BBC website down
July 12th, 2012 | by Sean |
BBC’s error 500 image
My parents always told me never to attempt to profit from the misfortune of others. Mum, Dad, sorry. I’m a BBC news addict in much the way a former colleague once told me “I love red wine, but it doesn’t love me back”. I visit their site many, many times per day. Spelling, grammar, semantics, objectivity and morality aside, it always JustWorks™. Except for this evening. I attach a couple of screenshots for posterity. I have to say – even though I did at first snigger at the BBC’s Fail Whale – that I expect something a little more … I don’t know … artistic than MyFirstPhotoShop.gif. Maybe it’s the flames.
If you’re looking at the image and thinking “scary clown“, don’t. I have very fond childhood memories of Bubbles the Clown. After unexpectedly long excursions into those parts of YouTube where the best-rated comments are “how did I get here?” and I can hear birds singing in the dawn outside, I find myself wishing that Zen (my ISP) would present me with a test card at the right time.
Oh look, BBC’s back online again and I haven’t finished typing. Those screenshots, before I get some clicking-mindlessly-on-links therapy:
BBC’s HTTP 500 page
Not sure what I clicked on to get this 410 response
Update: Sometime later I spotted this BBC article about the outage.
Update Friday 13th July: BBC is down again, just before 9am. The 410 Gone page is from the “Text only” link at the top of the page.