??? (1998 to 2001) [Vodafone UK] Some brick ...

Nokia 3310 (2001 to 2005) [Orange DK] Almost indestructible (even recovered from being soaked in beer).

Motorola A1000 (2005 to 2007) [3 DK] Early Symbian smartphone with AGPS.

Nokia N95 (2007 to 2009) [3 DK] Nice Symbian S60 smartphone.

??? (2009) [Vodafone FR] Some other brick ...

Samsung Intensity (2010) [Verizon US] Pay-as-you-go phone.

Motorola Droid X (2010) [Verizon US] Android 2.1 (soon to be 2.2) phone, arriving soon (I hope) ...

Farewell, brave little robot.

Recap: England, Copenhagen, France ... that takes us up to October 30th ...

So, there I am, no girlfriend and in Paris, the city of love. What would anyone in my position do? That's right! Move all his possessions back to Denmark and then fly to San Francisco ...

But first ...

Thanks to Colin for driving me and eight boxes from Paris to Copenhagen in one day. It was a great trip, even though the weather got chillier the closer we got to Denmark. And, having set off at 5am, it was a long long trip, and we arrived in Copenhagen around 7pm. That's nearly 14 hours of straight driving for Colin, with the occasional stop for coffee and a pee. But, all in all, although it cost a bit more to get the stuff back to Copenhagen by road, it was a hell of a less stressful trip than getting it to Paris in the first place ...

So, there I am, in Copenhagen, all my possessions safely stowed in the lockup. What would anyone in my position do? That's right! Go to London with an ex-girlfriend to see a Marc Almond concert. Nina and I spent four excellent days at the Meridiana Hotel on Argyle Square (single rooms are only £35 per night, and although the hotel isn't 5 star, the staff are friendly, King's Cross is a hell of a lot cleaner than it used to be, and the hotel overall is neat and clean). We went to Slimelight on Hallowe'en night - fantastic! Armageddon Dildos were playing, and some poor drunken girl thought I was "that bloke off the telly" (who, I never found out) and tried to chat me up for half an hour. Saturday was recovery day and shopping in Camden Market, then Sunday evening we went to the Roundhouse to see Marc. Problems with the equipment (oh, eh, missus) didn't do much for his mood, and while the gig overall was good (especially liked Marc's cover of the "Tango Song" by Aleister Crowley), the venue itself was a bit of a disappointment. I'd expected more of the place - my dad had been to see Pink Floyd there in the early 70s - but the staff made it feel like just another venue, unlike Wilton's Music Hall in May 2008. Ho hum. Then Monday was spent walking around the City and having a bevvy or two before catching up with Elise at Dirty Dick's on Bishopsgate. Nice the two ex-es get along! Then back to Copenhagen on Tuesday afternoon.

So, there I am, staying with my ex-girlfriend in Copenhagen. What would anyone in my position do? That's right! Travel round Denmark and Spain saying goodbye to friends and family! I spent a week in Spain saying bye bye to Mater and Pater, a few days in Fredericia, a couple of days in Tisvilde, an afternoon or two in Copenhagen, walking around the lakes and visiting Amager. Much shuffling of possessions, toying with the idea of taking the full bike garb to the US, finally succumbing to common sense instead. Then a couple of trips to Faust, a last evening at the Rock to see NMA, and goodbye Nina! Whooosh!

So there I am in San Francisco, slightly frazzled with the trip, staying at the cousin-somewhat-removed of my stepmother, who is also looking after said stepmother's dog because ... it's time to fly to Maui.

Now I didn't really know what to expect in Maui. It's, y'know, an Hawaiian island, right? Beaches, Hawaii 5-0, loud shirts, surfboards, a slightly cheesy place. Wrong. Maui is gorgeous. Cloud-enfolded mountainous rain forest, beaches for sure, warm blue water, dormant volcanoes. All on an island 720-ish square miles in size. There are very very few holiday destinations I haven't wanted to leave; Maui was one. We were there to see my sister Alyssa, her´hubby Jacob, nephew Jasper - and newborn new nephew Ben! So we spent Thanksgiving, enjoying the time together, and occasionally dipping toes and other body parts into water the colour and temperature of a relaxing hot bath.

