I received an email recently from a concerned reader who told me my blog was taking “absolutely ages” to load. Naturally, I assumed I’d broken the internet. Or possibly time.

Turns out he was reading via something called SMOL — a website so minimal it makes Notepad look flashy. It doesn’t allow images. Or fun. Or possibly nouns.

But it set me off. I’ve worked in web development for years — over 25 years, to be a bit more precise. So the idea that my blog was misbehaving unsettled me, to say the least.

I did the usual thing: I briefly considered deleting every cartoon and rewriting the whole blog in Morse code to speed things up.

Also, I ran it through Google’s PageSpeed tool. The results? Fast.
Faster than me running to the kettle when Mary says the tea’s on.
Or more accurately: “Get the kettle on.”

But despite the testing (and the reassuring numbers), I went and built a text-only version. It’s called The Printed Word, and it’ll be arriving by second-class post sometime in November.

At least it’ll be quick.
Though I suspect I’ll be pursued by the Net Zero lobby next —
because of the amount of paper my blog will now need.

I reviewed this new text-only version and liked the way the words were doing all the work.

“Oi! Mate, we’re the BOSSES now.”
“Yes, you are. How does it feel?”
“Bloody ace! Don’t bovver with them images, geezer, you don’t need ’em.”

Not sure why my blog is now speaking with a London accent. But stranger things have happened.

BUT… My eyes.

“That’s boring. Where’s the illustrations?”
“Ah, well, I needed to improve page speed—”
“What? Is it 1998 again?”

Hmm. They have a point.

So, I did a serious amount of optimisation… and kept the cartoons.

The words don’t seem to mind, despite their earlier bravado.