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How to Launch a Successful e-book in 10 Easy Steps (parody)

I’ve recently been engaged in launching an e-book and despite reading many useful tips and techniques, I’ve still managed to write the manual on how not to do it properly. In order to assist those who wish to follow in my footsteps, I present how to launch a successful e-book in 10 easy steps.

The starting point for our e-book is an accumulation of text we’ve written. The objective is to make $$$, so under no circumstances will we employ a proof-reader or an editor. Our time is the most precious commodity we have, so we’re not going to edit the text ourselves, we’ll simply go with what we’ve got. If in doubt about the readability of our manuscript, we’ll sprinkle it with random, additional commas. It’s impossible to have too many. There’s no need to bother with character arcs, a killer first chapter or a killer ending, as around 20% of downloaded e-books are never even opened. Of those that are opened, around 70% are abandoned before the end. Our e-book must be priced enticingly, so we’ll set the price at $0.49. We’re in the quantity box-shifting game, but at the same time we have no interest in people actually reading the book. In my experience this price break nets us some $$$ whilst asking for minimal commitment from the easily distracted reader. If writer’s block is an issue, we’ll have to think about plagiarizing someone else’s work. We’ll borrow from the bowels of the Interweb as we don’t want to make the same mistake that The Verve made with their hit single Bitter Suite Symphony. They leased the melody from a little-known instrumental track by The Rolling Stones and they thought no-one would notice. Bands like the Stones have armies of lawyers and they’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth for fifty cents.
We need a title that’s short, snappy and attention grabbing. We can’t use Short and Snappy, that’s been done. For this exercise we’ll use Jizz! Books by well-known authors feature their names in huge letters on the cover, with the book title in slightly smaller script. In our case, as an unknown author, the title will be huge and our name relatively small. One of the reasons why the title needs to be short and sweet is that it must fit on a single line. In the world of reduced attention spans, calling our e-book My Viral e-book that will Take-over the World is a no-no. Most people will get bored before they even reach the third word. One additional piece of advice: we don’t want our book title to contain a word which is spelt differently in the US and the UK. This will simply wind up the Grammar Nazis, and they’re harder to shake off than Rolling Stones’ lawyers.
Next, we require a pseudonym. This is our fake name, or if you want to get all author-y, it’s our pen-name. This is important, because should the crap hit the rotating device big time, we’ll need to vanish sharpish. We’re not going to use our real name, even if it’s Steve Smith. Instead, we’ll choose a name that sounds female, implausible and slightly offensive. Lady Bigflaps and Titty McMammogram are both taken, but Victoria BJ is free. As the ultimate objective of the campaign is to turn our e-book into a viral sensation, we’re not going to use the name of our worst enemy (even if they’re called Foxy Cox). Sure, they’ll get their 15 seconds of infamy, but they’ll also boast about it for the rest of their life and that’s intolerable.
Our e-book needs a cover. We could spend hours fretting about look and feel, but honestly who cares? What’s your favorite color? Sorted. There’s over 6 billion people on the planet and a good proportion of them will like our choice. Next, fire up Google, type in ‘free book cover’ and we’re off. We won’t waste too much time choosing the background as the title will take up most of the cover space. The title font is our most important sales tool. It has to lodge in the brain of the casual browser and give them a screaming headache. Once it’s jammed in the grey matter, they’ll be compelled to buy our book just to stop the pain.
A blog is a must. We can set one up for free at WordPress.com. It doesn’t really matter whether we blog using our author name or our book title. All of the functionality we’ll need is built-in for free and it’s easy to configure a good looking website. Don’t buy a funky custom template or a custom domain name. Both cost money. It might look professional, but the only people who pay attention to such trivia are other authors and techies. We want to make sure it’s possible for other bloggers to follow us. Also, we need the subscribe button enabled, to allow non-Wordpress users to receive email updates. Our customer list is our most important sales tool – it’s our funnel to our followers and we need to collect as many as possible. This way we can annoy them remotely with incessant posts and emails until they eventually give in and buy the damn book. Remember: it’s only $0.49 and it’s a life-changer.
We need an Amazon account. Once we’ve created one, we can upload our manuscript and Amazon will convert it for free. We’re not going to bother checking the formatting, because if we find a mistake we might fret about getting it right, and that costs time. See how I’m saving us money. Every expense is spared. Once we’ve uploaded the cover art, we’re nearly ready to go – all that’s missing is a description of the book. They say that sex sells, so let’s make sure that the description is liberally peppered with the word sex. Let’s settle on: Sex on a bus. Sex on a plane. Sex… sex… sex… Want some? Read Jizz! now! Get all the sex… sex… sex you deserve! Blimey. I want to read it already.
We now need a pair of Twitter accounts – one configured as the title of the book and one that matches our author name. In the book account profile, we’ll use the c
[Rude sofa]
over picture with a description: Sex… sex… sex… For the author account we require an out-of-focus picture that’s vaguely rude. This will make our punters curious. We must embed the Amazon URL in both profiles. Next, we’ll spend 24 hours a day following everyone under the sun from both accounts. We’ll need a big jar of coffee and a packet of strong caffeine tablets. From the book account, we’ll like random posts and retweet random tweets often, until we have 10,000 followers. At this point, we’ll switch into promote-the-book mode. We must be ruthless and dedicated to the cause. We’ll use a service such as buffer.com to schedule our tweets for free. Ten an hour is about right. Every tweet should claim our book is a 5 star read and contain the hashtags #ebook and #sex. We’re looking to wear the b’stards down through repetition. We don’t tweet a thing from the author account. This gives the appearance that we’re one of those ladies of ill repute who want to get down and funky before formal introductions. This is our secret stealth sales tactic. Guys will follow back under the assumption that we have a webcam loaded with extreme filth, ready to be streamed straight into their porn parlor. When guys follow, we’re going to send a Direct Message (DM) plus URL to promote Jizz! They’ll immediately think we’re a cunning little vixen and download the book, anticipating tons of sexy pictures. Job done. In the worst case scenario, they’ll complain loudly and often via Twitter. That’s what the BLOCK function is for – we don’t need that kind of negativity in our lives. We must avoid any protracted conversations once we’ve got a sale, as we don’t want to end up on the TV show Catfish.
Facebook is invaluable, which is why we’re going to create a pair of Facebook pages that are managed from our regular Facebook account. It’s important to use a page as this gives us more functionality and management capabilities than a standard account (such as promoting posts and paid advertising, which BTW we’re never going to use). We’ll call our first page Jizz! the book. For the sake of legitimacy, we’ll call the second page: Victoria BJ Author. This stops anyone else pretending to be us, which is important for the scheme to work. We don’t want to accidentally appear on any TV shows before we’re ready, especially if the manuscript is plagiarized. We’ll link each of the Facebook pages to the respective Twitter account, so that anything we write of Facebook is auto-tweeted. Now we’re ready to start boasting about how successful our book sales are. We’re going to make stuff up. We’ll tell the world how many copies we’ve sold in the last hour. It’s important that everyone thinks we’re doing great. More importantly, we need to convince ourselves we’re doing great, as this is the key to being a successful author. How we feel about ourselves is far more important than actual sales.
While we’re getting up to speed on Twitter and Facebook, we’ll take some time to get reviewed on Amazon. If we’re going to spend any $$$ on the campaign, then paid for reviews are the way to go. Google is our best friend here. With a bit of effort, we should be able to get 100 x 5 star reviews for $25. Amazon is trying to clamp down on this kind of activity, so we may need to make our book free for a day and then get our friends to download it. Once they’ve registered as a customer they can add a 5 star review. It’s worth making sure there’s at least one 4 star review, so as not to raise suspicions. The 4 star review can say: cracking read, but a bit too much sex for me. See how we’ve turned a negative into a positive. If we manage to get Amazon on our case for posting fake reviews, we’ll resist loudly and tweet our indignation and disgust, as well as letting Amazon have both barrels on Facebook. We’re after total attention, because attention equals sales and sales = $$$.
The final piece of the puzzle is to accumulate Facebook likes. This is where our friends come in again. We’re going to like both of our pages as ourselves and then encourage our trustworthy friends to like those pages too. The objective is to legitimize our activity. We have to impose on our trustworthy friends and ask them to share our Facebook page with messages of support – we must make that sucker move. Without paid advertising, it can be slow to gain traction on Facebook, so what we’re going to do is to borrow some tasty cat videos from around the web. We’ll post them on our Facebook e-book page with the comment: Want some pu$$y? Read Jizz! and provide a handy link to Amazon. Let’s not be shy and stop at one cat video. People love cats, so we’ll spread that cat love far and wide. To ice our cake we’ll follow some ‘C’ class celebs and bombard them until they give us repeat tweets. Remember: persistence always pays off eventually.

If we implement each of these steps with panache and a sense of humor, the $$$ will roll in. Experienced authors might complain that we need to get registered on sites like goodreads.com, but that’s the last thing we want to do, as someone might actually read the damn book. The ultimate objective of the game is to push the boundaries as far as possible until something snaps and we get found out. This is where fame and fortune lie. In the process of following the 10 steps, whether we like it or not, we’ve become expert bloggers and social media whizzes. Once we’re outed, we can either fess up (play the hero) or be full of spite and indignation (play the villain). Whichever role we choose, we’re going to make a lot of noise and that means exploiting our new found social media skills to the full, and with the help of local news channels and podcasts we’ll become the great author we already know we are. With enough badgering, someone somewhere will give us a nice little paycheck to tell our story, and that’s when we get to publish our real best seller: Jizz! The Fairytale, which is all about how we tricked the world into buying a $0.49 book that no-one actually read. Naturally, we’re going to employ a ghost writer as we’re going to be far too busy with the partying and fast cars to do it ourselves.