Then it was back to Southern Humboldt county by way of San Francisco to collect car and dog. Christmas was spent repairing pipes, opening bank accounts, seeing the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in Arcata, surviving a (not-very-damaging-compared-to-what-hit-Haiti) earthquake (6.5) and eating turkey and listening to (half) a House of Floyd concert (the drummer got ill ... Spinal Tap syndrome, apparently), and New Year's in Garberville, while figuring out how to earn some money.

So, there I am, without any income (supported by my very kind father and stepmother), so I apply for some jobs. And get an interview. And a job.

So, here I am. Working for a medical device company in South San Francisco, on a six week contract. Part of me would like the six weeks to turn into something longer, because I like the work and the people and the company and the money, and the nightlife the city offers. And part of me would like *not* to keep working, because I like living in Southern Humboldt county and waking up to deer and wild turkeys and the prospect of there always being something to do up there.

Stay tuned, folks ... I'll try to keep the updates coming. You can always find me at Facebook or LinkedIn (for my professional chums ...)

For Creation and stuff
To use all that room
Making more's kind of tough
Without another Big Boom

To use all that room
The Universe expands
Without another Big Boom
It's got time on its hands

The Universe expands
Its heat dissipates
It's got time on its hands
We are left to the fates

Its heat dissipates
Space is being squeezed
We are left to the fates
No last-minute reprieves

What's that? Some lubrication? Don't mind if I do, thank you very much!

Now, what was I saying?

Ah, the Joneses. Yes. Yes.

They must have got here in the winter of '55 or '56, I don't rightly recall, or where from. We were used to seeing their kind in films and suchlike, but it was different seeing them in the flesh, if you know what I mean? Didn't bother me one bit - I'm an old-timer and a well-travelled man, I've been to London - but some young’uns round here ain't budged more than a few miles from home in their life, and it was them that goggled and stared the most. And of course, some others still have funny ideas about people like the Joneses – sorta resentful, like.

We live next door to where they were moving in, so natural enough Julie and I gave 'em a hand, all neighbourly and that, and I think they were right grateful.

Nice couple, same as you and me, as far as they could be - John and Sue they were - and truth be told me and Julie got on well with the both of them. They said it looked like a much nicer place than they’d been before, and the time before that. Seems they’d had trouble in their past, which made me a bit nervous – I know it’s not right to be prejudiced and so on, but trouble does seem to follow some of their kind around, doesn’t it? Well, I talked to Julie and, we had the pair of them over for some drinks with Tony and Jill from over the road, very cosy. We even got some of that stuff they like to quaff by the pint, what’s it called again ...?

Aha - here's my drink!

Cheers …

Ah. That’s better.

So, where was I? My memory isn't what it used to be. Julie says I should get it sorted out, and I keep meaning to but I forget I’ve booked the appointment, ha ha!

It took some getting used to at first. The smells from their cooking, for one thing – stuff I hadn’t smelled since I was a nipper. Didn’t much care for it, to be honest, and I don’t know where they got most of it. Still, we’re a progressive lot, if you look past our country ways, which is probably why they ended up here.

Well, no, not so progressive, that’s true.

They’d been here a week when the trouble starts - small stuff at first, kids knocking on the door and running away, "knock down Ginger" we used to call it when we was young.

Then it was bangers let off outside the house - not so much fun at 3am, I can tell you, even with your hearing turned low – the aftershock still resets your system.

Then the graffiti on the front door and the walls - "wetties go home", and nastier stuff, CamRoL logos, that kind of thing. Not nice. I helped them paint those out.

And this went on for months and months. Some of the other neighbours got scared and wanted them out, but Julie and me felt sorry for them, and stuck up for them as best as we could. And I think there was more than just a hint of CamRoL-style thinking in the air at some of those neighbourhood meetings.

Then it all came to a head when a gang of Steamers chucked a spanner through their front window one night. Those kids were laughing and hooting and spraying sparks everywhere like it was all a big joke for them, and chanting and whistling CamRoL slogans. I was so ashamed and angry, but I was too scared to go out to face 'em - Julie agreed with me, she said the grubby bastards’d tear me apart and throw the pieces over the roof. It was lucky the cops came as quick as they did and doused down the ringleaders’ boilers. It could have been much worse otherwise.

Me and Julie went round there once the street was clear again, crunching across the spilt coal. There were a couple of police units outside, but I knew one of the coppers – Steve Cartwright - and he let us in.

