally, I have a new website - you’re reading it. I’ve been tinkering for a few months, poking at Claude in my spare time, and flip-flopping on approaches and designs. I have a few rough edges to smooth off, but I’m happy with this new direction.

My Atmospheric personal website

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When I post on Bluesky, upload photos to Grain, finish reading a book on BookHive, listen to an album with Rocksky or rate a film on Popfeed, within a minute this activity also appears on my website.

None of these services know my website exists. I haven’t written integrations or used their APIs. They all store my data in the same place: my Personal Data Server (PDS) to which I’ve given them permission to write using AT Protocol.

My website polls my PDS every minute, and if there’s been a change made by one of the services it’s watching, it fetches collections from the PDS and rebuilds its pages directly from the records.

My website’s back-end is my PDS.

Version 7

This is my first personal website rebuild in five years. My last was a (deliberately) over-engineered Serverless platform that ran only on AWS. This time, I wanted a static website for greater end-user performance, to reduce server costs, and to make it easily portable to another static host.

For the front-end, I’m using Astro, my PDS for the back-end, Cloudflare Workers to host, and a number of other technologies described in more detail in the colophon.

IndieWeb

Building with atproto means a change from using Micropub to maintain content. The previous POSSE approach meant I owned my data, but I then needed to maintain endpoints for posting, and create integrations to syndicate copies elsewhere. Even though I built my own Micropub client, posting always felt clunky and added friction. Instead, someone else’s polished atproto app is now the interface.

My website is still IndieWeb: I use Microformats 2 markup, including h-feed, h-card, h-entry and rel=me. And my identity, barryfrost.com, is the same, as is my philosophy of owning my data, but I’ve removed the steps required to syndicate to other websites.

Exceptions

One design decision I flip-flopped on was how to handle long-form writing. I strongly considered using Leaflet, Offprint or Pckt - the main atproto long-form services - so that all content would be sourced in the PDS, but I wanted more control over layout, performance and URLs. Instead, I write articles and weeknotes in Markdown and publish Standard Site records back to my PDS.

For check-ins I wanted to continue using Foursquare Swarm on my phone. There are atproto check-in services, but none are compatible with Swarm, so I decided to define my own custom lexicon. This is one of the strengths of the protocol: it’s easy to just add what’s missing.

AI

As part of this rebuild, I wanted to practise using AI for coding. Apart from tweaking layouts and text, I’ve deliberately used Claude Code to write all the code. I’ve fired off sub-agents, asked Opus to orchestrate Sonnets, built full features on the iPhone app, and I’ve come away impressed. And by reviewing the code, I’ve improved my knowledge of TypeScript.

Unlike the build, however, I’ve not used AI for the design. I experimented with Claude Design, but the outputs felt too manufactured, and not like something I would create. The design I’ve settled on is more me.

I’ve lowered the bar for posting on my website. What used to require conscious effort is now automatic. This does mean I’m relying on a handful of reasonably new services, but the records are mine, and if a service shuts down (or makes breaking changes) I can migrate elsewhere.

There’s more that I want to do. I want to set up my own PDS - I’m currently using Bluesky’s. I’m considering whether replies and bookmarks belong on these pages. And I want to explore whether Webmention fits.

In the atproto community, services built on the protocol are called Atmospheric, which I’m happy to say, now includes barryfrost.com.

🌊 Week 257 - Seaside

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:39:00 GMT

I’ve joined a gym. Well, I’ve started a seven-day trial at a gym, and went for my welcome session on Thursday. I’m not convinced I’m a gym person, but I need to force myself to go 2-3 times per week to improve my fitness levels and be a bit healthier.
I’m starting off gradually: I had a half-hour swim followed by the sauna and steam rooms. I’m building up to trying the treadmills and bikes next.
The school year has now finished and the boys (and L) have started their six weeks of holidays. I’m jealous. However, their vocal demands to be entertained because they’re bored have already begun.
On Saturday we drove east to Walton-on-the-Naze, joining some local families at the seaside. The boys joined their friends and ran straight to the sea to surf with bodyboards. We played games of beach football, beach cricket and beach rugby, while the younger children built sandcastles. I had an ice cream and allegedly had a snooze lying in the sunshine.
Unlike Tracy Jacks, I didn’t run around naked and get caught by the police, but I did stand on the seafront eating fish and chips, and undoing my good work at the gym. Walton: recommended.
To end the week, I went to my first quiz night at the Goat. Our team of 40-somethings came a respectable fourth, although I expected better after a storming 38/40 in the 90s indie music round. Sadly, we did poorly at the country silhouette picture round, although one of the Claude-generated questions had been hallucinated, causing mild outrage.

🖍️ Week 256 - Crayons

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:03:57 GMT

Week 2^8
So, England failed to beat Argentina in their World Cup semi-final, owing to a tactical cock-up from our supposed super-tactician head coach. Irritating. No “second star” this time, then. The boys went to bed at half-time, and then shed a few tears when they watched the second-half highlights the morning after.
Football: it toughens you up for future hope-then-disappointment events in life. Or it mentally scars you, I’m not quite sure which.
I ordered a BUSY Bar in the early-bird sale. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but I’m looking forward to hacking on its API and with its integrations. I’m confident it will be a valued addition to my desk, unlike the Stream Deck, which I really must get round to selling (offers welcome).
After so much scorching weather, it was inevitable that there would need to be a hosepipe ban. Shame, I was just about to wash my car. At least it’s been a little cooler.
On Saturday we had Village Day, starting with a parade along the high street, up to the fair in the north of the village. The boys and L joined their school’s The Day The Crayons Quit theme, dressed from head-to-toe in a single colour. I looped around the stalls, ignoring the Temu tat, and then settled down in front of the beer tent. It’s a lovely community we live in.
I endured the World Cup Final and was pleased to see Spain win in extra-time, partly because of their Arsenal contingent, but also because it meant the dirty Argies lost. Argentina really didn’t win any friends this week.

