Sorry. There it is said, and again - Sorry. This site did once generate far too many 404s. On too many occasions when someone has called for a particular page, it has not been found.

In February 2000, I wrote a database program which allows us to do much more to analyse the log files produced by our ISP. Amongst that is a way of checking each of the 404s. By October 2000, we have got the figure down below one per cent. In March 2001, a further upgrade leaves even less opent to chance, and I ope to drop the figures yet further.

Some are my fault, some are yours, and some are just part of life's rich, and by now rather 'holey', tapestry.

Mine:

1. Simple mistakes. Creating a new page, and misidentifying it. It happens. I am not a typist. When I see a mistake, it gets corrected. I should now see these mistakes sooner.
2. Over-complication. I confess (not just 'I'm Sorry'). I have this tendency to make things over complicated. You'll just have to live with it.
3. Changing things. Change one tiny aspect, and, suddenly, 40 other pages need changing. Yes I do it too often. On the other hand, we must always move forward.
4. Renaming a page, and deleting the old version. I have done this - but never again!
5. One fault has been one buried deep in the checkers game. As well as creating 404's it was causing me grief in the log files. Checkers game dropped. You shouldn't have been playing it anyway.

Your mistakes:

1. Simple mistakes. Sometime visitors try to second guess the name of a file. Every page on the site has its full URL printed on it somewhere. Use cut and paste, please do not guess..
2. Over Complication. Use the menus. Every page can be found from the menus. We have a large number of pages, and the site is structured into different directories. We try to keep the structure simple, and are working to simplify it again, please use it.
3. Keep up to date. We still get sites linking or referring to us using directory structures which are now over two years out of date. If you visit from such a site, and can be bothered, PLEASE, tell us where the broken link is.

We will get this right, we will.

NB March 2000 - we are getting the number of 404's down very substantially. On some days it has been as low as 2 per cent - which includes your mistakes, as well as mine.

As at Dec 2000, we have now got the average down below one per cent for both November and October. Cheers.