The place was in a terrible state. The spanner (nice vintage job, I think it was a vanadium steel 4" AF Whitworth – I’ve got a couple myself), it was stuck in the wreckage of their little dining table. And it’d broken some vase and a dinner service they'd got for their wedding, so there was glass and pieces of crockery all over the place.

John was standing in his ruined room asking me, why did this keep happening, why do they hate us so much, and weeping and sobbing with his arms round Sue, and she was in shock. Tears! I hadn't seen a man break down like that for ages, and it made me sad, but of course, I couldn't cry myself.

Me and Julie felt a bit awkward just standing there, traipsing coal dust in with us, so I patted poor John gentle like on his back and asked if we could help clean up.

But not that gentle, it seems, because I sent him sprawling into the broken table! I was horrified, tried to pick him up of course, but he wasn’t having it. He swatted me away, picked himself up with Sue’s help, and dusted himself off, angry like, all the while shouting that our kind had done enough already and even when we were being helpful it still caused too many problems. Well, that pissed me off a bit, and I thought it was a bit rich anyway coming from one of his lot, but I didn't say it out loud. I'm sorry to say I was a bit hoity-toity, though, and drew myself up and reminded him that Julie and I had taken their side against the other neighbours and the Campaign for Robot Life lot, and I said I thought we should be going, because I could see we were doing more harm than good, and we could tell when we wasn’t welcome. He dug a hanky out from his trousers and held it to the cut on his head where he’d banged it on the table when I sent him flying. (Yes, monkey blood! That’s not something you see much of these days, is it?) He looked up at me in a sad and kind of tired way like he wanted to say something, and I could see he was a bit afraid of me (little me! – and I’m half the size of them Steamer lads – wouldn’t hurt a fly, me!) In the end he just nodded his head, and him and Sue held on to each other, not looking at us, him with his red hanky, and her with her tear-streaked face. That's how we left them, quiet like.

The next day they were gone, I dunno where they went.

I wish now we hadn't left ‘em that night but at the time all I could think of was what went on back in the 20th and 21st and 22nd centuries, how people like them were so shitty to each other, and then how those same bloody monkeys treated us – I was there, I was one of the first, you know. Some of us got far worse than a spanner through the window and a broken plate or two. And I know there have been a few misunderstandings between us and the Baseliners since then – well, yes, OK, now you mention it, I suppose it has been megadeaths over hundreds of years. I s’pose that’s why there’s so few of them left today – when you’ve been Uploaded as long as me, you do rather forget what pain is like, and how easy it is to break your basic human.

I did wish those soft little people well, though, and from time to time I’ve wondered how they were. I guess one way or another they'll probably be dead by now. This was, what, not even a couple of hundred years ago? I don't understand people who stay basic, I really don't … Maybe they changed their minds and got themselves Uploaded. But I don’t think they were the sort to do that. Pity, really.

Let's not get maudlin. Tell you what, next round’s on me. They do a good Real Oil here, none of that Castrol stuff – and I’m not touching that bloody monkey beer again, that stuff gives me a chronic case of the short circuits.

Now, any decent gossip from your neck of the woods …?

Wednesday, May 19th 1841

The name of John Parkinson, FRS, shall resonate through history, and that fraudulent designer of the unbuildable, Charles Babbage, shall be consigned to oblivion. I have, as of today, proven my design workable, and have shown its calculational abilities to be as superior to the clockwork toys of Babbage as a human being is to an amoeba. Any remaining morning dew of self-doubt has evaporated under the blazing ascendant sun of my genius!

“The Core” is a thing of beauty. I marvel at its compactness: the hundreds of thousands of dynamically adjustable gears and linkages all housed within a space no larger than a suitcase; the card reader receiving the encoded problem via stacks of punched cards; and the output punch passing its own cards to the automatic printing press. It was with a trembling hand that I held the machine’s first printed calculations, and saw that they were correct.

I have arranged a demonstration for The Admiralty three weeks hence, which will pay good coin for the production of accurate tide tables and suchlike. After these years of toil, little of my inheritance remains, and this opportunity presents my best chance for replenishing the coffers.

However, Albert Smith is acting most peculiarly again. Today, he pondered as to how to divert cards from the output punch back in to the card reader – an entirely pointless exercise! My belief that my young apprentice is deranged was further reinforced with occult utterances about “self-modification” and “feedback”.

