A few notices, a few contacts, and the problem of AI agents

My apologies to those who have found that the Contact Form had ceased to work. I have installed a new one. Many thanks to the kind gentleman who told me that it was out of action – I had not known. In the last few days, I’ve had a number of comments appear on old posts. Some of these do not appear to be genuine, but are evidently by bots. Or, as we now call them, AI agents. I’m not the only one, of course. I came across an interesting article at A London Inheritance, which, after a discussion of an old photograph, made some very relevant comments about these things, under the title of “The Blog is being Stalked by AI”. But over the last couple of months I have noticed a new form of AI, one which sends me emails and adds comments to the blog. This has happened to me also. Probably it has happened to everyone posting online. But it is an infernal nuisance. It’s not what I am here for. There have always been unscrupulous people online, who see an enthusiast donating his time and look for…