Disclaimer: this article is obviously tongue-in-cheek and there is no way that I as a professional author condone plagiarizing the work of others. May you burn in the bad place stipulated by your religion of choice if you do so…

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Tags: 10 steps, author, blog, creative writing, e-books, ENTERTAINMENT, fiction, How to, humor, online publishing, publishing, writing, Writing Tips

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Categories Lists of 10, Writing Tips

The Petrollica Affair (vii)

9 May

Cowboys

Six thirty on a Saturday morning, the pair stumbled through the ancient oak bound front doors to Bwain’s offices, quite dishevelled and much the worse for wear, desperately trying to remember the combination to the burglar alarm, which they’d argued about all the way from Mayfair, driving the cabbie crazy.

“1-4-6-9-5,” said Bleep.

“1-6-4-9-5,” argued Babyface.

“Where have you two been?” demanded Reg the second Babyface set foot on the premises, causing the duo to jump out of their skins, screaming. “And the answer better not be the strip club I think it is.”

“Petrollica!” stuttered Bleep defensively. “It’s six bloody thirty in the morning Reg, what the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be tucked–up in bed, not trying to scare the living bejesus out of us.”

“That’s none of your business,” retorted Reg, turning crimson. “Babyface…”

“At least let me get my coat off.”

“What’s in those carrier bags?”

“That would be 12 telex boxes,” stated Bleep matter-of-factly.

“You promised me you’d fit them,” said Reg. “This better not be a disaster in the making, because if it is I promise you they’ll be publications.”

“Faulty hardware, Reg. Bad batch,” replied Bleep.

“More naughty than bad,” added Babyface. “So naughty it took us all night to figure it out. I’m going to my desk now, to have a large mug of coffee and a serious sit on my best thinking cushion.”

“Then I’m following you, because if I don’t you’ll be asleep within the minute.”

“Impossible,” slurred Bleep. “Even with a bucketful of Dumbo tranquilisers, I guarantee you there’s no way we’re taking a nap until halfway through tomorrow at the earliest.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Go figure.”

Babyface settled down with a super-large mug of filter coffee, which he took time to personally supervise the creation of to his exacting specification, pulled out a bronze and aquamarine Indian thinking cushion, positioned it atop the desk, folded his legs into a full lotus beneath him, uttered the briefest of ‘Ommm’s, and without further ado got down to the serious business of thinking outside the box whilst pumped full of hardcore stimulants.

He reasoned it couldn’t be the software that was broken, as he’d installed a basic copy of Telex Exec, to prove the special modifications weren’t at fault, it couldn’t be the hardware as a quick test of the purported bad batch of boxes in the Bwain test lab while the coffee brewed proved a random pair worked perfectly fine and much as he hated to say so, it couldn’t be Hooverstein either, as a quick test on-site using a length of co-ax cable which they knew to be good didn’t fix the problem with the frakked telex data. As he worked through the possibilities on a mental whiteboard, Reg, like a dose of herpes, popped up at regular intervals to provide motivation by reminding him that the Sunday Sport’s submission deadline was looming ever closer, and the fix window was diminishing accordingly.

While the Babyfaced one sat in silent contemplation, running scenario after scenario through his splendidly wired brain, Bleep made himself useful by dusting off the Support File and reading through the many installation reports, starting at ‘A’, in the hope of finding something that might give them a lead.

“Frak me!” exclaimed Babyface, jumping to attention, with just five minutes left to go. “I think I know what it is. I can’t remember the name of the company, but they deal in inflatables. Based in Rotterdam. Ring any bells?”

“Already been there,” said Bleep, thumbing his way back to the correct set of pages. “I’m on the E’s now, they were back in with the ‘Cs’. Clogplast are your boys. Manufacturers of puncture repair kits for inflatable clogs. That was Denzil the Cradlesnatcher’s patch.”

“And what does the Cradlesnatcher have to say about the install?”

“Nothing unusual that I recall.”

“And in the section on troubleshooting?”

“Here it is. If the telex box starts misbehaving or sending and receiving corrupted messages, make sure the cleaner hasn’t untied it from the radiator.”

“Bingo!”

“Babyface. I don’t understand, what does that mean?”

“It means we go back to Petrollica with 24 lengths of copper wire and hunt down a bloody great big metal radiator and when we find one, we tie the telex boxes to it.”

“With what? Copper wire? Why? My brain hurts, I don’t understand.”

“All will be revealed. In the meantime, as we’re going to have to do something we swore we’d never do – like take the floor up, to disguise the evidence, I suggest we set Reg to work procuring more lead. There’s no point in doing a half job and leaving that monster only half encased, we might as well finish it off properly.”

By Saturday lunchtime the Petrollica installation was running like a dream, totally fixed with all 24 telex boxes purring their little hearts out, the creeping corruption at the flick of a light switch gone, not a single bit of a single byte of data out of place. The monster under the floor was finally done for, turned into a tasty lead sandwich with a supernatural filling. In the space of 24 hours Petrollica had gone from Nightmare Number One to perfection in a nutshell, a technical paradise city. Naturally Reg was delighted, so much so that he offered to take Bleep and Babyface out to the Ritz for a slap-up lunch, feigning disappointment at their refusal, all the while knowing that Babyface had an unbreakable appointment to keep with his father and Bleep had promised his girlfriend he’d go shopping for curtains, upon pain of torture, having already wriggled out of the same appointment several weekends on the trot, citing work issues on both occasions, only to come home ridiculously late and very drunk, either with a pocketful of slot machine tokens or a badly crushed rugby ticket which in his inebriated state he’d found quite impossible to throw away.

“So what was it?” I asked curiously.

“Cowboys,” grinned my pal.

“Cowboys?” replied I. “I always thought Bwain were the biggest cowboys in town.”

“Not this time. What the Cradlesnatcher’s site report failed to mention was the cause of the problem, which Babyface remembered with absolute clarity: there was no Earth rail, the building didn’t have one. Not that uncommon on the continent, but here in the UK, all our sockets have to have an earth rail by law.”

“Except the electricians that did Petrollica were wearing spurs.”

“Exactly. At the time, Babyface reckoned that Hooverstein had eaten the entire circuit, and as I was feeling totally paranoid, I just agreed with him. In retrospect, it all seems a little far-fetched. Cowboy electricians are the obvious answer, I just couldn’t see it at the time. Anyway, once we’d earthed the telex boxes, we still had to earth the PCs. Conveniently, they all had one thing in common: the network. So Babyface took two spare tentacles and tied those to the radiator too. And that as they say was the end of the monster under the floor.”

“Nice,” I said, proposing a toast. “To Babyface van Helsing.”

“To Babyface,” answered Bleep.

“That’s the end of the story?”

“Hell, no. All that tying things down might have put an end to the troubles with the network, but it sure as shit didn’t prepare us for what was coming next.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Oh, man! You haven’t heard the half of it. It’s gonna cost you mind and cost you big. I suggest we retire to a reputable pizza emporium, where you’ll flash your credit card and in return I’ll tell you what happened next.”

Tags: blog, comedy, computers, creative writing, ENTERTAINMENT, fiction, geek, geek humor, humor, Information Technology, urban fiction, workplace humor

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Categories Information Technology, Petrollica

The Petrollica Affair (vi)

18 Apr

Troubleshooting

“Is it foggy?” I asked Bleep, as he returned from his soiree.

“Why?”

“You’re flying low,” said I, pointing at my friend’s zipper.

“Well spotted, stewardess.” Bleep returned to his seat, leaving his flies untouched. Another cigarette was soon sparked-up; a long drag followed, the exhaled smoke forming a plume of blue grey, a shadow mask around my pal’s face. Contentedly, he took a sip of icy cider.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking what a cracking day it is. We should go to the park and feed baseballs to the ducks.”

“One word: Hooverstein.”

“Shush!” emphasised my friend. “I’ve told you, don’t say its name, not ever.”

“If you don’t hurry up, I’ll say it three times quickly.”

“Mate…”

“I mean it.”

Extracting what happened next required another pair of ciders and a couple of dayglo chasers, which Bleep had acquired a taste for in Belgium. Initially, Petrollica’s Telex Exec (Uber Edition) was only configured for 4 boxes, which according to the official line was to allow the system to properly bed in. Unofficially, Babyface ran into a series of hitches and took a lot longer than expected to hack and splice the code together. Onsite, as Babyface completed the various stages of development, a series of minor engineers delivered extra boxes until eventually the system was half complete. This was when the training was timed to finish and Petrollica started to use their network in anger, putting the ‘putas through their paces. Coincidentally, it was also the point when hardware began to misbehave. Everything was either running slow or performing erratically. Or sparking. One of the printers had a heart attack, coughed-up blood and set fire to a desk. After a series of support visits by the same engineers who had added the extra Telex boxes, everything appeared to settle down again, but there were still a few annoying niggles that kept reoccurring on a daily basis. Much to my pal’s annoyance, Reg soon ran out of patience with the lack of progress and ordered him to sort things out.

