The return of Mr Fist – Chatting Fireside with Bruce Lawson 20/01/2026

Steve: Well, hello Bruce. Steven. Hello. It's wonderful to have you on the, fireside chat. It's lovely to be here on your pink of glory. Yes. Well, gonna give you a choice about where you sit. You can, you, well, you, you're free to sit wherever you want, but I know that you've got your own wonderful, arm shares and things at, at your palace in Birmingham.

Steve: In, I'll start off with the, with the opening slide, which is, which in today is you. Somebody mentioned. I did ask a few, a few people, if they had any questions. Somebody mentioned the mankini, which. Naturally, brought me to, go and find a picture of you in the Mankini. This is from when you were a young man.

Bruce: how many, 15 years ago at least. Probably, yeah. 15 or 16 years ago. Yeah, it was yeah. I bet you as good today as you did then. I'm actually slimmer now. [00:01:00] I believe it. Well, you guys look fat there. Well, yeah, but I, I mean, the camera wasn't flattering me, Steve, but, modern camera.

Steve: Yeah. Hair looks a bit short. you more, you got more that Jeremy Keith Look now 

Bruce: I was going for the Steve Faulknerr look, can't you? Yeah, right.

Steve: Nobody wants to look me. Which wants to be me, but nobody wants to look like me. That's the, it's quite an interesting dilemma. Anyway fireside chat, sponsored by HTML z, your friendly, web standards, leisure wear provider you can go to etsy.com, html z and if you use the code PIGGYTRUMP, you get 20% off.

Steve: 20% off. Yeah. 20 fucking percent. I'm not messing around. Well, I don't make any money from it anyway. It's not, it's never been about the money. It's just, I mean, it's about, I'm getting the word out and the sheer joy of [00:02:00] seeing glamorous supermodels like me wearing you wearing. Yes. What was the, and yes, and of course you will, receive an item of your choice from the shop just for being on this show tonight.

Bruce: Fantastic. What's the URL again for the people at home, Steve? 

Steve: Oh, hold on. It's www.etsy.com. That's ht. P-T-T-P-S. Fuck. Now I've, let me just, I have to find the actual, move your picture. It's etsy.com/uk/shop/HTMLZ and 20% off. Wow. 20% off the everything. Whoa. Regardless of how, how little or how much you buy, that's the sort of person I'm, yeah.

Steve: What I a to do is not to make a loss. That's, it just kicks over. But I, [00:03:00] especially at Christmas time, I, I like all the people from work. I offer that to get them something usually because I actually have so many items, but so little actual, purchase. I, I sold about 500 and odd items, but I've got like about 200 shirts.

Steve: So one of the shirts, like many of the shirts, I've only got one or, or they're like one offs. People are wearing, they don't realize they're wearing an original, they don't realize the, the, the glory that they're, they're wearing. Wow. What a, what a bargain. Everybody. Some pe some people do.

Steve: Plus I, I have, have knocked, brought the prices down on a range of goods already. So it's 20% off the much cheaper price. So for example there's a there's one of Pat that's got him in a sailor cap. He's lovely smiling face with a bushy beer in. It says, ah. Underneath. Nobody's bought that.

Steve: And [00:04:00] I was, I was offering to give more pay people to bloody take them. But anyway, I'm just raving on already, I've already gone off on some stupid tangent when I should be asking you questions. I was searching questions and 

Bruce: Steve, sorry, I'll asking difficult questions make me squirm. 

Steve: Oh, I'm not gonna make you squirm.

Steve: I mean, I'm not there. I just want to just chat to you about this and that. you're an interesting guy with lots of things that, do. And I want to get onto those now, let me just, oh, okay. I want to stop this, stop this share for a moment. There we are, the two side by side. And now I want to share something else, which is the Rose Gallery.

Steve: Oh fuck, now I've gotta find the Rogues Gallery. Hold on. I'm gonna be able to get to see this. Oh, there we go. [00:05:00] Yes. Yes. I found it now screen. Okay. Believe it or not, this, it work goes a lot smoother than it used to, this whole thing. Alright, so there's you and I and we're looking at the Roads Gallery.

Steve: Wow. So, and I and each week I try to do a board for each talk. I try to do a, a bunch of rogues, new rogues. There's always some of the same old rogues because they, they're my muckers. But, first off, top left, do you recognize the, person with the H on their, forehead?

Bruce: Is it Mr. HTML five? No. It that I don't recognize them. 

Steve: It's Dr. Swallow. It's always Dr. Swallow. Goodness me. Flipping Ack. Yeah. When, when [00:06:00] he yeah. That's Dr. Swallow as as Arnold Rimmer. Right. And also Holly. From he's a mix between Holly and Arnold Rimmer. Anyway, that's, that was actually a, graphic from a article that I published on TPGI back in the day.

Bruce: Okay. Next to him, that is obviously the web standards. Terry Wogan himself, Jeremy Keith. And so you, well, you know him obviously, but is that someone you hang out, have a beer with? We, we have had beers. He has told me witty jokes. I've told him witty jokes. yeah. Good, good chap.

Bruce: Excellent. Good in shirts. He actually asked me where I bomb my colorful shirts from. And being a gen, [00:07:00] I told him as long as he never told anybody else, look, you, I don't think I'd, I've seen your shirts. And, and I, I don't even know if I want to be able to, anyway that's another subject.

Steve: But yeah, he should, he reminds me of like, when I was in my early twenties or late teens, I was a goth, I got into goth a bit 'cause there was this band called the Church. Church. Oh yeah. Yeah. There was a number, there's a bit of a goth scene. And I used to wear shirts like that. That was post mod.

Steve: When I was, after I was a mod, I became a goth. Then I gave me hippie. So I, just live you around. 

