Notes from the Code Face

And so we join Keats and Chapman, gentle reader, on the Eastern front, circa 1943. The smoking ruins of Stalingrad are visible on the skyline and Keats and Chapman peer fretfully over the icy rim of their trench. By what cunning passages and deceitful issues of history have these two jackeens come to this point in space and time, clad Vonnegutesquely in borrowed German uniforms ? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte, so we shall never know. Ridicless. Perhaps, but so it goes.

"If it wasn't for that shelling we'd hear the distant tinkling of the brass monkeys", said Chapman. "You're not wrong mate" shivered Keats. The tepid bloody shallows of Gallipoli were on his mind, which soon reverted to it's recurrent fixational fantasy in two parts: a nice cup of tea and and a packet of Garibaldi biscuits.

"Being a native of these parts is a risky venture" observed Chapman, watching a column of Russian prisoners hobble by. "Even if they go home they'll be shot as traitors.".

Chapman turned his mind inwards and with the tip of his prehensile tongue tapped out "Lo-li-ta", one of his lower teeth yielding slightly to the fleshy pressure. "Knackers, that'll be the scurvy", he mused. The field manual recommended preemptive chewing on wild thyme. "Now, cert'nly, in a nice coddle or with a brace of coney's that's one thing...but all raw and staggy like that, not on your nelly", he mumbled.

"Strange then that me Ma's advice, born of the rigours of life in the Coombe should be so apt here at war" said Keats. Chapman said nothing, but, gazing into the distance felt something menacing and inevitable approaching, like war. "Wasn't she forever telling me to take me time and not be rushin'", said Keats.

Chapman winced as he eased his tooth back into position and roughly fingered the trigger of his machine-gun.

Keats roundly abused Chapman one evening for appearing in a state of
deshabillment. "It ill behoves gentlemen of our stature in the community
to be seen in such disarray." In particular Keats pointed out the poor
state of Chapman, being hirsute, and wanting badly for tonsorial
attention. The next day, being a Sunday, Chapman invited Keats along to
his Barber's, to oversee a tidy up of his mop. "You know it's odd",
opined Keats, as Chapman was being lathered up for a shave in the chair
after mass. "I didn't realise that Barber's were open on Sundays". "Oh,
it's a well kept secret, but some of them open to particular customers",
was Chapman's knowledgeable reply. "In fact, the sole reason for it, is
so's the barbers themselves can get their barnets shorn, as they work
terrible hard during the rest of the week, and of course the Sathurdez
are desperate manic. I only manage to get in owing to a particular
arrangement that I have with my man here in O'Driscolls", he said,
thumbing in the direction of the eponymous Bernard from beneath the
cassock of his candy striped smock.

Keats was silent for some time in awe and amazement. "You know, since
the quondam of my nonage, I've wondered who clips barbers bonnets, and
so now I know 'Qui cutodiet cutodien'".

Chapman gazed sourly at the cut-throat.

Gates and McNealy were engaged by media activists FAIR to study media bias in past presidential debates. "Cool", said Gates. "Coool", said McNealy, never one to let Gates have the upper hand, especially where it matters.

And so it came to pass that the friends decided to focus their attention on the now infamous 2000 presidential race between Messrs Gore and Bush. Gates, with the benefit of hindsight was much impressed by Gore's arguments. "Cooool" said Gates, but like, meaningfully. McNealy, knowing his pal of old and being well endowed, from an emotional quotient perspective, took this to to be an expression of appreciation for Gore's sound stuctural arguments and his lucid enumeration of the key points sweeping one majestically to a logical and ineluctable climax.

McNealy was less impressed with the show. Until, towards the end of the debate, Gore, in a cornball stunt of Clinton-esque proportions, designed to appeal to the hoi polloi and give him the appearance of the common touch, took to the stage with a popular rock band of the time. The band, currently residing in our 'where are they now files' had lost a series of drummers in curcumstances at once strange and sad, so it was no skin off their eroded noses if Gore put on the drummer's mantle and took up his sticks.

This time it was McNealy's turn to be wowed. "Coooool", he intimated. Gates, reading between the o's, for, communicatively speaking his interpolatory skills were second to none, understood that this was a reference to Gore's uncanny ability, for a member of the square community, to keep time and tempo. Tapping, banging, tinkling, percussioning his way into the hearts and shell-likes of the American voter.

At which point, Gates who had a vision thing going, realized that it explained many of the newspaper headlines he had read which reported on that particular presidential debate. "Cool ?" inquired McNealy. "Way Cool", said Gates. But feeling that his friend may for once have missed the point, added "There was something of a frenzy of headlines the next day, one in particular declaring "Al Gore Rhythmically Correct". McNealy quit the next day to take an internship in an internet start up.

Keats and Chapman, of an evening, when not engaged in the imbibing of
porter, were wont, in the nature of unmarried Dublin gentleman of a
certain age, indeed of a lately lamented era of manners, to take high
tea with Chapman's elderly aunts.

