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.