I rarely talk about politics here. Not real reason – I believe we should talk more about politics and how things affect us: a blanket “no politics” rule kills a safe space for marginalised communities, but for whatever reason I feel like the permanent nature of blogs and the temporary nature of public opinion means it may bite you in the bum at a later date1.
Nevertheless – I do wear my political opinions on my sleeve (which is ally, left wing and think that Brexit is the stupidest thing we have done as a nation), and I was happy waking up to read Andy Burnham – the mayor of Manchester – won the Makerfield by election and therefore has a definitive path to become prime minister.
There has been genuine change in Manchester: the busses are now yellow to match the trams and have clear branding promoting £2 bus fares, and homelessness is at the very least a lot less visible and at most almost eradicated. The city has transformed over the past 10 years, and Andy Burnham spearheaded it. Between that, the work he did for the Hillsborough Justice Campaign and how visible he was during COVID and in the aftermath of the Ariana Grande concert bombing, he feels like a genuine change and a genuine bloke.
I was worried about this election. To drive from mine to my partner’s house drives straight through Makerfield, and the last few weeks I’ve seen so many Reform signs out. I saw one Restore sign, and about 3 Vote Andy placards. Sunday I was tailing a Reform bus in the off teal colours for about a mile on Sunday, and I felt like it was inevitable for a shock. A lot of the places I drive through is one of those places that have England flags everywhere, and not just for the World Cup.
I’m sympathetic to the resident’s plight – as I live in a similar area that has been forgotten, and people are crying out for change. It’s just depressing that the void in these places has been taken advantage by racist populists, who believe the country is full, taxes are too high and anybody who doesn’t scale a lampost to hang a Union Jack is unpatriotic. Last night felt like a bit of genuine hope.
I’d never vote for Reform or any far right party (or indeed center right at the moment), and their candidate seemed like the sort of person I wouldn’t get on with. For them to be licking their wounds after being told resoundly to go fuck themselves made me smile.
Anyway, good luck Andy, hopefully you are the change that people desperately need.
I had a football blog once where I praised an individual for a classy gesture, who later turned out to be a wrongun. ↩︎
I love Krakow. I’ve been there four times in the last 10 years, granted it’s a bit biased as I talked about before – my brother got married there in 2016 and having that knowledge on where to go, where to avoid and how to have a good time really helps. But sometimes you just discover a place that sets your soul into a warm embracing self hug.
I went to Krakow last weekend for WordCamp Europe. You’ve probably read a few dozen blog posts about it, mine is coming next week. At these events there are fringe events. One of those was after the first day of the conference – the Bluehost/Yoast Glow Party. A pride party in all but name.
Anyway, in a colossal senior moment, I travelled to the party a bit early and then realised I wasn’t 100% sure I locked the front door, so I double backed to the hotel. I’d hoped to go to a relatively uninspiring burger bar that I couldn’t find before the event, but on the tram on the way back to the distinctly average AirBNB-masquerading-as-a-hotel, I did some Googling and found a place next to the railway bridge I was staying by.
It had a few reviews, and looked interesting. A communism-era van serving Kielbasa – the Polish sausage cooked over an open flame next to the train and tram I have to get. That will do, I’m already running late and wanted to get in and out of the party before an early night before the Krakow parkrun1.
I checked the AirBNB/hotel, and walked to the van, and was greeted with a glorious sight:-
They must be onto something, right? Poland knows their sausage, and it’s a good queue of 20/30 people at least waiting for it. As the queue shortened (in a process that took about 20 minutes), I was greeted with a well oiled machine of cooking sausages over an open flame, like in those movies about New York in the 1980’s.
There was one thing on the menu – sausage, and a limited supply of drinks. Cash only. Very simple, but seemed to be a staple for a few Krakowians (Krakowites?) on a Friday evening. Their fish and chip Friday, I took the bread roll and my meal (which took about 20 minutes just to get), and stood at the table listening into conversations I didn’t understand. I felt like a fat, Welsh, bearded Anthony Bourdain.