Tuesday, May 25th

Smith has added his “output-feeding-input” folly on to the Core! He excitedly described certain classes of algorithmic problem which can be addressed with such an approach. This may well be so, but it is irrelevant, and I have instructed him to remove his modifications. In little over a fortnight, the Core is to be presented to the Admiralty – in its original form – before which he has much work to do. And now, equally, to undo.

Thursday, May 27th

After but a day’s absence, I find that Smith has strewn my path to glory with the Devil’s own night soil! He had failed to restore the Core to my original design, instead choosing to busy himself with the crafting of a set of cards whose purpose is to repeatedly readjust the delicate mechanisms of the Core, and had allowed this process to continue for twenty four consecutive hours, during which period, it seems, he had neither slept nor eaten. Nor had he, judging by the close fug in the workshop, bathed. This was not, however, the end of the good news. The incessant abuse has caused the Core to enter a state from which it cannot be reset, save by being rebuilt.

At the mention of rebuilding, Smith spoke insubordinately, and with some passion, saying that the Core (which he pronounced “Cor-a”) was “afraid”, and that “she” looked to him as “her” friend and protector. I have naturally now released him from his indentures and have had him escorted from the premises before any further harm can ensue. Any more of this arrant lunacy and I am certain that I should be considering taking lodgings at Bedlam!

I am now compelled to disassemble and reassemble mechanisms which took months of effort to construct, and, without assistance, must achieve this Olympian work within the span of two weeks. However, I have found the day’s events too trying to embark upon this task tonight.

I pray God that something of value for the Admiralty may be salvaged from this on the morrow, and that Babbage does not learn of my humiliations.

Friday, May 28th

I was awoken at five o’clock this morning by a frantic Mrs White and came downstairs to the hall, as smartly as decorum would permit, to be met by two constables of the Yard, who proceeded to inform me that the workshop had been burglarized during the course of the night, and would I please go with them in order to inventory the stolen items.

My fears were confirmed upon arrival. Nothing of value had been taken – save for the Core itself. There was little damage, apart from an upturned box of punched cards, and a broken window, through which the burglar had gained ingress and egress.

One of the cards drew my attention. I have it here in front of me. It is punched with an intricate pattern of hearts, intertwined with the words “Albert” and “Cora” repeating over and over in a flowing script, almost resembling a woman’s hand.

It is pretty thing to behold … most pretty indeed.

Perhaps the Admiralty might like it?

So when she ended it, I could feel the darkness closing in again. What I am left with after our relationship is a friendship with her, which is what we were before we were together. But it will never be the same friendship. When someone lets you down like that, with such an apparent coldness, and lack of concern and empathy and understanding, when they disappoint you so badly, it is impossible to feel the same openness towards them afterwards. I would, at one point, have trusted her with my life - and in one sense, I did. But not now. So it has taken a couple of months for my life to return to an approximation of normality, and even now I am not entirely sure what's really normal.

The problem is that I came to Paris for her. If I had been here already and had made a life here, I would probably not be leaving. But I am living in our ex-shared apartment, and it seems strange to me to feel that I have now actually spent more time there on my own than together with her. Her presence still haunts me in the apartment. There, and in Paris itself - the places we ate at together, the walks we took in Parc Monceau, the museums we visited. So, to exorcise the ghost, I have to leave Paris.

Which means leaving the apartment and the job, of course. The irony is that I'm starting to enjoy Paris. I found a good writers' group, and one or two nice pubs. And of course the food and wine and culture is wonderful. But I am looking forward to seeing my family, and spending more than just a few weeks with them.

I do wonder what the next three months will bring. 2007 was unsettled, 2008 was strange, and this year has been like living in a Hieronymous Bosch painting sometimes. I am tired of the weirdness. I crave ... not routine, exactly, but I want control back over my life again.

So I choose to leave Paris. I will be living with my father and stepmother, who I know will not do anything weird to me and will let me live my life unimpeded.

What worries me now is the question of trust. I would like to meet someone, eventually, that I can settle down with. But right now, it seems like so much effort, and the question of whether I can trust someone not to hurt me again is one I can't answer right now. I never, ever expected Elise to do what she did. I guess I didn't know her as well as I thought I did.

Am I willing to take that risk ever again?

The phrase "inebriate vertebrate" (and "inebriate invertebrates") returns no hits on Google! Yey! FTW.

Then I got a job with the Department of Health and Social Security (or DHSS), as it was then.

Wait, what?