Bruce: Did you like do this overnight? Did you sort of go to bed all goth with your eye eye? No. Banes and woke up, I don't know, singing The who and riding a Vespa or something? 

Steve: No, no. The, the, I was mod before from when I was like 16 [00:08:00] till I was about 19.

Steve: And then I got into being go goth. Bit of a goth, but not really. And then I just became a, a stoned hippie. Drunkard. I become a drunkard. 

Bruce: So obviously what's happening, you, you went from mod, which is three letters to goth, which is four letters to hippie, which is five letters. Yeah, it's the progression. So now you are like a granddad, which is seven letters.

Bruce: So I wonder, I'm not, I'm not a grand. I, yeah, I'm not a grandfather in, well, in, I may look like one, but I'm not actually, I don't have any. I think you are the grandfather of web accessibility. 

Steve: Oh yeah, yeah. No, that's not me. But the, that's, uh, Greg Van der heiden. Just ask the next person who that of course is.

Bruce: Patti Poo. Herbert Lauker. [00:09:00] 

Steve: Yes. Yes. I remember. I went through a stage of a fascination of, using that picture that you had of him on the toilet. Yes. Yeah. And I used it in a lot of, marketing material for. TPG and just anywhere I could really yes. 

Bruce: I can see that. It, the TPG's a roaring success right at the moment.

Steve: Isn't it Premier? Oh, yes. Yeah. It's, it's helping along, it's helping them along. Um, let's not, yeah, it's speaking of a, of a past employer. I do regret that. So you have known Patrick for many a year, haven't you? 

Bruce: I think we met in 2005 at maybe even 2004 at one of the inaugural UK web conferences called, app Media, I think.

Bruce: And, he and I, 'cause in those days, of course, people didn't really know what each other looked like because there were blogs. But f [00:10:00] Hold on a sec. Could you just close that door? Sorry. Oh yeah. No, it's all right. Yeah, so there were blogs, but everybody had a pho a postage stamp sized profile pick. And, on dial up you couldn't be asked to let it load, so you didn't know what people looked like.

Bruce: So Pat and I enjoyed walking around that media and I'd be interrupting people's conversations and saying things like, well, of course, the web's an inherently visual medium, and they go, what's accessibility? And I'd listen and say my name's Gez Lemon. Lovely to me. So, so Pat and I did that for a little while to give Gez a bad name.

Steve: So, this is why Gez, it's funny, talking about Gez because I, he had a, a deep impact upon my early days of accessibility, and I still, think his blog still lives large in my head, but most people just don't know about him anymore. 

Bruce: Juicy Studio? [00:11:00] Mond. Citron as, yeah, as, as he's known in the circus.

Steve: I still work, I've worked with him for like 19 years now, or 20 years. Crikey. Well give him, give him a hug from me. I will. It's his birthday today. Yes. It's his birthday today. Wow. Because it's six days before my birthday. 

Bruce: Oh. He's sneaking that one in. Well, happy birthday, Gezmond and happy birthday, Steve.

Steve: Probably the same. We will be the same age for at least five days. I'm younger than him. 

Bruce: Wow. Yeah. I wonder what his secret is then. I have no idea. But anyway. 


Steve: Yeah. Pat, I, I remember Pat, like likes to tell this, this, this story about when he was in, at SBSW, Southwest back in, I think he, that he was with you, I think it was you, but you, introduced him to what's his name? Who's the Ek Sheik? Yeah. Ek Celli.

Bruce: -I was there, yes, yes, yes. It was just after my book. Yeah. The book that ran in and I wrote came out and, uh, he, pat was lubricated with free conference beers and he said something untoward like, hello. my name's Patrick Lauke and I'm a massive cunt. That's pretty much verbatim.

Bruce: Yes. And I don't think he'd realize that. The fact that, that word is like, fucking kryptonite or something to America. Yeah, he's, he still uses it, but I think he does realize now it's a good word. And then the person who was introducing himself to, looked aghast and fucked off to the side of the room and never talked to us again.

Bruce: Well, that's sounds like Pat. So, it does happen a lot when I'm going hour round with Pats, actually. [00:13:00] People look aghast and fuck off and never talk to us again. 

Steve: Oh, he is he is a little pussycat. I manage him, believe it or not, I've managed him for years because I used to manage him at TPG and now I manage him now.

Steve: And we, it's, it's more of a collaborative relationship. 

Bruce: Yeah, yeah. That's what plantation owners used to say, Steve,

Steve: hey. Bloody hell. Alright. And so I'm supposed to be grilling you. Not, I'm not supposed to be grilling me, moving swiftly on. We'll leave Patrick there. He can talk for himself. This guy that I, I realize this, I dunno why I've done to this picture, but he looks fucking weird. 

Bruce: Well, he is fucking weird. That Stuart langridge.

Steve: Yeah, but he doesn't look weird like that. Normally he, he looks like, sort of like pepper pig's dad. that is really odd. I [00:14:00] don't mean that to be mean to Stuart. I think that I've done something to the photo. But anyway, I saw him at, state of the browser last year.

Steve: It was excellent. I really like his, he's got a fine mind and he's working with you on stuff, isn't he? Apple? I've got these notes and I put Apple fight apple. Apple and, yes, which is, it's, which, it's probably mischaracterization the whole thing, but I think it, it, it reminds me that you know what you're doing.

Steve: Can you explain a bit about. What you are doing with this, stuff. 

Bruce: Sure. Well, it's, it's, it's not really me anymore because when I joined Vivaldi, I had to, resign from the board of open web advocacy. 


Steve: Oh, I didn't realize. Well, yes, because the point of open web advocacy was lots of independent web developers who cared about the web, [00:15:00] but had no skin in the game.

