Manus Sinistra: Manus Sinistra I (XI

Kiss of Life for Organ of Dissemination

Dublin – Manus Sinistra has been revived. Formally the official organ for disseminating information throughout I.T., Manus disappeared from view in the late 1980’s and is believed to be in hiding with Salman Rushdie.

Speaking on the phone from an undisclosed location, Manus says he decided it was time for a comeback despite the fatwa. “Times are hard”, he said, “and the I.T. Times is no exception. The Left Hand needs to know what the right hand is doing. And let’s face it, the right hand gets up to some very interesting things. It’s time for the members of I.T. to rise up. Let’s all pull together.”

“Everyone in I.T. can and should contribute. Articles, jokes, cartoons, work reports, travel reports, competitions, news, views, ewes (oops, what a giveaway!) will all be considered.”

If the newsletter is to be relevant to I.T. it is inevitable that references will be made to persons within the department however. Manus doesn’t mean to offend. “The idea is to bring the members of I.T. together.” He said “Those of us who haven’t lumped it might as well like it. Everyone should enjoy reading the newsletter. That includes persons mentioned in the articles. Contributors and readers should bear this in mind. Write what you would like to read. “You can use The Left Hand to help relieve your frustrations and to give others something to smile about”, he added.

So get those creative juices flowing, put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and become an organ donor now.

Habaemus Manus

Manus Sinistra is a quality journal that has been produced by I.T. Staff down through the years. The 'Manus' was driven by high ideals and flowing prose. It would NEVER let truth stand in the way of a good story and strived constantly for new and exciting ways to stimulate the reader. Hands up those of you who remember 'Celebrity Death Sweep' and its now infamous catch call ... "The stars are dying to make you rich!" Or those of you who have had their lives changed by playing "Snuff", until then a little known derivative of Dominoes.

The 'Manus' was never far from the heated issues of the day. Remember the Hon. President of a particular ALSAA club and his virulent threats of litigation against everyone from the (then) CX of Aer Lingus to the Editor of the 'Manus' after he had featured in an expose on STDs amongst I.T. staff, and how that same member of I.T. resigned on a matter of principle and absconded with the proceeds of the "Celebrity Death Sweep' and the '88 Departure Buster' leaving the disappointed throngs hammering on the Editor's door for their money.

Of course, all this attracted unwelcome attention and so, in time, the 'Manus' was forced to operate in the margins, eking out an existence on rumour and innuendo culled from overheard snippets of conversation. It naturally attracted critics, boring unimaginative career types, helpless cases who were the authors of its demise. The advent of that flaccid rag, The I.T. Times, and its mind-numbing articles successfully killed off any interest there was in a local newsletter.

Hopefully, with the advent of 'Manus Sinistra Novum', this situation will be rectified and the 'Manus' will recapture the journalistic high ground for the staff in I.T.

What They Said.

‘Purile rubbish’

….. I.T. Times

‘All lies’

….. Mark O’Mahony

‘Dangerous sedition’

…. C. Mullen

‘Eclectic yet didactic’

…. B. Cahill

Gentlemen,

(And I’m surprised that it took two people to send the one note – productivity has gone down the tubes. Although the fallopian seems to be overachieving at Imbus House).

I was flattered that my name and that of the sleazy tabloid I helmed are still on people’s lips at EI. Have yez not heard of mouthwash? Tony Fitz will tell you all about it – he’s a great man for the gargle.

Sadly, I long ago abrogated any rights I have to advise you on this resuscitation. But I was never backward on coming forward with unwanted/unwarranted advice, so here goes….

1) The name.

‘Menace Sinatra’? The crooning comic-strip cut-up? A tad pretentious, n’est ce pas? (Get Padraig le Doily to check on my French.) If you want something French, and that reflects your island-like status in your own lovely building, why not ‘Imbus Ile’? Or why not use the old name in our mellifluous first language? My own quid gailga is a bit rustic after all these years in a mono-lingual country (excuse me while I take the jalapenos off my fajita), but wouldn’t that be ‘On Kit Ogg We’? Anyway, that’s enough about the name.

2) No, it’s not enough. The name is the most important thing, because it’s all your readers will look at. Our baseball stadium, Arlington Stadium, will be replaced by a new old-fashioned ‘ballpark’. After a year of consideration, the owners have come up with a name for it. ‘The Ballpark in Arlington’. Now, while you can’t argue with any part of that name, it has been soundly/roundly (just like the Sunday Press, eh?) criticised for lack of imagination. I like the generic character of the name, however. So, since your newsletter will be ignored, ridiculed, scorned and spat upon, why not call it ‘Cormac’?