Was it the best meal I ate in Krakow? No. The steak I had in Pimento was incredible. But the meal at Kiełbaski z Niebieskiej Nyski2, is a meal I’ll remember for a very long time.
It didn’t end up that early, but was fine the next day. ↩︎
Sausages from the blue Nysa – which actually from a bit of research in thinking it was a reference to a river in Poland, but is actually a literal name for the van it’s served out of↩︎
So I have a few sites with SiteGround. They’re largely sites that don’t get a huge amount of traffic (with the exception of All Rumble Stats, which gets 20k a month). Hosting is a bit like your bank account or your broadband provider: they are there and as long as you don’t do much to annoy them, then you stick with them. Friction of moving is painful, so you want to avoid it. Nevertheless, they were a pretty good host a while back that didn’t seem to do anything egregious compared to other hosts, plus I’ve been to their EU offices, so I have recommended them in the past.
There have been a few things that have occurred in the past few years that is has me questioning continuing hosting with them. One was their speed optimiser plugin (which I think were great) deleted all WebP images, even those that the plugin didn’t create, and their support which is an AI Slopstacle Course at the moment.
Last week though I think means I’ll be moving off their servers when I renew.
WordPress 7.0 and the AI Connector Module
WordPress 7.0 came out recently, and as part of that introduced the AI Connector module, which whilst does nothing off the bat, allows you to store your chosen planet boiler key of choice within WordPress, allowing other plugins to use it for their means. It means you don’t have to add your API key to all plugins, instead just doing it once within the WordPress backend. Convenient.
I’m not a huge fan of it for a number of reasons. Firstly, as raised by Oliver Sild over on Twitter (sorry) every WordPress site could have an API key embedded in it, allowing hackers access to API tokens to do nefarious things. It feels like at the very least there’s a massive target on every that is built on WordPress’ back.
SiteGround crystalised the other reason. In that hosts will set this feature up for you, even if you don’t want them to.
I got an email a few weeks back. I’ve copied it verbatim below:-
Hi Rhys,
One of the most significant WordPress releases in years is coming, anticipated on May 20, 2026. This new version will provide a standardized way to connect your WordPress site to AI providers providers (learn more), making it possible to integrate a whole new range of AI capabilities for managing and editing your website. Once it rolls out we’ll update your WordPress site automatically. On top of that, we’ll connect it with SiteGround AI Studio so that you can start using AI capabilities right out of the box.
Sites to be automatically updated to WordPress 7.0
As always, we’ll automatically update all WordPress installations on our platform to 7.0 based on your WordPress autoupdate settings. By default, we apply major updates with 24 hour’s notice, so no action is needed on your end. The update itself is just the beginning. We’ve also taken several steps to make sure that you can take advantage of the new AI capabilities without any additional configuration.
AI Studio with 20,000 free tokens to be enabled as your default AI connector
When WordPress 7.0 lands, the standard process to start using AI capabilities will involve a few steps. First, connecting an AI provider of choice by installing a connector and providing an API key. Second, then installing the native WordPress AI plugin so AI capabilities appear in the WordPress core.
SiteGround customers, however, skip all of that entirely. With the new WordPress version, you’ll get SiteGround AI Studio activated as your default AI connector, plus our powerful AI WordPress Agent enabled automatically. This allows you to immediately use AI power for managing your WordPress. No API keys, manual connections, or extra plugins needed. You’re ready to use AI-powered features right away, backed by 20,000 free tokens available to you every month through AI Studio.
Powerful AI Agent for WordPress management to be activated
As part of the WordPress 7.0 update, SiteGround’s AI Agent will appear directly in your WordPress admin ready to help with all sorts of tasks. The moment WordPress 7.0 is live on your site, you’ll have our robust AI chat assistant available directly from your admin dashboard.