On one such engagement with Great Aunt Aggie the conversation fell to
the dreadful state of affairs of the world and how it was all in a state
of chassis compared with a previous age. Thus they engaged in a state of
being, without knowing it, termed Weldschmertz. That is, the state of
angst or depression brought on through a comparison of the state of the
world as it is to how one deems it should be.

"In the oldren times" opined Keats, with his large, thick, black rimed
nicotine stained index fingernail protruding through the delicate arch
of Aunt Aggie's bone china, slurping noisily with his prehensile lips to
balance the tea cup for want of traction, "people had more respect for
each other". Aunt Aggie concurred, demurely.

"You could leave your door unlocked of a night,", he continued, "the
childer would call you 'sir', or 'ma'am', you could walk from Ringsend
to Stoneybather at any time of the day or night with no fear of adverse
molestation. The state of law and order was of a high degree that is not
currently seen. The porter was better, much less gassy, and the quality
of the bread and Battenburg to be had from Messrs Johnson Mooney and
O'Brien was far superior to that obtainable today. Progress, I ask
you!". Aunt Aggie crimsoned deeply as she observed the assorted pile of
cakes on display, including the recently maligned Battenburg.

Chapman, having placed his tea to one side, delicately nudged a small
piece of gur cake out of his path with the dexterity of a
prestidigitator, the better to gain hold of a rather larger slice of
Battenburg nestling oilily at the bottom of the tray. He countered
Keats, and came to Aggie's defence as a hostess, whilst munching
greedily, with the following jibe: "But what of the advantages of the
modthren age? Are not the technological and scientific, not to mention
literary and social advances worth the price? Are not the erosion of
boundaries and barriers to the advancement of the human spirit the
paramount concern? Much as I love my Battenburg, I am prepared to forego
the many admitted excellences of yore, for the many advantageous
progressions of the present" (with a nod to a placated Aggie).

Keats was forced to concede the point, sighing sadly to himself, and
addressing no one in particular as he exhaled "When one waxes nostalgic,
it is easy to forget that one can't always maintain the great ideas and
confections of the past, while also reaping the benefits of progress. I
suppose it's true then that we can't have archaic and eat it".

From the look on Chapman's face, he appeared to have found a weevil in
his Battenburg, and excused himself from the room.

Donners made his way up a wet and wintry Bachelor's Walk. "Down along be the kay", he thought to himself, "in the language of the common folk, that is". Finally, arriving at his good friend Adonis's abode he knocked loudly on the door. "He frapped loudly on the door", he thought to himself, "in franglais, that is". On entering the large vestibule, Adonis remarked on his pal's warm, wintrry cape, wrapped tightly about his bony shoulders. "A fine cape, ermine if I'm not mistaken" he said. "Er, mine actually" chuckled Donners. Eyes were rolled that day.

"What exactly is the occasion ?", mutttered Donners through clenched teeth, clenched aginst each other, and the cold, that is. "Well Aunt Edith has invited us for tea, replied Adonis. "Let us make haste or we shall be forced to be camp". "Which", he addded eyeing the fox skin trimming on that fine ermine cape, " would not be too hard for the likes of you".

Settling themselves into the cosy canape in Aunt Edith's salon the freinds allowed their look to linger on the doileys and lick longlinly the Battenburg, which seemed to leave a slight greasy taint on their vision. Mmmmm.

The maid surveyed the pals and decided to leave them wrapped in their outdoor apperel for the moment, to let them get the heat into themselves. "Aunt Edith will be down directly" said the maid. "Oh, she's so efficient that maid", smoldered Donners.

Finally, Aunt Edith appeared all wrinkles, perfume and kisses. Until that is she spies Donner's fine ermine cape. "Eeeeek", she shrieked, rushing towards the window and committing the first act of auto-defenestration seen that year on Merrion Square. "Good God", said Donners, "do I smell that bad ?", absent mindedly tuggling another slice of battenburg from the bottom of the pile, there lying typically, the most moist segments of that noble delicacy. "Well you do my freind, but I fear Aunt Edith's shock is most likely related yo your moist erimine cape, she, I had neglected to mention, being an animal lover and vegitarian of the highest order". "Oh dear", lamented Donners, luxuriously uncomfortable with the sensation of the trace of gerease left on his forefinger and thumb by that tasty cake, "we would have done better if we had in this case heeded the common folk". "In what way ?", said Adonis settling into the cushions, for a wintry breeze was coming in off the green through the broken window. "Why quite simply, when they tell us" said Donners, luxuriating in the faint trace of cleverness left on his mind "that one cannot have one's cape and Edith too". Neither the shards of glass in the broken pane nor the cruel flagstones below discouraged Adonis from hurrying to join his aunt.

Rob Byrne has been hacking diamonds from the code face for his boorish corporate task-masters for thirteen years and alls he's got to show for it is this silly blog entry.