Bruce: And when I joined a web browser, even though we're 57 people in a worker's cooperative, I didn't want Apple's lawyers to be able to point to open web advocacy and see and say, ah ha ha, they're not independent web developers. 'cause Bruce Lawson works for Big Little Tech. Yeah. So, so I resigned, although I'm obviously, I'm still Matey with them, but yeah, it, it, it was just after the lockdown or just after the 78th lockdown.

Bruce: And, this geezer. Steve is from your neck of the woods. Actually, Steve from Woolloomooloo in Australia, who's, who's from Woolloomooloo, well, he's from Australia. You are from Australia, yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

steve: Woolloomooloo is in Sydney. Yeah. 

bruce: It's a suburb Sydney, isn't it? I, I don't know. Well, he's from somewhere called Adelaide.

Steve: Uh oh, well that's totally different. 

Bruce: Yeah. Anyway, but this guy contacted me he'd been pointed to my direction by [00:16:00] John Op another Gandalf of the web. And he said, we, I see you've written stuff about Apple and how they, basically stifle innovation by only allowing WebKit on iPhones, and they won't allow nice things in WebKit.

Bruce: He said, uh, he said, although I sound Australian mate I am a British citizen. And, uh, schism. Yeah. Right. And, uh, he'd found out the UK government were consulting about competition in the mobile ecosystem and said, we fancy speaking to the government and telling them, what Apple are doing.

Bruce: And it was him and his brother James. And I drink with Stuart every fortnight. We go out to the pub 'cause we work, we both work from home. So it's a good chance to meet up And I know that Stuart's really good at explaining difficult stuff to people in a way [00:17:00] that doesn't make them feel they're being utterly condescended to Yeah.

Bruce: This guy Alex in, in Australia and his brother James. And me and Stewart formed Open Web advocacy and muscled in, spoke to the competition and markets authority, which is the UK monopoly regulator, and said, you guys are looking at Android versus iOS, but there's the web, and the web is designed not to be platform specific.

Bruce: Yeah. And the web, it's mature technology. It's 30 odd years old, it's possible to make it accessible, blah, blah, blah, blah. Internationalize of all you should be looking at the web. And I think they were so surprised to meet a group of ramshackle web developers rather than Turkey teeth perma-tan Lobbyists. So they, they listened to us and then they introduced us to the [00:18:00] eu. Said You guys wanna talk about, talk to these fellas? So we talked to the EU and the EU redrafted the digital markets bill as it was then to explicitly reference web browser engines. Of course, a lot of people don't even know that Chrome or Firefox or Vivaldi on iOS isn't the real product.

Bruce: That's everywhere else because you are to use webkit. apple said, oh, there's loads of browsers on iOS. Yeah. But they're all hamstrung by having to use the system supplied webkit, which Apple controls. Uh, and then the EU passed the Digital Markets Act, which references web browser engines.

Bruce: Then we spoke to, the Americans. The Japanese. In fact, I've just written to the Japanese regulator today, Koreans, Malaysians, all [00:19:00] just to free up iOS so that the web can, have a fighting chance of making a comeback on mobile devices instead of apps. And Stuart's been instrumental in that, but also he's just a jolly good chap.

Bruce: And, yeah, we've worked together on and off for 20 years, making silly little demos and, doing bits of consultancy here and there. 

Steve: I hear that you are planning to meet Pat the, the swallow and I for a drink on the end of the month. Only. Only May do that. possible. Has Stuart been invited?

Bruce: He hasn't because you invited me, so I didn't extend that. Oh, I didn't invite you. Pat did, but I, I believe Stuart's actually got o up with his mom because it will be a milestone birthday for him. Not the big seven. Oh. Like yourself. 

Steve: But, I'm 62. [00:20:00] 

Bruce: Thank you. Yeah, of course you are. But I, I'll extend the, extend the invitation to him.

Steve: Well tell him. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be nice to see him. 

Bruce: I mean, well, I'm not sure if I'm gonna turn up yet, because there's always a chance that s Hayek or Halle Berry will, want to meet up any possibility. 

Steve: Yeah. But if I do see you being in the, company of, Stewart would actually make it worthwhile.

Steve: Now who's the person on the top right with the hat on? 

Bruce: I recognize the face. Yeah. Well, he's a friend of Cerbera's, if that gives you a clue. Oh, bloody hell. What was his name? Cerberus. Ben something. Ben, yeah. Ben Millard. Yes. Ben Millard. Yes. Jesus. How that I, he's a friend of se Well, he is not really a friend of Seuss.

Bruce: The you all know her. It just, it's, [00:21:00] it's like a Gumby looking picture, isn't it? That's, um, John Gibbons. Bloody hell. Is it really? Yeah. I thought, I thought that was a shoe in for you. But, but yeah, it does look a bit odd. Don't, don't forget all these photos apart from the one of Stewart looking like pepper pig's dad are quite old pictures.

Steve: No, that's not, that's not that old. Mm-hmm. They shouldn't look old because it's, it's bad because I'm bad at taking pictures. Ah, okay. It's, and also because what I do is I copy the picture as a, and then sort of munging into place and so it, it's effective. 

Bruce: Right. With with, with no respect for aspect ratio.

Bruce: Exactly. So moving swiftly on, John Gibbs great guy. Yeah. What more, can you say, Ben Millard? And that's Heman Christian Heman. 

Steve: Yeah. I, what I wanted to do was include some of the, your peers, some people that, that sort of dance in the, to the same tunes that you do in your own way.

Bruce: I don't know that I've ever worn a sequined Mankini and really got down to Boney, M's. Rah Rah Rasputin, which is obviously Christian's favorite song. Is it? That, and that photo was from State of the browser last year, so it wasn't that old. Okay. Okay. The next one you should recognize even. Well, that's Dave.