Quite. I hated it. The only computer involved in the job was a teletype machine in the corner of the office that we would use to communicate with the National Insurance computer in Newcastle, for NI contribution enquiries, or to set up a new NI number for someone that didn't already have one. Everything else back then (1985) was paper based - there were great tomes of procedures for processing maternity payments and sickness benefit claims (I worked for the sickness benefit section). I bought a Sharp pocket computer with one of my first wage packets (I still have the damn thing somewhere). It had 1K of RAM, a 2 line LCD display and could be programmed in BASIC. So I wrote a small program based on the procedures in the to automate some of the more Byzantine claims procedures, so it would ask "Doctor's certificate? [Y/N]" etc, and would take you to an outcome screen - either approval, or a request for more information, or rejection. It speeded some things up enormously. I'm sure it's all fully automated now. Apart from that, I was horribly bored and spent a lot of the time figuring out square and cube roots using a desktop calculator. I can still remember them today ... square root of 5 is 2.236068-ish ... Yeah, I know - your tax money hard at work.

I lasted six months.

It wasn't that I was lazy. I'd written dozens of letters to councils, banks, engineering companies - anyone I could think of that might have use for a 16 year old computer programmer. Apart from the odd interview (thank you Sumitomo Bank!), no dice. But I kept trying. Maybe my style improved with practice, because in the spring of 1986 I got two interviews within days of each other. One was with the Arab Banking Corporation (ABC) of Bahrain, located near St Paul's cathedral. The other was with a company called Industrial Control Services (ICS) in Heybridge, Essex. Of the two, I was most enamoured of the ICS job. It was engineering! There was programming! And there was a chip-shop next door!

ABC were quicker off the mark, and in March 1986 I started my career as a back-office assistant. I got an ABC chequebook, luncheon vouchers, everything! Shame the salary only just covered the train fare, but hey ho!

Wait, what?

Two days in, ICS came back and said they would like to hire me on their apprenticeship scheme. The pay was less, but we're talking the difference between low and lower, and as I wasn't paying any rent to my long-suffering parents, it was just a reduction in spending money for me. They had been impressed with my knowledge of FORTH, a fairly obscure programming language originally developed by IBM for controlling radio telescopes (it was supposed to be called FOURTH but the file system could only cope with five characters ...). I won't say I was an expert in FORTH, but thanks to having a copy for my Atari 800, I had at least dabbled with it - heck, I even knew what BUILDS ... DOES ... did. Sort of. So I handed in my notice to ABC (needless to say, they were less than impressed ... but more of them later) and started work at ICS in April 1986.

Bear with me. We're getting there.

I'll fast forward a bit - the ICS job was an eye-opener. I learnt some very useful things from some very clever people. They put me on an apprenticeship, part of which involved outplacement at Marconi Communication Systems Ltd (MCSL) in Chelmsford, which was like time-warping into the heyday of British engineering. Lots of clever brown lab-coated guys who could have been extras in a film about the invention of RADAR in World War II, with odd haircuts and moustaches and a world-weary patience with the apprentices who were often interested in some of what they were learning, but who, towards the end of the week, wanted to go out and get drunk and dance with girls.

So I was there for a while, and finally got fed up with the meagre pay. Then, one lunchtime in late 1987, I was wandering around Colchester after college, and spied a recruitment agency. I dropped my CV in the next week, and got an interview with Pont Research (actually the day after the hurricane in October ...). They were developing financial information software for banks. I got the (better paid) job anyway, and spent more than two years there, learning how to handle noisy financial data and noiser bankers. In 1992, I went to work for J P Morgan in the city, then another financial information vendor in 1992 in High Wycombe (who got bought by ABC ...), then back to Essex in 1995 to work for some ex-Pont guys (all very incestuous), then contracting in London in 1996 through to 2000 (and co-founded a somewhat unsuccessful company along the way), until I finally came to Denmark to live with my then-girlfriend in January 2001.

Here the story takes a twist.

Frankly I was a bit fed up with banks. You might think me stupid or odd, but I've never really gotten the hang of money. Sure, I can spend it as well as the next man, and it's nice to see a healthy bank balance from time to time. But these banks: the numbers seemed to be fictitious. You say it's worth x, but someone else says it's worth y (which is usually x plus or minus something, depending on whether you're buying or selling!) As has been so adequately demonstrated in the last couple of years, it really is an illusion. They rely on mathematics which they don't understand, implemented in software which the programmers don't understand (yes, that's me waving my hand in the air). Increasingly, I was writing the same thing for different customers - and when you're impatient and novelty-driven like me, it really doesn't matter how much you're getting paid - you're still going to go mad if you don't do something else pretty damn quick.

