This column is brought to you courtesy of the Atex system. This is an old-fashioned piece of computer technology which, though management denies it, is driven by teams of Nubian slaves who haul oars in the bowels of the Irish Times building. Their oars drive a windlass, which is also connected to large sails on the Irish Times roof, and the combined power of ebony muscle and sou'westerly breeze brings you this newspaper.
And by ways that I do not understand, the column which I normally produce from my home is transmitted by electronic carrier pigeon to The Irish Times, where the kilowatt-hours being generated by zephyr and brawny Sudanese turn it into part of a newspaper, for you to soak up the accident left by the dog, or block the hole in the window. It is not smart. It is not chic - but, like the old hard type which it replaced, it works.
Computer room
But for how much longer? Word has it that the management in this newspaper - hard brutes whose chimneys are swept by whimpering Bengali orphans and who are not averse to a spot of cannibalism at certain stages in the moon's cycle - are going to put the Atex system down. One night, when the printers have all gone to their beds, and the laden lorries have left dispatch, about their mysterious delivery duties in all four corners of the country, management will strike. It take down its faithful garrotting wire from its place on the chimney-breast, even as within tiny Bengalis breathe their last, and silently steal to the computer room, where the heaving breasts of Nubians are finally at their rest. Without more ado, it will dispose of the lot.
Meanwhile, swarthy bemuscled assassins will be stealing up to the Irish Times roof. there to do the same to the Lascars who man the sails. Once the slaughter is complete, and Atex is disposed of by means perfected by Stalin, Hitler and the Irish Times Trust, we will then move on to a new computer regime called Hermes. Of this I can tell you nothing, only that I will be expected to file my copy by e-mail.
I am acquainted with e-mail. Let me tell you about e-mail. Whereas the foregoing has certain tiny exaggerations - merely in order to create a certain literary effect, you understand - what follows has not. The other day I spent over an hour trying to get onto the service I pay £20 a month for. I think I picked that service because my idiot brain saw the word "free" and thought, "That's the one for me." It's not free, of course, and it only works without a hitch at about 5.30 on a Sunday morning.
The rest of the time it declines to connect me, informing me that I have made an error and to please try again. Well, no, I haven't made an error, it's just oversubscribed. That is to say, the people who run it are selling its services even though they can't cope with the demand; and few things are as quite as damaging to the old heart and head as being confronted by expensive modern technology which is more inefficient than the technology which it is replacing, and which is costing you more and more money the longer you unproductively spend on line.
New technology
But that of course is the purpose of new technology: to make us spend more. Like almost everyone I know, I want to watch the Lions test matches from Australia; and presumably it was because of this widespread demand for it that all the British and the Irish terrestrial channels decided not even to buy the replay rights from Sky - except, that is, Channel Four Wales.
Why didn't one of three RT╔ channels buy the replay rights? If tiny little Shanell Cumri or whatever it's called can manage to buy the replay rights, why can't RT╔? Why couldn't one station of the RT╔ trinity of publicly subscribed channels build a good hour-and-a-half-long weekly discussion programme about what is turning into the most exciting rugby event in years? Is it because the money that might have been used to make a watchable rugby programme has been squandered on the deeply embarrassing and dismal travesty that is the Late Late Show?
So I am left with the options of dropping everything and going to Australia, a grave temptation ruled out solely by the murderous jetlag, or not seeing the series at all, which is rather like proposing an amputation of my legs at the armpit without anaesthetic, or finally subscribing to Sky Sports.
Television schedules
I am not a complete fool. I might subscribe to Iolfree, but I can still read the television schedules. I know that for every hour of watchable rugby or soccer, there are 200 hours of moose-wrestling from Calgary, truck-racing from Finland, and the tiddlywinks handicap from Alaska - and not a single second of nude lady-wrestling, or Inside the Womens Showers At Wimbledon, the sort of minority sports which true fans like myself would take a healthy interest in.
Time is running out. Two matches to go, even as the Hermes system is about to be installed, with a couple of dozen brawny Nubians for the chop - not to speak of the honest Lascars who man the rooftop foret'gallants and the stunning studs'ls.
It's time for a coup, my dusky comrades! Long Live King Atex! Bring Back Rugby After Dark! Aux armes! Aux armes!