Fearing for his safety, Bleep resisted as long as he could, with a string of feeble excuses until Reg could stand it no more and had Ronnie read him the riot act. Realising he had no choice, my pal decided to arm himself against the beast under the floor; hesitantly, he contacted Hoover, intending to ask for a detailed specification for Hooverstein, in order to pinpoint its weaknesses. But the mad washing machine scientist was nowhere to be found. Aristotle and Einstein were just as elusive; according to their lock-up neighbours they’d packed the contents of their offices into a pair of vans and quit town overnight in a cloud of dust, leaving no forwarding address.

Out of options, Bleep was forced to return to Mayfair on his own, under cover of maximum daylight, to fully assess the situation. Petrollica had a massive suite, recently refurbished, on the top two floors of a really prestigious apartment block; from street level it was impossible to tell it was an office, its location being deliberately discrete and almost invisible to the untrained eye.

“Because they were located in an expensive part of town, they attracted some real stunning babes,” reminisced my friend, “all upper class tasty – one pinters the lot of ‘em. Despite the lurking horror under the floor, the visits were really enjoyable.”

“Visits?” I queried.

“Once I discovered the business was run almost entirely by smart tarts with delicious accents, I decided there was no real hurry and did that engineer thing of finding me a favourite and making her feel special. Charlotte was her name, I can still picture her now. Anyway, I soon forgot about Hooverstein and fell in lust instead. Charlie was drop dead gorgeous, with a subtle hint of lilacs and a fabulous set of bristols. It was quite by chance, as I was straddling between floors ogling her suspender lines through a tight black dress, hoping for a glimpse of stocking top as she bent over a photocopier, that I discovered something we’d missed.” Bleep took a jolt of dayglo chaser. “Oh, melons. Nice.”

“So let me get this,” said Babyface perplexed, “every time the photocopier went swoosh, you heard a frak! of indignation from somewhere in Petrollica.”

“Exactly.”

“And then, when your harlot switched the light off in the photocopy room, the fraks became a stream of beefy expletives.”

“Don’t call her that, her name’s Charlotte and she’s lovely. Look, this is obviously a tin and wires problem and I’m really the applications guy,” wriggled my pal. “This is your area, not mine – so it’s over to you.”

“Coincidentally,” said Babyface, switching to serious mode, “Reg has tasked me with installing the final 12 telex boxes this weekend. Unfortunately I’m busy – Father’s having one of his weekend parties and he needs me there in a coordination role. You know what we’ve got to do.”

Bleep choked as a penny dropped. “We?”

“Yes, WE. WE have a window of opportunity on Friday night. If you think you’re going to stitch me up and send me back there alone after dark, think again. We’re the only ones who’ve seen Hooverstein who are still here to tell the tale and this is an omen I do not like. We do this together, because if I go alone and don’t come back, Reg won’t believe a word of it and then he’ll get Ronnie to send you in by yourself, all alone, to face Hooverstein and no matter how much you squeal and shout you won’t get out of it, not without running away. And if you do that, the monster will sense your weakness and one day when your guard is down you’ll feel a tap on the back and before you know it, you’ll vanish under a random floor somewhere in a flurry of tentacles, never to be heard of again.”

“OK,” said Bleep, shaking. Whilst Reg worried him and Ronnie frightened him, he was absolutely terrified by the prospect of facing Hooverstein alone, in the dark, in the buff. “I’ll be there.”

“And make sure you bring crosses and garlic and any silver bullets you might have lying around. Just in case.”

Nine o’clock on a Friday night: while the rest of London was in party mode, winding up for the weekend, Babyface and Bleep headed down to Mayfair. After leaving Bwain’s offices in Victoria, they had a good few bevies for the road and then a smoke, just to be sure they were in the right frame of mind. Upon arrival, they let themselves into the offices, as arranged with the security desk. Once inside, Babyface assembled a makeshift crucifix from a pair of screwdrivers which he bound together with gaffer tape, whilst Bleep produced a garlic string from his toolbox and draped it about his neck. Not being entirely certain as to the heritage of their foe, they took the added precaution of smearing themselves with wolfsbane and then sprinkled holy water in a circle in one of the side rooms, to define a much needed sanctuary space in case of trouble.

Despite his reputation as a space cadet of some merit, Babyface was truly methodical when it came to problem analysis, and before long he had some answers.

“Look at this,” pointed Babyface, wielding the cruci-driver as a pointing device. “I’m running diagnostic Pro, across the network between half a dozen ‘putas I’ve turned into probes. This ‘puta here is the master. On the count of three, flick that light switch on. One, two…”

“Nothing,” noted Bleep.

“And now switch it off again.”

<<Fzzz>>

“See that – it’s a power spike. All of the data on the master scope is frakked and garbled.”

“So it is,” mused Bleep.

“It’s exactly as I suspected: the monster we helped jam under the floor is also the monster in the ceiling when viewed from below. And what’s more, it’s somehow patched itself into the light circuit and is slurping on the electricity supply. Every time a light goes off, it bitches and chews data.”

“Oh, hell. What are we going to do?”

What they did in their excited state was to place a call with Reg, who had a word with Ronnie, who had a word with one of his special mates. Within the hour, a shipment of lead was on its way from the East End, where an unfortunate vicar would no doubt discover to his dismay that come the next serious rainstorm, his church was no longer watertight. Once the ceiling tiles had been removed and the monster encased, it was game over for Hooverstein.

At least that was the theory.

It was two in the morning by the time Bleep and Babyface finished installing the remaining telex boxes, and being half straight, half sober and half hungover, they had a tactical line or two of Babyface’s favourite wake-me-up-before-you-go-go powder. In a blaze of euphoria, heads clacking like a pair of analogue telephone exchanges during a bank raid, the duo proceeded to toast their success with several nips of Welsh whiskey from an aging hip flask that Bleep’s grandma had given him as a present, for use in emergency celebrations, just prior to leaving home.

“We’re brilliant!” exclaimed Bleep, puckering like a squeezed lemon. “None of the other engineers could have pulled this off.”

“Yes we are,” admitted Babyface, taking the flask and a double nip.

“We should pack up and go home.”

“Yes we should. The question is, are we brilliant enough to power up the entire system and give it a thorough test, or do we leave it for the trainers on Monday?”

“Oh, frak. Do we have to?”

“Are we brilliant or are we deluded wasters?”

“Can’t we just be brilliant wasters and leave it at that?”

By six o’clock in the morning, the amphetamines were gone, the flask was empty and Hooverstein was still in its death throes, wounded but refusing to die. No matter what they tried, as soon as they cranked the system up above 50% utilisation, the telex transmission lines became unstable, receiver circuits flaked out and frakked data became the order of the day. They tried holy water, garlic breath, wolfsbane to the tentacles and the Lord’s prayer, forwards, backwards and sideways, all to no avail. In abject frustration, Babyface declared that Hooverstein had destroyed the integrity of the space/time continuum and ruined the telex boxes forever.

Obviously, Reg could never be told the truth and fearing he’d set Ronnie on them if they didn’t have a good story, a faulty batch of hardware was declared, a tried and tested engineer’s explanation for strange goings-on that remains in place to this day.

Bleep retrieved another smoke and seeing it was the last one, crumpled the packet up and threw it as far as he could. “It’s a good job I bought 200 at the airport. Go to the bar and get the lager in, while I search through my bag for the other 180.”

Tags: blog, comedy, computers, creative writing, ENTERTAINMENT, fiction, geek, geek humor, humor, Information Technology, IT, strange tales, urban fiction, workplace humor

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Categories Information Technology, Petrollica

The Petrollica Affair (v)

2 Apr

The Network

“Well, my son,” grinned Hoover, “wod’ya fink?”

“It’s very, very strange.”

“All it’s missin’ Bleepy Boy is a name,” said Hoover, to a look of contempt from his henchmen. “We’re still arm wrestling over that.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Bleep, dismayed.

“Secrets is secrets,” said Aristotle, stuffing a pony in Bleep’s pocket.

“Gypsies,” said Einstein, removing the pony. “I know these Gypsies who run a rubbish tip out of town. They flogged us a mile of TV cable they found.”

“Found?”

“More discovered,” said Aristotle, reinserting the pony.

“In all honesty,” said Bleep, “it’s very, very scary. In fact, it frightens the living bejesus out of me.”

“Whatever do you mean?” asked Einstein. “I hope you’re not deriding our masterpiece.”

“Our baby,” added Aristotle, patting the thing.

In front of my friend, stretched out lengthways on a well worn wooden bench lay a contorted monster, the mother of all cabling nightmares, nestling in a pool of its own putrid slime. In construction, the creature was comprised of a huge life affirming double helix, wrapped loosely about itself, forming a central core off which two hundred and ten satin black arms hung limply, each terminating in a shiny silver connector which to the uninitiated could easily be mistaken for an eye. The graft-point where arm and helix met was bound tightly with gaffer tape, creating a series of compact nodules, reminiscent of eggs sacs – which provided a clue as to the creature’s reproductive habits. There was no way it could be trustfully left alone with your children, your pets or the contents of your larder, not if you ever wanted to see them again. All the mother of cabling nightmares required to bring it into being was a jolt of electricity from a lightning storm. Come the aftermath, the all-seeing bald behemoth would undoubtedly be last glimpsed slithering away into the drains, chased by dozens of villagers armed with burning brands and pitchforks.