Bruce: Oh no, it's not, it's not Dave. It's, uh, that's Dave. Dave, yeah. Dave Letory, the Yorkshireman great guy. The browser web standards [00:23:00] people jolly nice, chappy, et cetera. 

Steve: I think he, he, uh, tolerates me. So, um, I like him. 

Bruce: Well, he invited you to speak at state of the browser, which indicates more than tolerance.

Steve: Yeah, but I'll never, I'll never again, I'll never get asked back. Talking of speakers at state, the browser this was say, I, I can't remember if it was, no, this was year before 2024. Who's the, the person sitting ne next to Dave?

Steve I'll give you a clue. SS

Bruce: is it Reinhardt? Hadrick? Who? 

Steve: No, it's the, this is SS and that's not a comment on [00:24:00] her. Her, politics. 

Bruce: The thing is, mate, because you've got all these pictures of like fucking Kodak in Matic 3D, Stephanie Stimack. That's who, who it is? She was that Stephanie. Oh. That was, before her talk at, state of the browser.

Steve: yeah. When she was, she before me or after she talked before me. She did. 

Bruce: She was first, wasn't she? Because she had, because it was her wedding anniversary. Yeah. Next person along, well that obviously is slim Jim O'Donnell as he's now. Yeah. 

Steve: Now why he's got this moniker, this, this epithet or whatever it is prefix of evil.

Steve: What, uh, do you all know? Why is he, why is he evil? Yeah. 

Bruce: Well, he, he's not evil, but he is what is called the. South of England's Grand Wizard. He, he's the leader of the Church of Satan in the south of England. 

Steve: Oh, is he? 

Bruce: I didn't, no, no, I just made that up. I, we, he could, could, well, but there's something not quite right.

 Steve: There's, I don't trust the guy, but I like him. it's like, oh, I like him. 
 
 Bruce: But I know that he seldom takes that hat off and if he does, you see a couple of little horns coming up. 
 
 Steve: Yeah. But, talking about horns and the horn one, that is you in the corner down the bottom. 
 
 Bruce: That's me in the corner and that's me in the spotlight Losing, yeah. Oh, that's me in my, retro eighties anti-Nazi league T-shirt. 
 
 Steve: Yeah. I can't remember if that was last year or the year before, but it was definitely state, the browser that was outside the pub after the show. 
 
 Bruce: I think it was last year. 'cause I don't think I've had that t-shirt more than a year.

Steve: [00:26:00] Yeah, and you, it looked good on you. Who's next? Oh, blimy. don't you know anybody? 

Bruce: No, I don't. I'm not. 

Steve: This is Lola. 

Bruce: Lola. I thought it was Lola. Yeah, I was about to say bloody Lola. But I, I, I, because I, I introduced her at, um, ID 24 last year. No, but I don't know anybody like you are, you are, you are the one with the penthouse in flipping Richmond or wherever you live in the bottling metropolis.

Steve: I'm a silly old parochial, often remember I kids Bob, and you've done a lot more, sort of, you've done the circuit more than me. A lot. So I do. I imagine that you do know, people know you, Bruce. They, like they. Mention your name and, and their hearts melt. 

Bruce: You are talking about Sam Hayek and Halle Berry, aren't you?

Steve: Yeah. But anyway, Lola, she's on the tag now, the technical architecture group, W3C. She's doing this, uh, a ACD stuff, her acc conformance database of, I can't exactly remember what it stands for, but I'm involved 

Bruce: isn't she? Isn't she doing a course on regulation and the web or something like that?

Steve: Yeah, something like that as well. She's got her fingers in many pies. 

Bruce: How, how did she find 'em? While she's a young one, isn't she? That's how she finds the energy. 

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes, she's young and so, which, which helps. Yes. She, but she's working with, I was in a meeting with her. Estelle Whyl, which is a blast from the past, and, uh, Cynthia Shelley, Cynthia and Steve Kerr, I think. Well, no, ma no. Steve Kerr was another. They all blend in these meetings. Anyway, uh, she's doing some [00:28:00] interesting work and, uh, she's gonna come and speak, uh, on this very, uh, podcast at some point. No. Now next to her is? 

Bruce: I reckon thats. Uncle Adrian Rosselli. Yeah. Yeah. He's a walking billboard, but like, he's wearing the t-shirt of the picture that I made of him sitting there at the table speaking into his, Twitterer phone or whatever.

Bruce: And there he is doing it. Well, Adrian, you, he's recognizable because of his, his bouffant, his ear. But also he, he has a glorious track record of like obscuring his, obscuring his face in photos and things. Yes. But, yes. I've known Adrian I've known Adrian online for ever, because when we were setting up, Glasshouse, which was a web book, a web programming book publishers, I used to read the Evol List, religiously, and he was, yes, he was Aadrian on there.

Bruce: And we, we got him into, tech edit and then write something. And that's, that's where he got all his wealth from writing books for us. 

Steve: Oh really? Yeah. That's, that's why Is he independently wealthy? I thought he was, he did it by, Scamming, overlay companies to sue him and then making lots of money out of it.

Bruce: Well, that is one of his revenue streams. I, but I think that's more just a fun project 'cause of all the money he's got from, the books and, and of course all of his shares in the artificial intelligence companies that he's, 

Steve: no. So I don't believe that. Did you, he recently, well there's a book coming out that he's got a chapter and a, and other people, all the people that you hear about in accessibility.

Bruce: I think, what's her name, lainey Feingold and et cetera. I didn't know anything about the book. I wasn't even asked. I, that's why I don't think about the book. That's why I don't even mention it. You don't even, yeah. You can't even mention the title of this book that didn't, I can't, yeah, it's called something in regulation or something.