SiteGround’s AI Agent capabilities go far beyond the standard image and text generation many other AI plugins provide. It can handle real maintenance tasks: updating site settings and plugins, setting product discounts, editing descriptions, auditing and applying SEO changes, and more, all from a single prompt.
Note: Please note that the custom AI Studio connection and the AI Agent activation will not be done as part of the WordPress update for those websites that have a white-label client added to them. If you want, you can activate SiteGround AI agent yourself on such sites.
Also good to know: You can also change your default AI connector or completely disable the AI Studio connector any time you want.
Cheers to the exciting new WordPress version, The SiteGround Team
I didn’t think much of it, but given it was sent midday on a Friday, I kind of skim read it and ignored it. Sure enough though after WordPress 7.0 launched on the 20th, with sites hosted on SiteGround, this appeared.
Notice it’s location right at the bottom. Often plugins are guilty of fighting for the real estate at the top of the page. This? Already activated and hidden away. In a vain hope you don’t notice it.
Not only it’s activated, but it’s connected to their AI agent.
I’m an experienced user, and kind of go blind to the banners and things that appear in the back end of WordPress, but I wonder how quick I would burn through the 20,000 tokens every month? Would that change? Is this just an approach to get SiteGround users hooked onto an AI chatbot and then reduce the level of service? How much does it cost per month if you go over the 20,000 tokens?
Thing is, this is not a free service. I pay over £500 every year to SiteGround to host my websites, and many of my clients pay as well. Things like this should be an opt-in service. If this was a free service, I’d grin and bare it – after all you are the product. But it’s not. In short, SiteGround has left and icky taste in a lot of folks mouths. Not everybody will leave, but many might.
But then, this is the modus operandi for the great AI rollout. Switch it on and hope people don’t notice or kick up a fuss. Enough people don’t mind it and a few people use it. Big numbers, 1+ million adoption, board is happy. It just feels icky and deceptive. I do wonder if AI adoption would be bigger overall if it wasn’t forced down our throats, and the benefits to society would be welcomed if they were argued or shown.
But then again, if AI operators have to go down this approach, is there any benefits to be had at all?
Seemingly because it’s now a thing, a few weeks back I stayed a night at The Reserve: luxury accommodation within the walls of Chester Zoo.
It was located in the Heart of Africa, so you were surrounded by animals that you tend to see in Africa, with the huts overlooking the enclosure with the giraffes and animals we call “Antelopes”1. You also got an evening meal, breakfast, access to the Heart of Africa exhibit before the zoo opens and after it closes, but the main thing was the accommodation. Waking up to a full vista of the antelopes playing and the giraffes was an experience like no other. It’s like being in the opening of The Lion King.
Of course, as well as a great night sleep in a fantastic location, we also got two day access to the Zoo, so just being able to explore that as a leisurely pace was also excellent. Chester Zoo is massive so being able to explore it over 2 days was great. Meant we could lunch without feeling rushed.
I loved the lemurs (I do love lemurs), the vibrant flamingos as the big animals like the rhinos and the elephants. 10/10 would go to Chester Zoo again.
I’m in Krakow for WordCamp Europe in a few weeks, and I’ve suggested this and Krakow’s parkrun as things I want to do whilst listening to talks about how AI is going to ruin us all. Surprisingly this seems more popular.
So consider this an open invite for a trip to the Krakow Pinball Museum, possibly followed by beers and Zapiekanka in Kazmierz. I’m happy to coordinate and be somewhat of a host1. Pay for your own entrance.
I’ll try and co-ordinate attendance, obviously if folks don’t show and I get bored I’ll probably bugger off a bit before, but it’d be nice to get some quality screen came as we flip balls.
I’m not listing this as an official side event, because the venue is not accessible (there’s a large staircase to the basement), and some of the language I use when the ball goes between the flippers may be deemed to break a code of conduct. But mainly as it isn’t accessible.
Well, by “host” you mean “grunt conversations whilst playing Addams Family Pinball” ↩︎