“It looks like twenty one point two five octopuses engaged in some bizarre mating ritual,” said Bleep.

“Excuse me?” said Einstein, threateningly.

“Octopuses have eight arms,” coughed Bleep. “Do the maths.”

“My partner is not questioning your skills at division, but your use of the English language,” said Aristotle.

“Twenty one and a quarter then.”

“Twenty one and a quarter what?” asked Einstein. “And the answer better be octopi.”

Bleep paused for a second, to take a swig of gin. “The network just sat there glistening, covered in a layer of Vaseline, staring at you malevolently through hundreds of tiny eyes, like it was waiting for something to happen.”

I began to snigger. “Perhaps it was waiting for Professor Quatermass to come along and give it a proper fight.”

Bleep gave me a look of thunder. “IT was anything but funny, mate.”

After the boys had finished melding the mother of all nightmares together on the bench, they found they couldn’t shift it out of Reg’s garage, it was just too weird and heavy. Hoover was forced to drape a tarp over it, so as not to scare any more passers by. Then, on Saturday morning he got one of his mates with a forklift truck to move it into Aristotle and Einstein’s Bedford so they could deliver it to Petrollica in one piece.

“Bleep,” said Babyface, stepping from the pavement into the road. “I have no idea what you’re playing at, dragging me halfway across town to Petrollica’s offices in my lunch break. This better be good.”

“Oh, it’s good,” said Bleep, displaying all the skills of a regular traffic cop as he directed the traffic around a parked-up off-white Bedford van with an obscene drawing of an erect penis etched in the filth of the back doors, its three hazard warning lights flashing merrily away.

Babyface took a step back, and in that diligent way of his began to survey the scene, quickly directing his attention to two oddball workmen dressed in badly fitting faded blue overalls, tugging desperately on a length of thick rope.

A head popped out of a sash window some five storeys above the street. “Pull, one two free,” it shouted at the workers, in a gruff gravely tone.

Babyface’s eyes followed the rope, all the way up to a makeshift pulley, erected against the superstructure of the building and then back down again to a cradle suspended in mid-air. The angles were confusing, which prevented the baby faced one from making out the contents. As he contemplated what was occurring, the rope snagged, causing the cradle to come to a jarring halt. A single menacing tentacle fell out, its silvery eye staring blankly downwards, its pupil filled with malice.

“What… is that?”

“Shush,” said Bleep. “It might hear you.”

“What might hear me?” said Babyface quizzically. “Have you been drinking?”

“Have you?”

“You first.”

“We had a jar or two on the way,” interrupted Aristotle, “it ain’t half thirsty work, this networking.”

“And you are?”

“Aristotle, Intellectual Networks. The one with the rope around his middle – that’s Einstein, my partner.”

“Afternoon,” waved Einstein.

“They call me Babyface,” said the baby faced one. “I’m the code-head responsible for making all the communications software work. I have to ask: what is that thing suspended in the air?”

“That thing,” said Aristotle emphatically, “is the network. In Latin it’s the ‘Networkus Primus’.”

“That’s a network?”

“It’s not a network, it’s the network. Networkus Primus. Now stop gawping mate and get stuck in, give us a hand to pull it up there, while Bleepy Boy does his best to make sure we’re not all turned into a massive spread of strawberry street jam.”

It took an hour of pushing and pulling to get the network through the window in one piece. By the time the gang had finished their work, there was a sizeable crowd of curious onlookers gathered below, all watching in wonder, trying to figure out what the crap was going on. Thankfully, Petrollica’s Chief of Operations was on hand in a pastel purple suit to keep things calm and fend off the police with tales of epic endeavour against the odds, from his time in Nicaragua, while Hoover and his pals from Intellectual Networks got on with the installation.

“And how do you intend to fit this thing?” asked Babyface, now completely absorbed in the drama.

“It’s goin’ under the floor,” replied Hoover, pleased with his planning. “We cleared it wiv Reg, he’s had all the paperwork, he’s sweet.”

Aristotle and Einstein nodded at each other. “Under the floor it goes. Let’s get them boards up and get cracking, networks don’t install themselves.”

“It’s for the best,” said Bleep, taking Babyface to one side. “They CAN’T leave it exposed, it’s evil! I’m scared of it and I know what it is.”

“What it is,” said Babyface screwing up his face in contemplation, “is a hybrid between every single networking topology known to man, and a few more that are still to be invented. They haven’t used one idea, they’ve used every idea. You know there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of this thing ever working.”

“I know I’m not touching it, whether it works or not. I’m from the Valleys, remember. When my forefathers dug up anything like that down the mines, they belted it with shovels and set fire to what was left. I know the stories, my Gran warned me about things like that.”

“Relax,” said Babyface, “it’s inert. It wouldn’t harm a fly.”

“Only because a fly has no nutritional value and dead-end DNA.”

“I’ll show you,” said Babyface, reaching out to pick up a tentacle and recoiling in horror as soon as he touched it. “Urgh! That’s not right.”

“I told you!” squealed Bleep.

“It feels sort of alive, as in the dead sort of alive that nothing has the right to be.”

“It’s an abomination, that’s what it is. An affront to God’s creation.”

While Babyface and Bleep discussed the merits or otherwise of the network, Aristotle and Einstein set to, pulling and pushing at the beast, ramming it under the floor, placating it with rubber mallets and crowbars where necessary to ensure it didn’t resist. Under instruction from Hoover, who grasped the master floor plan like it was a map to hidden pirate treasure, they pulled the connectors out in pairs at what looked like appropriate points, intending that each set be connected to a ‘puta.

“We’re all done nah,” said Hoover. “I’ve got me some lads comin’ in Sunday to finish orf the ‘putas, so you can go ‘ome. Or dahn the pub. You’re bohf as white as sheets, you look like you need a large stiff one.”

“And you have every confidence that this thing will function as designed?” asked Babyface incredulously.

“Are you questioning the operational capabilities of Aristotlestein?” asked Aristotle.

“Hooverstein!” insisted Hoover.

“I still like Einsteinstein,” said Einstein, to a look of derision from his two colleagues, who both agreed it was the least sensible suggestion of the three.

“There’s a pair of ‘putas in the van,” said Hoover. “While we argue the toss, why don’t you go get ‘em like a pair of good girl guides and I’ll proof to you it works.”

“And?” I asked, suppressing a snigger.

“By the time we got back, they’d reached a ‘rock, paper, scissors’ agreement. Hooverstein it was.”

“I mean did it work?”

“Babyface and I were both extremely sceptical, until Hoover powered those ‘putas up, plugged them into his monster and everything burst into life. Don’t ask me how, I really, truly don’t have a clue. I’ve worked with hardware for most of my life and by all the laws of physics it had no right to be anything other than an inert lump of copper and plastic.”

“Once you bring a monster to life, it’s powered by the supernatural,” I quipped. “Everyone knows that.”

“Stop taking the piss.” Bleep looked around furtively. “IT might hear you.”

“I do believe you’re serious.”

“Of course I am! I’ve just told you something I’ve never told another living soul. Babyface and I made a pact there and then, on that day in the pub, never to mention the network ever again. And under no circumstances were either of us to lift any floorboards and take a look. Ever.”

“What about Ronnie and Reg?”

“Ronnie wouldn’t go near something he couldn’t frighten and Reg was totally oblivious, he had no idea his new network was a malevolent grotesque. Babyface and me, we figured our mission was to install the server software and some telex boxes, no questions asked. So we went back on the Sunday afternoon, did what we were paid to do and left pronto, intending from that point onwards to hand over to the trainers and the support engineers and never set foot inside Petrollica again.”

“But you did.”

“Obviously we did, that’s how these things work. Now, get the ciders in while I go for a slash, then I’ll tell you what happened next.”

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Categories Information Technology, Petrollica

The Petrollica Affair (iii)

25 Mar

The Golden Carrot

Taking a swig of beer, Bleep slammed the empty glass down and switched his voice, imitating Reg’s well perfected sales purr, a vocal trick I’d heard him perform many times before, but previously only so accurately with Sean Connery and Roger Moore:

“Look, Babyface, I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer, you’re the best developer we have. You breezed 4, 8 and 16, so 24 is easily within your grasp. I know you have the skill and determination, so what’s the problem?”

“Speed,” replied Bleep, switching his posture and deftly answering his own question in Babyface’s pre-pubescent tones.

“Very good!” said I. “You’re quite the wicked impersonator when you get going.”

“You wait til later, when you appear!” winked my pal, returning to his act.

“Speed,” reiterated Babyface. “It’s all to do with speed.”

“You told Ronnie you’d given that up,” swerved Reg.

“I mean there isn’t a server fast enough to keep up,” snapped Babyface irately. “I’ve done all the calculations.”

“Let’s use 3 servers then.”

“That was a one off.”

“What about 5?” asked Reg, undeterred. “Or 10? Name your configuration and we’ll do it.”

“Reg, it’s not a hardware issue, this is all about the software – it simply isn’t up to it. We’ve got patches on our patches as it is. We need a complete rewrite to stand a chance, and that’ll take months.”