Steve: It's, it's a real firecracker. I, I must admit, I you had your own one of those, didn't you? You were, you and Pat just keeps going on about it. Real steam and like it's his, his party pickup line. He talks about some book that he was, did a chapter with. He did. In fact, I could probably brandish it at you, but I had a bit of a clear out of my, yeah.

Bruce: Oh, hang on, hang on. Here. Here is wait a moment. Web accessibility. Oh fuck. That's my, that's my dore on small change thing, web accessibility. And Jim Thatcher. RIP, Christian Heilmann. Sean Henry, Andrew Kirk Patrick. Patrick h Lauke, Bruce Lawson. 

Steve: What? What's in that book? I mean, I've never read any of these books

Bruce: so you can't read, can you mate?

Steve: No, I I could feel them. 

Bruce:That's why you bang on about screen readers. 'cause you just have 'em read out to you, don't you? But, well, it's very much of its time. It's, donkeys years ago now. But it was a, what is web accessibility? How you make accessible JavaScript look accessible Flash, PDF accessibility.

Bruce: An in an intro to WCAG two, which I don't know had actually come out yet. Wow. And. A handy glossary of terms in which there's alt text. I dunno if you can see, I wrote this 'cause I, it says, the most common alternative text is found as an attribute of the image element and describes the function of an image or is blank.

Bruce: In the case of purely decorative images, it is evil and wrong to refer to this as an alt tag. There is no alt element in HTML and many hope that WCAG 3.0 will mandate the death penalty for such incorrect nomenclature. Yeah, right. I they mean should WCAG3,WCAG3's, in the future for all of us.

 Steve: Okay. So next to Adrian. Do you know this person? You probably don't. 
 
 Bruce: Hang on. Hang, hang on. I haven't finished my anecdote. Oh, sorry. And this is one of the books that anthropic. Used to train their AI on. So, really,so yeah, so, I have a little claim in a copyright claim so I can get massive quantities of cash from the ai.

Steve: Will you get, what sort of quantities of cash are you looking at? 

Bruce: Ah, it's less than a million, Steve. Yeah, but even then, you're talking I think you're talking about hundreds rather than thousands. No, no, we're talk, we're, we're talking. It's capped at a maximum of 3000 US per book.

Bruce: And as you can see, I'm one of 10 authors. Lawyers fees will all be deducted from that. So it'll be about 38 pence, but well, it'll be, it'll be enough to buy a point and I shall pretend that I'm drinking the vital fluids of the AI tech bros. 

Steve: Excellent. Well, well hopefully your, you are successful. Do you know the person next to Adrian?

Bruce: I do, but I can't remember. Her name is Janina Ska or Sika? I, yeah. Don't get me into that. 

Steve: She's the she's been around the W3C working group. She's for longer than I have. She's a blind woman who plays piano really well. And she's just a character. She's. With the Linux Foundation for donkeys years, she's been a, a chair of various working groups.

Steve: She's currently the chair of the Accessful platform architecture working group with a guy called Matthew Atkinson. I don't know if you've ever encountered Matthew. 

Bruce: Matthew Atkinson. Is he a Londoner? 

Steve: Yes, he is from London. 

Bruce: Works for Samsung? 

Steve: Yes, he works for Samsung. Now. Heis in the place where, uh, who's that other guy?

Steve: Apple pie Dan. Apple pie. Yes. Yes. I think Apple Quist and I think Renquist. 

Bruce: It, it is Apple Quist. Yes. Yes. Dan Quist used to work there. In fact, I was, I had an email from Matthew Atkinson not very long ago. 'cause. My boss had been given a, a smartwatch, a Samsung smartwatch for his birthday or Christmas or something and tried to set it up using Vivaldi, which he's going to because he started the company and a Samsung, the, the Samsung smartwatch said, Uhuh, you've got to use Chrome or Microsoft.

Bruce: Yeah. And given that those are all chromium browsers, as is Valdi. Yeah, he was quite grumpy. So the only person I knew who worked at Samsung was Paul Matthews. So I emailed him and he kind of went,  oh dear. 'cause of course there's a 28 billion people in Korea who work for Samsung. And what it's like trying to work through ? time, massive corporations and departments.

Steve: You don't know to try and find out who's who. It's So, did, did Matthew help? Was he helpful? 

Bruce:He was helpful. He didn't, nothing's actually been achieved, but he was very nice about it and he emailed and said, I haven't emailed in a while, so just to let you know, I haven't given up. So at least he didn't say bugger off.

Bruce: But, when technological as big is, as big as Samsung, I expect that it'll be really difficult to email you, or, well, 

Steve: there's no plans for it to, to get much bigger. That's part of the, part of our, credo. 

Bruce: When it started only Leonie, I said, you know, anybody else coming our board? She went, God, no. They're all shit bags. And now, and now look, she's  hired you. Yeah, there was, I was, yes. She got desperate. she needed, she needed someone. 

Steve: I'm a founder, if you don't mind. 

Bruce: You are a flounder. Isn't that kind of fish? Yeah. No, that's flounder anyway. nit by Ling shit, pernickety. 

Steve: So anyway, that's Janina.

Steve: She, I got this picture of her from the last TPAC because she, what's the, the older, Gallagher brother? Is it Noel or the other one? I don't know. Well, you know the older one. I know the older one, but is Noel's the older one, 

Bruce: isn't he Noel's the one that's marginally talented? Yeah. Well, I dunno about that.

Steve: But anyway, I've got this picture of her sitting outside, in the hotel, sort of patio, whatever, where they're having lunch and she's reminded very much of, of Noel Gallagher.