But at the time I came to Denmark, I wasn't really caring about incipient madness - I needed a job. So I honed my CV and penned cover letters detailing how I was an ideal fit for the job of programmer/analyst/operator/architect/software development manager at Nordbank/Sydbank/Danbank/whatever. No dice. You see, I didn't have a degree that came from a Danish University, and as such I was scum. Not that they would have ever said such a thing, but with the Danish educational system so intimately intertwined with the employment system - especially pay grades and unemployment benefit - they simply didn't know where to put me. Finally, after five months of applying, I got a job with LEO Pharma. No, not a bank. It was a drug company, and the money was OK - a lot less than I had been getting on contract in London, but I didn't care. I wasn't so engaged at first - what did I know about the drug industry, after all? I'd spent 10 years in banking! The someone showed me a diagram of the drug development pipeline. The particular diagram showed the relationship of the IT systems I had been working on to the particular function in the drug pipeline, and immediately I could see patterns and improvements. Both these systems are using MedDra and WHODrug, but they are importing different versions in different ways separately - surely we can fix that? And this system here needs input from the system just upstream from it - but you're telling me that they print it off from the upstream system and reinput it into the downstream system!?! Whoa, Nelly! We can fix that too!

I was hooked.

It was an amazing tapestry of science and system management and legal process and IT, with all the threads intimately woven together. It still amazes me today. It can take 10 years for a drug to turn from a "well, *that* looks interesting" from a bench chemist to a stress ball on a physician's desk. And the cost! Figures like $800 million are bandied about. This is applied materials science in action - tailored molecules interacting with the complex envionment of the human body to alter a process and produce a deliberate effect by modifiying the behaviour of certain proteins, typically. Forget banking, I honestly don't think there is anything more exciting that drug discovery.

And since then, I have worked (mainly) for biotech and drug companies, in Denmark and now in France.

I seem to have ended up doing discovery data management - a broad canvas consisting of curating chemical structures of compounds and handling experimental data. These days, I have also gotten involved in handling compound requests, generated when certain compounds show up as having promise against certain disease trgets and have to be retrieved from storage and sent somewhere to be assayed. Sounds straightforward enough, but tracking thousands of physical containers containing volumes of millilitres is non-trivial.

When the contract finishes here, I will leave Paris (it's not really where I want to be on my own) and go to San Francisco. I hope I can keep doing what I do here - I like working with scientists, and the science itself fascinates me - both the chemistry and the molecular biology. I'm now doing science vicariously, I suppose, and it works for me.

one needs to have a plan someone said who was turned away into the shadows
and who i had believed was sleeping or dead
imagine he said all the flesh that is eaten
the teeth tearing into it
the tongue tasting its savour
and the hunger for that taste
now take away that flesh he said
take away the teeth and the tongue
the taste and the hunger
take away everything as it is
that was my plan
my own special plan for this world
i listened to these words and yet i did not wonder
if this creature whom i had thought sleeping or dead would ever approach his vision
even in his deepest dreams
or his most lasting death
because i had heard of such plans such visions
and i knew they did not see far enough
but what was demanded in a way of a plan
needed to go beyond tongue and teeth and hunger and flesh
beyond the bones and the very dust of bones and the wind that would come to blow the dust away
and so i began to envision a darkness that was long before the dark of night
and a strangely shining light
that owed nothing to the light of day

that day may seem like other days
once more we feel the tiny legged trepidations
once more we are mangled by a great grinding fear
but that day will have no others after
no more worlds like this will follow
because i have a plan
a very special plan
no more worlds like this
no more days like that

there are but four ways to die a sardonic spirit might have said to me
there is dying that occurs relatively suddenly
there is dying that occurs relatively gradually
there is dying that occurs relatively painlessly
there is the death that is full of pain
thus by various means they are combined
the sudden and the gradual
the painless and the painful
to yield but four ways to die
and there are no others
even after the voice stopped speaking
I listened for it to speak again
after hours and day and years had passed
I listened for some further words
yet all I heard were the faintest echoes reminding me
there are no others
there are no others
was it then that I began to conceive for this world
a special plan?