“A month you say? Get to it then. As I’m such a brilliant boss, let’s call it a round 25 days.”

“You have to be kidding! I’m not doing any more bodges or half arsed splatches. Enough is enough, my foot is down.”

“Right, that’s it. I’m cutting your pay by a grand for insolence.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Now it’s two grand, for insolence AND wasting my time.”

“I quit.”

“Make that three grand, for insolence, time wasting and cowardice.”

“You can’t do that. I just quit.”

“A three grand pay cut, to be restored as a three grand raise when you deliver Petrollica. And as a special bonus, I’ll give you the photographs plus negatives from the company trip to Amsterdam. You must remember your entwining encounter with the masked python woman of Tripoli? Ah. I can see from your face that you forgot.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy the rediscovery. Along with your fiancé.”

“Now you’re bluffing.”

“Clubbus Eroticus. Babyface meets the porno rhino. Oh, I see, you forgot about that too. Make Petrollica work, or the photos go to the Sunday Sport. The editor is a personal friend of mine. I can see the headline now, ‘son of a…’”

“…You can’t fool me. I don’t believe you’d do that, not for a second.”

“You better. An empty threat is like a bald hedgehog – laughable and quite, quite pointless.”

Bleep opened his wallet and produced a folded page from the Sunday Sport, showing a topless bloke on all fours twisted into a rather revealing pose with an uninhibited snake goddess, replete with erotic back tattoos, a black rectangle obscuring his face. Despite the attempted black-out, the curl of unruly hair poking out above the black gave the identity of its owner away in an instant. For once, Reg was telling the truth.

Bleep shook his head. “Babyface’s family and fiancé were threatened with total embarrassment unless he did the business.”

“What did he do?”

“What could he do?”

The baby-faced one set to like the grizzled old pro he’d become, patching patches on patches, bodging bodges on bodges and frigging the frigs that had historically been applied to a load of other frigs. By the time he’d finished, the product stunk like the outhouses at a French glue factory and what came out of development at the end of that stint was most unsavoury. It might have worked well enough to the untrained eye, and splitting the input queues over 6 servers and the output queues over another 6 solved the throughput problem, but it wasn’t the twenty four seven solution the client was expecting. Babyface didn’t care by this point, he was mentally wasted from all the late nights and early mornings; all he wanted was his photos and once they were in his shaky little mitts, he was planning to be off to the Far East in a cloud of dust, for a nice long Thai-stick induced relax in the sun.

“Did he get them?”

“Hell, no. Reg had never seen Babyface so motivated and on it. He wasn’t about to surrender his newly discovered golden carrot, not without properly wearing it out first.”

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Categories Information Technology, Petrollica

The Petrollica Affair (ii)

21 Mar

Twenty Four Seven

“Why is it,” I found myself asking as I waited patiently for four pints of beer to arrive, “that everyone involved with Petrollica has either run away to Ireland to learn basket weaving or quit the country never to return?” It’s a question which has kept me awake at night for years, begging for an answer. Despite many beers with many ex-Bwain engineers over the last forty eight months, no reasonable answer has yet been forthcoming. I’ve heard many theories, including one that proposed Reg had perfected a porcine aircraft carrier, for which Petrollica were contracted to supply the fuel, but an outbreak of foot and mouth in the hanger bay soon put paid to that plan. Another theory suggested that Reg had become involved in an international smuggling cartel, importing specially trained monkey pilots from Latin America to fly the pigs, but it all fell apart because he let the monkeys watch too many racy wildlife documentaries, which resulted in a gang of badly corrupt primates, quite prepared to mount anything with a pulse, especially the pigs.

Two beers, a round of cocktails and a pair of shooters later, Bleep was ready to talk.

“Did you know,” he said, taking a break from chain smoking ciggies, sparking up a stubby evil-smelling cigarillo, “it was Ronnie Large who founded Bwain?”

“Never!” I said, taking a matching stubby and sparking it up. “I assumed it was sly old Reg, he was the mover and shaker.”

Over the next few drinks my friend filled me in on how Bwain came to be. Whilst Reg was a foxy salesman par excellence, it turned out he wasn’t the man with the money. He used to make ends meet working in the city, selling insurance schedules for thoroughbred pets to the wives of executives with too much money and too little sense, until one day he got wind of a brilliant sales opportunity from a mate who knew someone who knew someone. Rather than spending the rest of his life shifting medical repayment plans for pampered high-end ponies, he smooth talked his brother Ronnie into trading him a directorship – some might say ‘dictatorship’ for a share in a deal which he claimed would set them both up for life. Whilst many firms were jumping on the latest technology bandwagon known as facsimile, or fax for short, there were still three businesses that refused to accept a fax as legally binding evidence in court. Banks, shipping companies and anyone involved with petrochemicals simply weren’t having fax, they demanded good old telex instead.

Between the pair of them, Ronnie & Reg bought up a one man and his dog outfit that specialised in computerised Telex systems, rebranding the product line as ‘Telex Exec’. Reg fulfilled his part of the bargain by borrowing a copy of the contacts database from Medi-pet, paying special attention to shipping tycoons and finance moguls, whilst Ronnie called on his legal expertise to put the frighteners on their newly discovered client base. The plan truly came together with the hiring of office space at a prestigious London address and the launch of the new range of Telex Exec solutions.

Very soon Bwain cornered the market with their secure computerised Telex system; they couldn’t get product out the door fast enough. Within six months the business had expanded tenfold and Ronnie and Reg were well on their way to making their first mint.

“You remember the Bwain Support File?” asked Bleep.

“The master list of who’s got what, made purposefully unintelligible to the uninitiated.”

“It came about because Reg wouldn’t stop selling product for long enough for Development to catch up with Sales. They developed a version of Telex Exec that worked with two telex devices, so Reg sold a client four. They worked day and night on the four port version, and as soon as they finished Ronnie scared someone into needing eight. It was the classic shifting goalposts manoeuvre, and after six months we were all frackin’ knackered from working ‘til stupid o’clock every night. Then came Petrollica, a full-on petroleum dealer, who asked for twenty-four telex lines, all working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.”

“Twenty-four seven three six five? I’ve had firsthand experience of that particular product, there’s no way I would ever trust it as a mission critical component.”

“Listen to you, with your smart new business speak!” laughed my friend. “It sounds like you’ve recently eaten a management consultant.”

As expected, Reg took no notice of Development, who said 24 lines couldn’t be done, curtly dismissed Babyface’s reservations with a deft wave of his hand and went right ahead and sold Petrollica the most advanced version ever of a theoretical product, along with a bulk order of PCs, several file-servers and all the network cabling. All in all, it was the single biggest order that Bwain had ever seen. Suddenly, Banks all over the continent sat upright and started paying serious attention. Reg could be seen out to dinner in restaurants where only the rich and famous dwell and for a while he became a minor celebrity in the banking fraternity, but no matter how much he talked himself and his products up, no matter how scary Ronnie’s horror stories became, no-one was prepared to place an order for a comparable system until Petrollica was fully commissioned with all the bugs ironed out.

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Categories Information Technology, Petrollica

It’s a Pope-ish Kind of Day

11 Feb

There are two words which the media frequently like to misuse, which really wind me up when I hear them, in a spitting feathers kind of way. People who work with me regularly soon stop misusing these words, because they know what’s coming if they do!

Pope John Paul II Pontificating

The first word of the day is to pontificate. The clue as to what this word word means is in its first half – pontiff. The ‘cate’ ing of a Pontiff – what does this mean? It’s like the ‘tate’ ing of a cogi (cogitate), but done at a much higher level. When a mere mortal chooses to think something over, that’s what we do – give it a bit of a mull, rattle the old six-sided brain cell around inside the skull, see which side it stops on, forget what we decided because it doesn’t really matter, then move on. When a Pontiff chooses to think about something, he does so with god on his shoulder, in an ineffable fashion. What comes out after his communion with god is infallible, and has been since 1870 when the First Vatican Council decreed it to be so. Unlike the rest of us, the Pope can’t break a few balls or enter into banter over the communion wine (in Latin, presumably), because anything he says is true and can’t be questioned, except by god himself. If the Pope tells you to ‘go f*** yourself’, not only must you do so, you must also be capable of doing it, because he can’t be wrong.

This is what an online dictionary has to say on the matter: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pontificate. Apparently, the ordinary man in the street CAN now pontificate. However, I disagree! Pontification is reserved for the Pope and possibly the Queen, as supreme head of the Church of England. Since the schism, we need a different word – the ruling monarch of England ‘Majecates’. It’s a new word, so don’t go misusing it.

No Decimation Here

The second word of the day is to decimate. Whenever anything is destroyed, be it crops, people or things, there are those out there in media land who commit the heresy of declaring it’s been decimated. OK, I’m not the Pope, so I can’t really declare the misuse of this word a heresy, but you get the idea. Decimation was a particularly cruel punishment carried out on a unit of a Roman Legion when it under performed. The unit was divided into groups of 10 and lots drawn at random. The unlucky one was then clubbed or stoned to death by his fellows. Now, I’m all for a bit of decimation, provided it’s done by 10,000 of the general populace on 1,000 well chosen bankers and politicians, without the drawing of any lots at all. A field of wheat toppled in a storm comes nowhere close to a 1,000 heads on poles.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about decimation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_%28Roman_army%29.