Steve: With the hair. A young old Gallagher, but with white hair. I thought that's, that's pretty cool. yeah, she's ages old, but she just Yeah. Keeps battling on anyway. Talking of old, do you know the person next to, to JaNina? He's dead now, I can tell you that much. And he's got nothing to do with web standards, but he was born in Birmingham.

Bruce: See, I was going to say, given it was black and white and all moody, it's given me goth vibes and black and white. Like before the invention of color photography. I was gonna say, is it you in your goth days? But you've, you've said he's dead now and as far as I can tell you are not he's from Bur, he's a JR.

Bruce: RR Tolkien. 

Steve: It's my dad. 

Bruce: It's your dad? 

Steve: Yeah. My dad, William Faulkner. I really like that picture of him because he, I don't know, he is just sitting there and he is got a cup of tea and he's smoking a cigarette. That was from my, 'cause my dad was born in Birmingham. 

Bruce: I knew you were not completely irredeemable Steve.

Steve: Yeah. All my family come from Brirmingham except me and I was actually up there last month visiting. Uh, I've got cousins. They're all getting on now. 

Bruce: Oh yeah. You to my house. So then you couldn't be bothered, huh? I we arranged, we were gonna meet up and then you Yeah, 

Steve: I know. No, that was the last time.

Steve: That was the time before when I was with just Eloisa. I think this is, I, I took Clara. Well that's my daughter, older daughter and her girlfriend. Faith and Eloisa up to visit the family because it was my, uh, cousin's, one of my [00:40:00] cousin's 76th birthday. Wow. So I've got all these, yeah, I've got all these cousins because part of my family moved to Australia.

Steve: Part of their side of the family moved to Australia as well. But these are the people that were left that didn't move

Bruce: the Patriots. 

Steve: Oh yeah. Well, I dunno but you know, I'm glad my parents did go and, uh, I didn't mind coming back 'cause I actually went to school in, uh, great Bar, Perry Bar actually for a few years. When I started school. But then we went back to Australia because my parents thought this is shit. 

Bruce: Fair. I mean, north Birmingham is pretty shit. I'm just more astounded at the revelation that you went to school. Christ went to school. Full stop. What was that name? 

Steve: It was Perry Bar Infant School I went to, yeah.

Steve: Yeah. It's been raised and has been knocked down. Shit. That's what I, where my d my dad was born in Aston and brought up in Aston and it, there's just, it's just all beeen raised. Yeah. All the tenements or whatever that he used to live in, where his family grew up. It's all just, you know, those huge swathe of, uh, highrise buildings and, uh, and really sort of what, well, it doesn't look fallow, but it, you know, the ground just, yeah.

Bruce: Anyway, yeah. It's all, it's all business parks and uh, yeah. It's just, I, I find it a bit depressing, that's all. I, I, I agree. My, my stepdad who's dead now, but, he was born in, in the black country and, until they were, I think until he was a teenager, they lived in a house, had no electricity or running water.

Bruce: Yeah. so I, I don't think those people are terribly nostalgic for the old back-to-back slums, but, 

Steve: no, no, of course not. But, living in these, these cardboard high rises that yeah. Can't be much fun or either. But anyway, I just would, when I go up there, I just, I dunno, like, I really like seeing my family because they're really good people. But, I, yeah, I just find the place a bit depressing. But you might live a, in a nice area in Birmingham. 

Bruce: I live in an area that is de gentrifying. It was, it was dead posh in about 1850 because they built a, there's a canal here, and they built a railway line into the city center. And how far from from town are you?

Bruce: Four miles. Oh, okay. Seven minutes on the train. And, there's lots of, nice big Victorian houses in which, one of which I live with a, a room at the top, which would've been a nursery and a a servant's room. Yep. but yes, this, it is been de gentrifying slowly since 1850. And now it's all HMOs and kebab shops.

Steve: Now, I dunno, we're, staying right in the center of the city in the. Gas basin or something. Gas creek basin. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I'm looking forward to that. Anyway, so you've done this stuff with the open web advocacy and it sounds like you've made you collectively have made quite a lot of impact.

Bruce: I think we've made, we haven't made as much impact as we'd hoped, I think because we naively assumed that when regulators made rules, apple would obey them. Oh yeah. In retrospect, I realized that, um, I was being hopelessly naive. My, my relationship to. [00:44:00] Magical Silicon Valley capitalism is a bit like yours.

Bruce: I'm hoping not to make a loss. It's about as capitalist as I get, but these bastards, hyper capitalists with a billion dollar, billion dollar legal budget a year to fight and lobby and, try to weasel around the rules. But we'll get there. Let just hope it before I retire. Just keep, well, it's, that's the same as being in Wake three.

Steve: I, I know this is all important stuff, but considering the shit that's going down, you know, in our world at this point in time, there's always shit going down. It just, I feel quite unsettled by, the, yeah. It's not the post-war sort of, uh, peace that I, that I, um, have grown up in. And, uh, I dunno what the fuck's going on. the, when I speak with people from America, one of my goto questions is, what the fuck is going on in your country? But what the fuck is going on in our country? 

Bruce: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The American thing, depressing of course, but, I dunno about you, but with kidnapping Maduro and threatening Greenland and having, magos murder people in the street, I've completely forgotten about the Epstein files, haven't you?

Steve: No, but no. Yeah. But that's the aim. 

Bruce: Well, you, well, yeah. it's a, where my sympathies are, Steve, I've got my, oh, that's a, that's a great hat. My Denmark hat. it'd be interesting to see how the j Sorry, Germans, how the Europeans respond. Again, that's, weirdly, that impacts quite heavily in my day-to-day [00:46:00] business because I know I work for an independent European web browser, and there's quite, for a long time there's been brewing this sort of, we need to have better tech and data sovereignty.