⛰️ Week 255 - Hill

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:49:00 GMT

I was back at The Oval on Wednesday, in scorching sunshine, to watch Surrey crush Sussex in the evening T20 cricket.
Arriving at the ground, sensibly sunscreened, I swallowed my pride and bought a Surrey cap to protect my head. Last time I went to the cricket my head was fairly pink, and I knew it was time to do the right thing, even if, “There’s fewer more distressing sights than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap.” Sorry Pete, but the Panamas were £85.
We were drinking lovely refreshing pints of Brixton Electric tropical lager, which tasted just like Um Bongo, but much more expensive.
This week I’ve been trying out Anthropic’s new Claude Fable model while it’s still available in my Pro account. The challenge is finding a task equal to its capability. It was pretty good at finding security vulnerabilities and my accessibility misses, but I mostly feel like I’m asking a Michelin-starred chef to boil me an egg.
The relentless sun kept us indoors all Saturday, with fans on full-blast, and kids (and parents) listless and tired. By the time England’s World Cup Quarter-Final against Norway started at 10pm, despite wanting to watch it on TV, H was tucked up asleep in bed. Finishing at 1am after the extra-time win, I was pretty tired myself.
I had a rare Sunday gig. It was well worth the walk up the infamous Alexandra Palace hill to see Super Furry Animals, with support from The Beta Band and Badly Drawn Boy. BDB left us wanting more, getting a lot of love from an audience, with lumps in our throats, as he battled through his first gig since his mother died. The Beta Band set the mood as the sun went down, with lots of drumming and bongos, and then the Super Furries smashed it. So many great melodic songs. My highlight was Ice Hockey Hair from their 1998 EP.
Not used to two late nights out of three though 🥱

5 albums

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Here are five albums that shaped me, inspired by Olly’s post via Martin Schuhmann. To echo Olly’s point, these aren’t necessarily favourites, but were influential in my life.

Ten (1991) - Pearl Jam
Tragic Kingdom (1995) - No Doubt
Olympian (1995) - Gene
If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996) - Belle and Sebastian
Transatlanticism (2003) - Death Cab for Cutie

🛌 Week 254 - Bed

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 11:20:00 GMT

A few holidays among colleagues, so it was a nice, quiet week at work.
I bought a pack of Tim Tams for a slice of nostalgia from my time in Australia/NZ. I think they’re fairly widespread in the UK now, but I hadn’t had one for years. Still better than Penguins.
I took H over the road to the park early on Saturday morning, where we had the whole football pitch to ourselves. He defeated me 10-5 in an epic end-to-end match. I had no excuses. His fitness and skills now win against my longer legs.
The local sports club has started a summertime Saturday happy hour at its bar, so we joined some neighbouring friends for a few evening Aperols on the outside tables. Their boys are in H’s class and the children ran themselves happy-tired on the football pitches in the evening sunshine. I then spent a little too much on Deliveroo’d Wagamama for us.
So many plastic containers to recycle!
I finished reading How to Stop Time which I quite enjoyed. I now need to either finish reading a couple of other books I’ve previously begun, or declare book bankruptcy.
TV this week: the new/last series of The Bear and From, and the House of the Dragon. Plus lots of football from the World Cup, although mostly in the form of highlights packages and build-ups. The kick-offs mean make watching live a challenge, but the excitement is growing now we’re in the knockout stages.
Talking of which, in the early hours of Monday morning we… didn’t stay up to watch England play Mexico. We chose bed. Instead, we got up at 7am to watch the highlights before school/work without knowing the result. 3-2. A perfect end/start to a week.

🥵 Week 253 - Scorching

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:11:00 GMT

The forecasts were sadly right: temperatures hit the mid-30s for several days in a row, resulting in poor sleep, irritability and general lethargy. Our homes and bodies just don’t function in such heat.
L and the kids thankfully had air-conditioning in their classrooms during the day, as did I in my office, but tower fans weren’t enough in the evenings at home. We’re strongly considering getting AC units installed ready for future extreme summers. It’s sadly our new climate.
I still went ahead with Tuesday lunch plans in London with some ex-colleagues. I’d kept reasonably cool on the train in to town, but the Underground closure at King’s Cross meant I was sweaty from walking in the fierce afternoon heat to Euston Square. A few glasses of wine sat in the mercifully cool restaurant made up for it.
I was then home in time to watch England struggle through a goalless draw against Ghana in the World Cup. After Saturday’s laboured 2-0 win against Panama, we’re now through to the knockout rounds, but need to improve.
As the temperature dropped a little on Sunday, I went for a lovely coffee and catch-up with Calum who had cycled up from London. We used to meet regularly to organise the London IndieWeb meet-up over ten years ago. Time flies.
Back home, I took the boys down some country lanes to collect sticks and leaves for an art project at school, keeping a close eye on the horse and dog poo piles they came perilously close to touching 🤦
New personal website is getting closer. Soon.