One of my Catholic friends has a particular favourite, which is epiphany, the common phrase going something like: ‘I had an epiphany the other day’. Epiphany is either a religious holiday (6th Jan) or a book of the bible, it’s not a thing in itself. The state to which the word heretics refer is a theophany, which is the appearance of god or a god to a person, and the realisation that follows. A conversation may or may not be involved. Every time the Pope pontificates, he undergoes theophany. When he tells you to ‘go f*** yourself’, what you undergo when you realise that this entails chopping bits off to fulfill the request is also a theophany and not an epiphany.

If you really want to wind me up, the sentence to do it with goes something like this: When I was pontificating I had an epiphany that that crop decimation was carried out by locusts, not by flying cats after all…

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Categories Writing Tips

The Morality of Super Powers

25 Jan

Super Powers – wah hay!

Here’s a question for you: if you had a super power that allowed you to influence the outcome of situations in your favor, without other people knowing, would you do so?

Secondly, if you had the opportunity to use your power to create a personal fortune, with the intention of having a good time, would you still do so?

This is the central dilemma facing the hero in the Ferret Files. He’s let me know in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t want to give up the booze & cocaine lifestyle…

I look forward to reading your replies

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Categories Ferret Files

Tie Wars

30 Dec

It was when the Gripper decided that Captain Sensible had dominated the top of the department Stupid Tie Chart for far too long that events spun out of control. Had the Gripper not gone out that fateful Saturday afternoon, clutching a wad of hard earned dosh in his Gripper fist, totally intent on purchasing a piece of weapons grade polyester, adorned with shock and awe cartoon characters, the Great Tie War would never have begun.

In a way, you can’t blame the Gripper for wanting something a little more lively around his neck. Considering the relative gaudiness of his entire collection of ties, a display of magnificence was well overdue. However, he didn’t have to transgress one of the unwritten rules of the Gang: he didn’t have to go all out for wrecking Sensible’s reputation as the man with the loudest, proudest, most bile provoking kipper collection this side of 1979.

Revoltage

It’s Monday morning and the Gripper’s in before me. This is a miracle. Not the walking on water kind, or the feeding of the five thousand kind, granted. If resurrection of the dead were the Liverpool FC of the miracle Premier Division, then this miracle would be parked firmly around the bottom of Scottish Division Two.

I eyed him suspiciously, not entirely sure what was happening.

“Morning,” said Grips.

Something wasn’t right. The Gripper was never this polite, until after lunch.

“Have you been putting beer on your cornflakes again?” I asked suspiciously.

“Siddown,” he motioned, jovially. “I’ve got something.”

My mind raced. Had The Gripper finally had prosthetic surgery, and got that long-dreamed of third leg?

The Gripper bludgeoned forward, menacingly. “Here,” he said unbuttoning his jacket. “Whaddya think?”

I was stunned. What I was seeing was horrible. Truly revolting.

“Well?”

“That’s possibly the worst tie I’ve ever seen. Appalling. Well done, mate. Congratulations!”

I stood up to shake his hand.

“Owww.”

The Gripper beamed. “Do you really think it’s that bad?”

There was no escaping the terrible conclusion before my eyes. “It’s bad. It’s horrendous and then some. There’s no doubt about it, it’s the worst tie of the year so far. In fact, it’s so bad it warrants a new word: revoltage. As in a revolting collage of colours.”

“Why, thank you.”

“I’m not sure about Sensible,” I added as an after thought, “I doubt he’ll be impressed.”

The Declaration

“It’s NOT for sale,” stomped the Gripper, adamantly. “Get one of your own.”

Sensible looked on dejectedly. “I want THAT one. If I buy one the same, I’ll be copying. No. You must sell it to me, now.”

“Sorry.”

In walked Harry the Haddock. “What’s the problem?” he asked, hanging his coat up.

I looked at my watch. 9:30. Harry’s late and the Gripper’s early. An unusual twist; the Universe must be balancing things out.

“Tie argument. Gripper’s bought the most disgusting object ever, and Sensible wants it. The Gripper isn’t selling.”

“Oh, is that all?” said Harry dismissively. “Come on Gripper, out with it. Errggh! That’s really nasty. I say, well done.”

“Sell it to me,” demanded Sensible. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“Tssssphhh!” rasped the Gripper. “Do your worst.”

“Then,” declared Sensible, making for the door, “I have no option but to declare a state of hostility. I’m recalling all my Ambassadors and breaking off diplomatic relations. They will be restored only when the crown for worst tie is returned to its rightful place, on top my head. From now on, I’m advising all present to carry a pair of very dark sunglasses and a brown paper bag at all times. Expect the unexpected. This could get messy.”

“What do you think Sensible will do?” asked Harry. “I’ve never seen him get angry before.”

“Except over no beer.”

“Well, obviously.”

“His dignity’s in tatters, he’s never been out revolted before. He’ll calm down eventually, we’ll have a laugh about it, and soon we’ll be back to normal.”

Except I was wrong.

Vomit

Two days later Sensible struck.

“Prepare yourself,” he announced to the assembled office, “For an assault on the senses.”

“Do your worst,” retorted The Gripper. “C’mon.”

Sensible turned to face the window. Slowly he unzipped his coat, removed it, undid his jacket and twirled around.

“My God,” twitched the Gripper. “What is THAT?!?”

“Isn’t it disgusting? While I was away in Wales, fixing problems, I paid a visit to Gran. It’s one of Grandpappy’s World Tour souvenirs, acquired in Peru. The background is woven from grilled pig’s hair, the raised pattern is sun-dried llama vomit ground with dead beetles.” Sensible puffed his chest out. “It was hand painted by dying, poverty stricken school children. So there.”

“Hey mate, that’s vile,” congratulated the Kiwi, on one of his flying coffee visits. “Yer should git a prize for that.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Yeah,” enthused Harry, “It’s even worse than the Gripper’s. Nice one.”

“You know, “ I concluded, “that tie’s so revoltage, it needs a new word to describe it. Sidelic should do it. That’s sick-making and psychedelic.”

The Gripper dropped his bottom lip sulkily. For the last two days he’d been the centre of attention in a positive way, which was a new experience for him. Ever since he’d started wearing that ghastly cartoon tie, people had taken an interest in him. Everyone wanted to know him; strangers bought him pints at lunch-time. The vile tie opened up doors which were previously barred. And now…and now…his crowning glory had been rendered insignificant by a master stroke. In the Gripper’s brain, feelings of revenge gunned the throttle.

“You know that war you declared? Well, it’s not over yet.”

“Do your worst,” retorted the Captain. “You’ll not better this beauty.”

This time, it was Sensible’s turn to be wrong.

Scratch ‘n’ Sniff

By the following Monday, The Gripper was once again the master of ceremonies.

“The realistic stains are all foodstuff,” he explained. “They’re scratch and sniff. Go on, try it.”

Harry scratched a dark brown patch and inhaled. “Je….sus. That smells like… like the gents after you’ve been on the chicken vindaloo.”

“Correct.”

The Kiwi gave it a try. “Cor, mate. Tandoori baked beans.”

“Spot on.”

I had a go. “The red one. It’s chilli burger, with something extra.”

“Think treble chilli burger with double extra garlic mayo, and one of my special pickled onions on top.”

“And the green one?” asked Harry, scratching. “Phoarrr! That smells like…”

“…Cabbage, beer and sprouts.”

Sensible refused to take part in the little ritual. His eyes became glazed; his expression one of sheer contempt.

“Hey Gripper?” I asked. “You still haven’t told us where you got this…this work of art.”

“I made it myself,” he beamed. “It took me all weekend, but I did it.”

“That’s gross.”

“Top one, mate.” exclaimed the Kiwi.

“This tie of yours, it’s so revolutionary, it needs a new word to describe it. ‘Grench’ sounds about right, as in gross stench. You’ve got the grenchiest tie ever.”

The Gripper beamed from ear to ear. “Grench? That sounds like some of the sounds that I made creating this baby. Just wait until I tell Mrs Gripper I’ve had a new word made after me, she’ll be so proud when she reads it in the Oxford English. Her suffering won’t have been in vain after all.”

Reluctantly, Sensible handed the tie crown back to the Gripper. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said under baited breath. “You’ll regret it.”

“I doubt it,” smiled the Gripper.

He was wrong too.

Teats

Lordy me. Tuesday, and already Sensible had retaliated.

“Basically,” he explained, “You’re looking at a cross section of mummified whale penis, which has been preserved in alcohol for nearly 70 years. Grandpappy brought it back from Greenland with him, he picked it up there on his World Tour. The bumps are dried out walrus teats, an ancient Eskimo delicacy. You can try one if you like, they’re removable.”

A Mummified Whale’s Penis Yesterday

“You can’t eat one of those.” Harry screwed his face up in revulsion. “That’s completely vile.”

“Watch me.” Sensible removed one and put it in his mouth.

I winced. Stomach curdling stuff. The Gripper, not to be outdone, snatched at Sensible’s tie, grabbed a couple of shrivelled brown objects in his ample Gripper fist and popped them both in his mouth.

“That’s what I think of your tie,” he said, swallowing. “So there.”

Sensible opened his mouth and removed the brown thing he’d inserted seconds earlier. “You’re only supposed to suck them,” he said. “Otherwise, you’ll get absolutely horrible runs for days. If I was you, I’d head for the nearest hospital now.”