Bruce: Yeah. In the eu and of course, with one of our, alleged allies threatening to annex a fellow na member. It. Rather show, throws it into sharp relief that basically the entire Europe is mortgaged to the hilt, Microsoft, Google, Amazon Fire, AWS rather than, yeah, Amazon Prime meta or X, all of these things.

Steve: And, the sooner we get off them the better. As far as I'm personally concerned, I'm not speaking. Yeah, my opinion. I did, yeah, I've been hearing some reports about that sort of thing for some reason. it, it's got me to the point now where I've felt it useful or important to listen to Ursula Von der Layen. Yeah. Davos speech, I've never listened to anything like that before. 

Bruce: Well, Ursula, she's a very nice lady and she listens to this podcast every week, so, you should definitely listen to urs. Yeah. I'm, I'm the same, isn't I, now I'm reading this, we're not even in the bloody EU anymore and I feel like I know more about EU politics and regulation than any rock and roll of God, like myself should be required to know.

Steve: But, these are the times we live in. Yeah, they are. So the, tell us a bit more about, 'cause to be honest, I don't know anything about Vivaldi, apart from the fact that it's a web browser and it's built on the blink rendering engine. What, what why use, rather than say. Brave. 

Bruce: Well, for a start, we don't tweet about with we don't engage in, crypto stuff or, putting our own ads in pages where other people have put ads.

Bruce: It's about personalization really. Every, every other browser sort of simplified, simplified, simplified, and everything's an option with us. You want a tab stacks, you want workspaces, you want sessions, you want an email client, you want RSS reader. Yeah, it's all built in. Yes, it use the blink rendering engine because the only choices are web kits.

Bruce: And then you, you are hampered by Apple Firefox, which is great, but Gecko was more difficult to, uh. Work. Do you, do you use a fork or you just, you constantly update the blink [00:49:00] engine strike? We, we take blink in and then we add our own stuff on top. Like our, our blocker, the mail client, the RSS reader add our, all, the UI is completely, web-based.

Bruce: Yeah. And takes stuff out, the more, the more egregious stuff that gets added to chromium to make chrome. Yeah. Because the difference doesn't get into the valdi. So things like privacy, sandbox and flock and, these sort of privacy invading things. We remove. So what is the, what's the business model then for Vivaldi?

Steve: how do they make the cash? Do they make cash? 

Bruce: It is deals with smaller search engines. So when, if you do a search on one of the partners cozier Ecoasia start page. If you do a search on there and buy something, we get a tiny fraction of a percent. 

Steve: And is the, is it viable? 

Bruce: Is it, it it is becoming viable, yes.

Bruce: we don't have any deals. We did do, we did work with Bing through a third party but not Google. we try to favor smaller, independent European. And, yeah, it's hard because it's very hard to get away from big tech. 'Cause they're, they're awash with cash, as Yeah. It's even harder to get rid of them technically.

Bruce: 'cause of course we're on iOS, which is owned by Apple. We're on Android, which is owned by Google. And we're on Windows, which is owned by Microsoft. And all of these people have a web browser that we compete against. And, not all of those people behave. some of them display the fact they've got a vested interest in promoting their own web browser, shall we say.

Bruce: Which is not a surprise, which is not a surprise, but it is now illegal in the eu, at least in Japan and Australia. And I dunno if it's illegal in the UK yet, but it contravenes the, The competition regulator stuff, but of course as enforcement has to happen and it's difficult. Yeah. Well that's the, the big step, isn't it?

Bruce: Yes. It's, it's been difficult politically for the eu, for example, to enforce things against, big American companies who've given Mr. Trump millions for his in inauguration or his, or, given him things. But, I rather think he's ever playing his hand and it's looking like the EU's going to be more assertive about.

Steve: Well, they need to be. They, they, this personally I think they, they seem to stand up to this shit, otherwise they're gonna. They're going to be steamrolled. 

Bruce: Well, I mean, if another famous Birmingham guy, Mr. Chamberlain came back with, I have in my hand a bit of piece of paper peace in our time.

Bruce: You, you can't appease in imperialists colonialists fascists. I don't think anybody who's a fan of his will be watching us anyway, Steve. But, you, you can't appease people like that. You have to stand up to bullies. 

Steve: Yeah. That, that's absolutely hundred percent true. So you were saying that the Vivaldi is a collective, so how does the, the structure work?

 Isn't Igalia, a collective, is it sort of like that? 
 
 Bruce: well, I've not worked for Igalia, but effectively, yes, we're all shareholders in the  company, including the HR people and the lady who, cleans up the office and brings in the sandwiches, the head office Oslo is in, oh, okay. There's a satellite office in, in, Vic, in Iceland, and that's where all the infrastructure is.

Steve: So, so any of the people that were involved in, um, opera? 

Bruce: Yeah. Yeah. Quite a lot. when I, when I rejoined, because I've, I've been a Vivaldi user for a few years before they'd asked me to join. And it really was like, the coolest people from the early days of opera, like when Pat and I were working there, and Henny of course worked there.

Bruce: A few more cool people. There's only 57 of us. we're all co-owners, no independent investors to make us, pivot and do crap things. So you like it and it's somewhere where you think you'll for a while? I hope I'm there till I retire. But of course, big tech wants to crush all opposition.

Bruce: I'm never gonna, it's never gonna make me rich, but they let me do my own thing. They trust me. Yeah. There's not a micromanagement all the bullshit that I just can't be dealing with it this time of my life. Sounds good. I like it. I'm not, everybody can be, a tycoon like yourself, Steve, a founder of a large company.