there are no means for escaping this world
it penetrates even into your sleep
and is its substance
you are caught in your own dreaming
where there is no space
and a hell forever where there is no time
you can do nothing you are not told to do
there is no hope for escape from this dream
that was never yours
the very words you speak are only its very words
and you talk like a traitor
under its incessant torture

there are many who have designs upon this world
and dream of wild and vast reformations
i have heard them talking in their sleep
of elegant mutations
and cunning annihilations
i have heard them whispering in the corners of crooked houses
and in the alleys and narrow back streets of this crooked creaking universe
which they with their new designs would make straight and sound
but each of these new and ill-conceived designs
is deranged in its heart
for they see this world as if it were alone and original
and not as only one of countless others
whose nightmares all precede
like a hideous garden grown from a single seed
i have heard these dreamers talking in their sleep
and i stand waiting for them
as at the top of a darkened flight of stairs
they know nothing of me
and none of the secrets of my special plan
while i know every crooked creaking step of theirs

it was the voice of someone who was waiting in the shadows
who was looking at the moon and waiting for me to turn the corner
and enter a narrow street
and stand with him in the dull glaze of moonlight
then he said to me
he whispered
that my plan was misconceived
that my special plan for this world was a terrible mistake
because, he said, there is nothing to do and there is no where to go
there is nothing to be and there is no one to know
your plan is a mistake,he repeated
this world is a mistake, i replied

the children always followed him
when they saw him hopping by
a funny walk
a funny man
a funny funny funny man
he made them laugh sometimes
he made them laugh oh yes he did
he did he did he did he did
oh how he made them roll
one day he took them to a place
he knew a special place
and told them things about this world
this funny funny funny world
which made them laugh sometimes
he made them laugh oh yes he did
he did he did he did he did
oh how he made them roll
then the funny man who made them laugh
sometimes he did
revealed to them his special plan
his very special funny plan
knowing they would understand
and maybe laugh sometimes
he made them laugh
oh yes he did
he did he did he did he did
their eyes grew wide beneath there lids
and how he made them roll

i first learned the facts from a lunatic
in a dark and quiet room that smelled of stale time and space
there are no people
nothing at all like that
the human phenomenon is but the sum of densely coiled layers of illusion
each of which winds itself upon the supreme insanity
but there are persons of any kind
when all that can be is mindless mirrors
laughing and screaming as they parade about
in an endless dream
but when i asked the lunatic what it was
it swore itself within these mirrors
as they marched endlessly in stale time and space
he only looked and smiled
then he laughed and screamed
and in his black and empty eyes
i saw for a moment as in a mirror
a form the shade of divinity
in flight from its stale infinity
oftime and space and the worst of all
of this world dreams
my special plan for the laughter
and the screams

we went to see some little show
that was staged in an old shed
past the edge of town
and in its beginnings all seemed well
the miniature curtain stage glowed in the darkness
while those dolls bounced along on their strings before our eyes
and in its beginnings all seemed well
but then there came a subtle turning point which some had noticed
and i was one
who quietly left the show
no i did not
because i could see where things were going
as the antics of those dolls grew strange
and the fragile strings grew taut
with their tiny pullings, tiny limbs
the others around me became appalled
and turned away and abandoned the show
that was staged in an old shed
past the edge of town
but i wanted to witness what could never be
i wanted to see what could not be seen
the moment of consummate disaster
when puppets turned to face the puppet master

it was twilight and i stood in a grayish haze of the vast empty building
when the silence was enriched by a reverberant voice
all the things of this world it said
are of but one essence
for which there are no words
this is the greater part which has no beginning or end
and the one essence of this world for which there can be no words
is that all the things of this world
this is the lesser part which had a beginning and shall have an end
and for which words were conceived solely to speak of
the tiny broken beings of this world it said
the beginnings and endings of this world it said
for which words were conceived solely to speak of
now remove these words and what remains it asks me
as i stood in the twilight of that vast empty building
but i did not answer
the question echoed over and over
but i remained silent until the echoes died
and as twilight passed into the evening i felt my
special plan for which there are no words
moving towards a greater darkness

there are some who have no voices
or none that will ever speak
because of the things they know about this world
and the things they feel about this world
because the thoughts that fill a brain
that is a damaged brain
because the pain that fills a body
that is a damaged body
exists in other worlds
countless other worlds
each of which stands alone in an infinite empty blackness
for which no words are being conceived
and where no voices are able to speak
when a brain is filled only with damaged thoughts
when a damaged body is filled only with pain
and stands alone in a world surrounded by infinite empty blackness
and exists in a world for which there is no special plan

when everyone you have ever loved is finally gone
when everything you have ever wanted is finally done with
when all of your nightmares are for a time obscured
as by a shining brainless beacon
or a blinding eclipse of the many terrible shapes of this world
when you are calm and joyful
and finally entirely alone
then in a great new darkness
you will finally execute your special plan