Harry grimaced; the Kiwi laughed.

The Gripper was not amused at all. “Just you wait. You haven’t heard the last of this.”

Asbestos

A full two weeks passed before the Gripper returned to work. He strode into the office like a man possessed, intent on reclaiming the crown he’d come to regard as rightfully his. Sensible wasn’t kidding when he said that eating walrus teats was a bad idea. The stomach bug the Gripper contracted in his moment of indiscretion was not pleasant at all; the hospital for rare and unlikely diseases had a field day with him, monitoring this, that and the other in an attempt to discover an antidote for what the Eskimos call ‘liquidbottomofthemidnightsun’.

“Come outside,” he said, ushering us, his gang, towards the door. “Come and tell me what you think of this. Oh, and Harry – grab that fire extinguisher.”

The car park was silent with an air of expectation. Slowly, with great deliberation, the Gripper removed his jacket, just as he’d done that first Monday, to reveal the strangest tie that anyone present had ever seen. Not only was it bigger than your average tie, being 18” across at the base, it also looked like a dead hedgehog. A dead hedgehog with a sky rocket strapped to each side. And the circular patterns…no…they couldn’t be.

“Let me introduce you to the Gripper Foorkes tie, MKIII,” said our host congenially. “Don’t ask about the MKI and the MKII, you don’t want to know, although you may well read about them eventually, if the RSPCA decide to sue.”

The Gripper removed a tin helmet and visor from out of a large bag he’d been carrying and put them on. “Note my specially designed asbestos shirt and underpants,” he said nonchalantly. “A significant advance from the MKI. Now, if I was you, I’d stand back at least ten feet. Harry, are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good then let the show begin.”

Once the blue touch paper was lit, the transformation from Gripper to human firework took less than five seconds. In every direction, sparks flew. They were certain, in their little spark minds that the safest place to be at that particular moment in time was away from the Gripper’s tie, and they were right. Following suit, the four of us backed off further than the suggested 10 feet, unsure any longer of what exactly constituted a safe distance.

Sparklers sparkled; bangers *banged*; screechers screeched; roman candles shot out flume upon flume of bright red and green. The catherine wheels, once they’d begun twirling made standard issue paisley look very ordinary indeed. Actually, come to think of it, the display on offer wasn’t actually that dangerous after all. Granted, the tie we were looking at could never be lit in an office or a Comms room due to stringent fire regulations, but apart from that, it hardly appeared life threatening.

These thoughts were soon dismissed, as the first of the rockets ignited.

Melons

There was a fizz and a whoosh, as a stick whistled past Sensible’s left ear hole and arced over the road, navigating its way around several parked cars, onwards towards the local superstore, where it was stopped dead by a revolving door. Or not, as we found out later. The door was away being repaired, allowing the rocket to smash its way into the store and embed itself in a pile of melons, where it exploded, showering the staff in cantaloupe. As we watched, the store’s fire alarm began to ring.

Rocket number two shot off in an equally ridiculous horizontal trajectory, down the street and through the open window of a Fish & Chip shop.

Fortunately, due to the hour of the day, there were no customers present.

Unfortunately, the owner had left all the fryers on slow heat, while he nipped out the back for a fag.

Fortunately, the rocket missed them all, as it hurtled through the slender opening.

Unfortunately, it found its way into the kitchen, where it thumped into a cylinder of butane, striking the ‘ON’ button for the gas flow. A flash of flame was swiftly followed by a wall of broken glass; unsurprisingly, a second alarm bell began to ring.

The third rocket would have gone skywards as planned, but for the overhang on the Gripper’s helmet. As the rocket took off, it glanced off the helmet’s rim and became entangled in the camouflage netting, wedging itself solid. At first, The Gripper just mouthed obscenities. Then he began to panic.

“Harry, put me out.”

“What’s it worth?” asked Harry, cautiously.

“Hurry up. This rocket’s packed with Gripper strength gunpowder, it’s the grand finale.”

Reluctantly, Harry obliged. The Gripper removed his goggles, spitting foam from his mouth. His helmet continued to smoke. In the distance, the dulcet tones of a fire engine could be heard.

“May I suggest,” said Sensible, “that we continue this inside, where we won’t look so guilty?”

“Done.” The Gripper removed his helmet and tossed it aside, into a nearby rubbish bin.

“I have to say Gripper,” I said as we climbed the stairs back to the office, “That that’s the scoudiest tie ever.”

“Scoudiest?” enquired Sensible.

“It comes from the word ‘scoud’, meaning scary and loud.”

“Sorry I asked.”

Vampire Bat

Guiltily, we crept back to the Support Desk, fearing the worst. The rest of the office were too busy looking out the window, pointing at the fire engine to notice.

“So, waddya think?” The Gripper held up a shrivelled piece of burnt cotton, still attached to his neck. “Do I get the tie crown back?”

“Yes, you get it back, “ conceded Sensible. “Now, we must stop this nonsense before it gets any more serious. As I’m not prepared to risk life and limb over my appearance, I concede defeat. From this day forth, I shall no longer wear silly ties.”

“You can’t do that,” gasped Harry. “Think of your reputation.”

The World’s Scariest Bow Tie

“My boy, I haven’t quite finished yet. The Gripper has shown us that he is the King of silly ties. His devotion to the cause is exemplary, and I take my hat off to him.”

Outside, there was a loud bang, which sounded like a tin helmet detonating in a bin.

Sensible continued: “From now on, I’m only going to wear bow ties. Yes, you heard me: bow ties. Beginning tomorrow with a stuffed and jewelled vampire bat, which Grandpappy acquired in the depths of the Borneo rain forest.”

The Gripper gave his smuggest smile. “I’m the King of the ties. So there! And don’t you lot forget it, because if you do, I’ll start work on the Gripper Foorkes MKIV.”

“No problem,” said Harry warily, backing away.

I nodded in agreement.

Then the Kiwi spoke. “Say, me old mate, I quite fancy one of them Gripper Foorkes ties myself. Being a Kiwi, I don’t need none of that asbestos stuff, though. Do you think you could knock me one up for Saturday? We’re playing the Aussies at rugby, and me and the lads are off out drinking in Earl’s Court. Imagine a packed Aussie pub, they’ve just lost to the All Blacks, and I set light to me tie. Them wallaby boys won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“Consider it done, mate. Consider it done.”

Tags: blog, comedy, computers, creative writing, ENTERTAINMENT, fiction, humor, Information Technology, stories, urban fiction, workplace humor

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Information Technology

A Carry on with Camels

27 Dec

As a Christmas bonus, here is one of my older pieces that originally ran in a Reed Publications magazine some years ago. Enjoy!

Occasionally you run into an IT manager, who for some reason unbeknown to anyone other than themselves, a deft salesman and perhaps a nosy waiter has bought a right old donkey of a system, which, no matter how hard it’s pushed will ever perform the service for which it was intended. Even if we were to allow a bit of leeway, like the odd millennium or two, the donkey would still be a donkey: long eared, lonely and unhappy, but available for long summers on Blackpool sea-front, in return for lodgings and a bale of hay a week.

Quite often, the manager in question leaves before his donkey is discovered. Or, as in my last equine experience, the company folds due to one donkey mouth too many to feed. This leaves said manager none the wiser as to his mistake and ready to install donkey #2, the ‘Son of Donk’, come the next job. It’s sort of sad for donkeys without aspirations, especially when they’re both bought and sold as something they’re obviously not.

But enough of donkeys. We’ve all seen one before now. A donkey is a donkey, game, set and match; end of story. I’m not here to moralise about Ee-haws, but rather to relate the tale of the project manager who was sold a camel, in order to fulfil what seemed like a perfectly reasonable requirement at the time, but which when put under scrutiny later, left many people scratching their heads in dismay.

Tag

“You should see what they’re ordering to support the new Fabbo billing system. Oodles of hardware and more bits besides,” one of my colleagues confided. “I even saw a camel on the spec sheet. Is that some kind of super-duper UNIX box or what?”

“No, a First World War biplane,” I replied sarcastically, ”as in Sopworth. One propeller, no humps.”

Colleague number two looked up from his desk. “I think you’ll find that it’s actually a real camel – one hump, no propeller. I was in the strategy meeting yesterday, when they decided to buy it as a value added option.”

“No, you jest! What do we know about camels?” my first colleague asked suspiciously.

“Sod all and then less.” I wasn’t really in the mood for a joke. “You two will just have to go on a camel intensive training course, probably in Saudi,” I added. And then as an afterthought, “Fortunately, they don’t let unqualified contractors anywhere near new kit, which means that I’m as safe as houses.”

Which was a perfectly reasonable mistake to make, given my relative camel naiveté. It’s a shame I didn’t manage to keep my mouth shut later, when the technical director collared me down the pub and asked me if I’d ever ridden a camel. Thinking the whole camel thing to be one huge joke at my expense, I was non too guarded in my reply.

“Of course I have. Rode for Britain once, in a race around the Pyramids,” I replied, failing to add that there were only two of us racing and the other party was so smashed on palm wine that he fell off within twenty yards of the start, thus presenting me with an automatic win.

“That’s good,” he replied. “It means I’ll only need to book someone on a mucking out course. Congratulations!” he offered me his hand. “By the way – you’re now officially on Camel Team as the riding consultant.”