Bruce: Presumably I've done a tycoon. I don't. Presumably you, Leoni and Henny a building your rocket to Mars as we speak. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. And Ian, 

Steve: the four of us, of course. Yeah, of course. Yes, yes. The panel. Yeah. We have, well we call it the mothership and we getting ready. Yeah. No, it's the, it is not the case.

Steve: Yes. We're a successful company, but we pay everybody really well. Yeah. And they have lots of really good benefits for everybody. 

Bruce: Oh no. You pay better than Valdi.

Steve:  Yeah. But we just, that, that's just the way we are and we try to ensure that people can do stuff, And Yeah. So anyway, I'm sure that, pat could probably complain to you about it, but, that's because I'm his manager and I imagine that would be a great burden for him.

Bruce: No, he has nothing. Nothing but wonder. He writes sonnets about you that he sends. Yeah. Owe to a Steven Faulkner Earth have nothing to show more fair, no. His antiquity and face and his lovely white hair. 

Steve: We have, he, we, yeah, we, as that Pat and I have a great love, platonic love for each other.

Bruce: No, no. Funny business involved. Not at your age. 

Steve: talking of funny business. Yes. I am thinking that we should perhaps unless you have any hot goss that you wanna share, I think we should perhaps close it down at this point because we've been going for just over an hour and I'm trying to keep them around an hour that, 

Bruce: that works for me because. My, my smaller than before. Stomach is beginning to rumble and I do worry that I'm gonna have to empty the dog because my, my family have buggered off on holiday, leaving me to look after my daughter's useless dog. And, it's ate about an hour and a half ago, so it's probably ready to, to, it's probably ready to drop an apple.

Steve: How? Well lucky you, we our dog Lola is on, steroids because if she's got some sort of immune disease problem, oh god. So she's just pissing like a demon. She's just pisses all over the place. I have to put nappies on her to go downstairs. We live like second floor of a big building and, and, it's 47 steps down and she can't make it down the stairs without peeing. So I have to put a nappy on.

Bruce:  I, I've been to Faulkner Mansions, remember, many years ago. Really? Yes. I've been, I've been to Faulkner Mansions. I think Pat and I carried you back after a drug fuel drinking bash. 

Steve: Oh, that was, that must have been many years ago, though. It was many years ago before we got the, the second wing.

Bruce: Well, yeah, I, I, I don't think you built the turrets at that. And it was before your old Butler retired because you had that agency chamber made lady, and the French chamber made outfit going, oh, oh, hey, Mr. Faulkner. You like strife? Untrue. Untrue. Oh, I remember it Well. You like Sru Mary Ellen, or pistol as a fat, bring me a massive tin of Vegemite, like right away.

Bruce: Mr. Faulkner, I'll just tickle you with my feather duster. Thanks. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks for Yes. Yes. Is it coming back now? Coming back to you now? Is it? 

Steve: I revel. I revel in my Australian both, sir. Um, Les Patterson is the one of the people that I aspire to be. 

Bruce: You, you, you are rapidly metamorphosing my friend.

Bruce: Good, good. I, before we close, I, I know there's been a tumult of people asking on social media which my favorite Mankini is. Yes. My favorite Mankini, I don't know where it's gone actually, but it is. A red mankini with white furry trimmings, alla Father Christmas, that was sent to be by a  miss Henny swan, who I believe 

Steve: yeah, I never sent me and Mankini. Does she not? No, you might, I think I've seen the picture of you in that as well. 

Bruce: You might wanna bring that up. 'cause I now she's head of marketing for technological. I can see a, a lots of all of you lined up in part of the Christmas mankinis and like, don't be a ho, ho, ho.Be accessible. Could be your Yeah. Start. 

Steve: Oh, sounds, sounds, Brill. The dog's barking now. Fuck off. Yeah. 

Bruce: Yeah. You fuck off first Faulkner. 

Steve: Hopefully I'll see you. my friend. Thank you for, talking to us today, and hopefully at some point in the future I'll get you back onto, talk some more about the stuff that you do because it, I, you always just get a little bit of what I want from people, 

Steve: Yeah. Because usually it's just me raving on which does not help. I'm really trying hard to reduce the amount of noise that I produce, but wow. 

Bruce: I've hope I've, hopefully I've made some noise for you. Well, thank you Steve for all you do for accessibility and thank you for all you've done for the Renaissance of did do classical music.

Bruce: It's been, been absolutely excellent. I, I saw a bloke playing dancing queen on the did do only earlier, and I thought, oh, wow. I thought that's aboriginal.

Steve: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, about a bad pun, but there you go. Thank you. Somebody else was on the interwebs, was asking. Cheers, Bruce, look after yourself. Take it easy, pal. Have fun. Hopefully I'll see you in a couple of weeks. 

Bruce: Will do mate. Take care. Bye. Bye.

I met you in No Man's Land
Across the wire we were holding hands
Hearts a-bubble in the rubble
It was love at bomb site

All you give me is barbed wire love
All caught up in barbed wire love
Tangled up in barbed wire love
Throw my leg over barbed wire love
Barbed wire love snags my jeans

When I fell it was awful nice
Caught when not suspecting vice
The night was rife with wasteland life
You set my arm alight

All you give me is barbed wire love
All caught up in barbed wire love
Tangled up in barbed wire love
Throw my leg over barbed wire love
Barbed wire love snags my jeans

Blasted by your booby traps
I felt the blow in both knee-caps
Your eyes did shine
Your lips were fine
And the device in your pants was out of site

All you give me is barbed wire love
All caught up in barbed wire love
Tangled up in barbed wire love
Throw my leg over barbed wire love
Barbed wire love snags my jeans
Barbed wire love
Barbed wire love
Barbed wire love
Barbed wire love