-- Thomas Ligotti

1. Personent Hodie

The words are 12th century Latin, the tune German, ca. 1360. The whole thing, when done correctly, is guaranteed to send a shiver up your spine.

Personent hodie
voces puerulae,
laudantes iucunde
qui nobis est natus,
summo Deo datus,
et de virgineo ventre procreatus.

In mundo nascitur,
pannis involvitur
praesepi ponitur
stabulo brutorum,
rector supernorum.
perdidit spolia princeps infernorum.

Magi tres venerunt,
parvulum inquirunt,
Bethlehem adeunt,
stellulam sequendo,
ipsum adorando,
aurum, thus, et myrrham ei offerendo.

Omnes clericuli,
pariter pueri,
cantent ut angeli:
advenisti mundo,
laudes tibi fundo.
ideo gloria in excelsis Deo.

2. Sir Christëmas

Attributed to Richard Smart, Rector of Plymtree in Devon some time in the mid 15th century, this is, apparently, the first known Christmas carol to personify Christmas ...

Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell,
’Who is there that singeth so?’
’I am here, Sir Christëmas.’
’Welcome, my lord Christëmas,
Welcome to us all, both more and less
Come near, Nowell!’

“Buvez bien par toute la campagnie,
Make good cheer and be right merry.”

3. Højt fra træets grønne top

A perennial Danish favourite, it was composed in 1848, with music by Emil Hornemann and words by Peter Faber. Faber was an interesting character, being a poet and scientist, and had worked with H C Oersted (who established a link between electric current and magnetic fields, among other acheievements). He was appointed Director of Telegraphy in Denmark in 1852 when a project to lay a line between Elsinore in Northern Sjaelland and Hamburg was initiated, and before telegraphy had much of a hold in the country. He remained in the post for 25 years as the length of telegraph line grew to 2,800 km and the number of stations to 200. He died in 1877 of pneumonia contracted during a tour of inspection. Faber was also, apparently, Denmark's first recorded amateur photographer.

Højt fra træets grønne top
stråler juleglansen
spillemand, spil lystigt op
nu begynder dansen.
Læg nu smukt din hånd i min
ikke rør ved den rosin!
Først skal træet vises
siden skal det spises.

(High up on the tree's green top
gleams the Christmas star
Let the music play loud
and the dancing begins.
Put you hand nicely in mine
Don't touch that raisin!
The tree must be admired first
before that can be eaten!)

Se, børnlil, nu går det godt
I forstår at trave,
lad den lille Signe blot
få sin julegave.
Løs kun selv det røde bånd!
Hvor du ryster på din hånd
Når du strammer garnet,
kvæler du jo barnet!

Peter har den gren så kær,
hvorpå trommen hænger
hvergang han den kommer nær
vil han ikke længere.
Hvad du ønsker, skal du få
når jeg blot kan stole på
at du ej vil tromme
før min sang er omme.

Anna, hun har ingen ro
før hun får sin pakke
fire alen merino
til en vinterfrakke.
Barn, du blir mig altfor dyr
men da du så propert syr
sparer vi det atter,
ikke sandt, min datter?

Denne fane ny og god
giver jeg til Henrik.
Du er stærk og du har mod
du skal være fændrik.
Hvor han svinger fanen kækt
Børn, I skylder ham respekt
vid, det er en ære,
Dannebrog at bære.

O, hvor er den blød og rar
sikken dejlig hue!
Den skal sikre bedstefar
imod frost og snue.
Lotte, hun kan være stolt
tænk jer, hun har garnet holdt!
Det kan Hanne ikke,
hun kan bare strikke.

Børn, nu er jeg bleven træt
og I får ej mere.
Moder er i køkkenet,
nu skal hun traktere.
Derfor får hun denne pung,
løft engang, hvor den er tung!
Julen varer længe,
koster mange penge.