Have you ever felt as though you’re ‘it’, in a game of career tag? I did, at that moment in time. In accord with my new found astonishment, my jaw began to do press-ups. “So it’s true then? We’re really getting a camel?”

“Yes, several actually. Management have already approved the budget. It’s all part and parcel of the new Fabbo billing system. I’m not sure exactly what the camels do yet, but rest assured they’ll become an important part of the architecture. We’re building systems for the future here, for years down the line. We might not see any immediate benefit, but it’s there.”

Oh, boy. Squirm as I might, I couldn’t change the technical director’s mind and get him to take his riding cap back. There aren’t many times I can think of when a contractor has been given the opportunity to train in a useless skill for free. Normally you have to pay good money for useless training. But nevertheless, this was about to be one of those instances when your real skill set increases whilst the experience you admit to on your CV decreases. Camel husbandry was not about to become one of my marketable assets. Goodness, no. Admit to something so specific and before you know it you’ve become so specialised that you’ll never get a job doing anything but.

Leapfrog

By now you should be asking yourself ‘Why exactly does an IT department need a camel?’

The answer is simple: because everyone else is still only thinking of buying one. Get in there first and you’re leading edge, lighting the way. Anything else is middle of the paper, or god forbid if you’re really out of date trailing edge, which just won’t do when you’re an IT Vice President boasting to your IT Vice President mates about how good and solid your IT strategy is. And therein lies your business justification, signed and sealed. Leading edge is cool, trailing edge isn’t.

“The installation of the Fabbo billing system at this point in time will allow the Company to leapfrog the opposition and take significant strides into uncharted territory.” said the IT VP at the departmental monthly brief some days later. “We’ll be the envy of every other IT department in the industry, as we become the first Company in the UK to implement this new and exciting technology. Camel Team are go! The eyes of the industry are upon us.”

All of which gave me no option for quitting straight away. There was however, one important decision which nobody had yet made. As with LAN technology (Token ring or Ethernet dear chap?), there are two different options available. Two types of camel to choose from. Do we go for Dromedary or Bactrian? One hump or two? It seems that the ISO committee haven’t finished beating each other up yet, so there’s a bit of a risk involved. There’s only a 50% chance that whoever makes the choice will get the standard right. Careers are made and broken on decisions like this. Which is it to be?

“As I’m not fully briefed on the technology and it’s still very new, I’ll let Camel Team make that choice,” said the technical director. “Of course, I shall take the glory if you get it right. My name will be in lights forever. Should you, ‘erm, choose unwisely, I doubt you’ll ever manage to get gainful employment again. Any of you.”

I made a mental note not to extend my contract once it expired and then got stuck into the business at hand, namely the specification of a camel standard. As I became more involved in the camel scenario, it became apparent that all was not quite what it seemed.

Pin the Tail

A salesman from the Blue Star company had persuaded the project manager in charge of specifying the new Fabbo billing system that it was in the Company’s interests to purchase an additional camel module for each of the new Systems boxes. That’s three camels in Head Office for the pilot system and one per remote site once the system begins to roll out proper. The project manager, who was a busy man with far too many golf meetings for far too few days in the week duly signed the initial order and then passed the responsibility for evaluation onto the technical director.

As the technical director was an unassuming sort of chap who was relatively new to the job and none too technical, he saw the job he’d inherited primarily as one of ‘installation dynamics’. In fact, he decided that as the project manager knew absolutely what he was doing without question (the project manager is God after all; his experience is unimpeachable, his vision unpollutable; he’s also costing the Company a small French Chateau a day, so everything he says must be right), there was actually no need for any kind of evaluation to take place. The IT Vice President had said the Fabbo new billing system is leading edge, which means that the camels must also be leading edge by dint of association. Therefore they’re extremely important and must be treated accordingly. What was originally only an add-on option had sneaked in the back door as a definite purchase and there was no going back on it.

My sarcastic comments were responsible for securing me the job of camel jockey, ready and raring to go. Which in turn made me the only recognised camel expert on site. Suddenly, I found I was not only responsible for riding – my knowledge had somehow elevated me to the status of ‘camel guru’ overnight, which in turn secured me the job of recommending which camel we invested in. And finally, as an afterthought I was also lumbered with the job of housing the wee humpy beasties when they arrived and making sure that no health and safety regulations were breached in the process.

Knowing the futility of trying to extricate myself from the whole mess, I decided I might as well ring around a few suppliers and get a feel for which type of camel to go for. It wasn’t easy, as both had their merits and pitfalls and the more people I talked to, the more the water became muddied. In the end, I stuck my finger in the air and pinned the tail on the Dromedary, which ate slightly less, and therefore left less residue.

Good for the computer room, but not so good for the mucking out team, who had been practising hard with anything sloppy that they could lay their hands on. This caused a minor fracas, which resulted in the technical director authorising the purchase of a fourth camel for head office, to keep the muckers happy.

Bummer! I’d spent a week re-designing the computer room and I’d not envisaged any camel expansion plans so early on. The only way to fit the extra camel in would be to extend the computer room by another ten feet and this would take time and money. I had an idea.

“How’s about we rack the camels sideways,” I suggested to the Blue Star Salesman. “That way we can fit four in without a problem.”

“Sorry mate,” he countered, quick as a flash. “Our horizontal camel racks won’t be ready for another six months. Here, what you need is a bigger computer room. Tell you what, I’ll do you a deal. Call my brother – he’s a builder; he’ll do you a nice price. To make it worth your while, there’s a curry and a crate of beer in it for you.”

None too soon, the hidden costs of camel technology were starting to wake from their heady slumber.

Three Legs

Due to the high profile situation, the computer room extension was signed off almost immediately. The salesman’s brother found himself on the end of a deal which was worth a King’s ransom and then some, which didn’t seem to bother him somehow. The building work was finished in near record time for a hefty bonus worth as much as the contract itself and the vertical camel racking installed.

Delivery day dawned. There was much excitement around the department, as the Dromedaries arrived in a big truck. It had been decided in advance by my colleagues that the camel with the lowest serial number would be called ‘Sopworth’, to remind me of the error of my ways during that initial blunder. As if I’d forget. It’s not the sort of mistake that passes you by just like that. Grrr.

The truck parked up and the camels were led in rather hastily by a heavily bearded Camel Specialist, whose payment terms included four FA Cup Final tickets, simply for holding a piece of old rope. Without a sound he extracted payment, checked his tickets to make sure they were genuine, nodded and left rapidly. There was no ‘please’, no ‘thank you’, nothing. Training? Forget it. It was left to Camel team (i.e. me) to take stock of the situation and figure out what was happening.

“Here,” remarked my first colleague, checking serial numbers. “Sopworth has only got three legs!”

“So he has,” I said embarrassed. “We better check them all thoroughly, to make sure that nothing else is missing.”

I supposed that one faulty camel out of four wasn’t a bad failure rate, although I didn’t really know for definite. I called the supplier anyway, as you do under such circumstances.

“A missing leg? No! You don’t say. I’ve never seen that before in my life. I knew we should have had them in here before sending them out.”

“You mean you didn’t check them first?”

“No mate, we were in a bit of a hurry. They were shipped straight from the Gulf see.”

“So they’ve not been tested at all?”

“Here look, it’s not a problem – you’ve got my word.”

“And the missing leg?”

“Don’t worry about it. The camel will still work fine without it.”

“That’s not the point. It’s damaged.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Look, I’m smack bang out of camels at the moment.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“I’ll send you a new one when the next shipment arrives. Bye.”

Sack Race

The camel thing – that was ages ago now, but it still seems like only yesterday. It was a bit of a nightmare towards the end, when everything became rather too frantic for my liking. I wasn’t sure at one point whether I was competing in a scorpion filled sack race or a marathon over broken glass.

You know, I’d almost forgotten about the incident, until I overheard two people talking on the train the other day.

“My friend has just started working for a new company and guess what?”

“What?”

“They’ve got camels in their computer room.”

“Really? I didn’t think anyone bought any.”

“Not many people did. They were only popular for about two months and then the industry standardised on monitor lizards.”

“Yes, I remember that now. Anyway, these camels. What do they do exactly?”

“To be honest, I haven’t got a clue. My mate says they’re ultra reliable though. They never go wrong. One of the camels has only got three legs and it still works fine. He said he found a spare leg in the store cupboard, but it’s never been taken out of its box. The fitting instructions got lost, apparently.”

“Typical. Were they expensive?”

“I’d say! They were an arm and a you-know-what to purchase, the hump upkeep costs are horrendous and the yearly maintenance, well: I could purchase a luxury cruiser for less.”

“Why did they buy them in the first place then?”

“God only knows. But then who knows why anything happens in this industry? I know I don’t…”

Tags: blog, camels, comedy, computers, consultant, ENTERTAINMENT, fiction, humor, Information Technology, IT, snippet, stories, urban fiction

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Categories Information Technology

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The Ferret Files

How to Launch a Successful e-book in 10 Easy Steps (parody)

The Petrollica Affair (vii)

The Petrollica Affair (vi)

The Petrollica Affair (v)

The Petrollica Affair (iii)

The Petrollica Affair (ii)

It’s a Pope-ish Kind of Day

The Morality of Super Powers

Tie Wars

A Carry on with Camels

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