3) Features

a very popular feature of The Left Hand was a table of the barometric pressure at Dublin Airport, as recorded at hourly intervals over the previous two weeks. I hope, in the interests of tradition and continence, that you will retain the table. I’m all for retention. I know that John Wallace used to drool when he got the latest issue, and would take it to the man’s room with him.

4) Here’s a helpful hint: get a thick black marker. Use it to cross through any mention of Mark O’Mhony the litigatious Corkman.

5) If you look in my old desk, you’ll find a supply of paper for the magazine. The paper has a special watermark that contains the subliminal message: ‘Quality – is it really a good thing?’ I understand that, coincidentally, quality has improved 150 bond since I left.

6) Ithink it would be a good idea to get Paula O’Reilly to write a column dispensing good advice and helpful hints, since she has no shortage of either. You could call it “Paula’s Pointers” if everyone promises not to snigger.

7) I would be willing to write a monthly round-up of job opportunities for contract programmers worldwide, as well as some general advice for would be Judi (that’s the plural of Judas, and nothing to do with Ms. Whelan). For example: “What’s a Grecian Urn: Your Per Diem and You”, “Car Salesmen, Politicians and Contract Agencies”, “Veni. Vidi. Visa”, “Faking Your Own Death as a Career Move” and my very popular job-interview article, “Stressing the Positive Aspects of Your Workplace Arson Conviction”.

8) What to do with an elephant with three balls? Walk him and pitch to the rhino.

9) I would also be willing to write reviews of ‘moovies’ that are released here six months before they become ‘fillums’ over there, being careful to reveal the surprising twists, turns and ends (and in the case of “The Crying Game”, the surprising middle).

Well, that’s really all I have to say to you, except to give you my blessing (French for “wounding”). You may of course use the old name, and even recycle some of the old articles (that’s what I used to do). You can even use name, so I’ll get the blame, which would be a shame, but I’m game, just don’t be too tame, or act like a dame, or even Paul Graham, or jokes which would be described as lame, and try not to maim your old flame, for look what of me became. All the same.

Ave, Manus Sinistra! Morituri te salutant!

Pat.

P.S. What about “Contractions”? They’re painful but people count the time between them.

Elephants

Every type of specialist can be identified by the manner in which they hunt elephants. For example, mathematicians don’t actually hunt elephants, they merely prove that it is possible to hunt elephants. Maths professors don’t even do this; they merely prove that elephants exist, and leave the proof that it is possible to hunt elephants as an exercise for post-graduate students. So what of I.T. specialists (that much awaited nomenclature for the remaining few in Imbus).

Clipper programmers don’t actually hunt elephants, they just buy libraries of elephant parts and then spend years trying to integrate them.

dBase programmers only hunt elephants at night when no-one will notice that they are still using bows and arrows instead of rifles.

C programmers refuse to buy rifles off the shelf, and go to Africa with steel rods and a mobile workshop, intending to build a perfect rifle for the job from scratch. They are then never heard from again.

Visual Basic programmers point at their bullets, then point at their rifles, and then point at the elephants. This amuses the elephants, who run away. The VB programmers are unable to pursue them, because their jeeps are undrivable, having steering wheels, joy sticks and rudders, due to their love of mobile controls.

COBOL programmers have too much empathy to hunt another nearly extinct species.

PL/1, RPG1, All-in-one, EasyTrieve programmers, Santa Clause and Leprechauns are all fictional characters.

FOCUS programmers ask for the elephants to be broken into smaller pieces which won’t take more than six hours to shoot.

Assembler programmers, unable to find any mentioned in the extensive Astral documentation, refuse to believe that elephants exist and carry on hunting dinosaurs.

NCL programmers are rarer than elephants. In fact, the elephants, if they ever get sight of a NCL programmer, consider it a lucky day.

They Don’t Make Them Like That Anymore

Being at the ‘cutting edge of technology’ isn’t necessary for hunting elephants when we can club them with blunt instruments. Our man on the ground (floor) reports:

While there are some areas on ALT that have yet to get their equipment out of the box (nudge, nudge, know what I mean??), the I.T. department, that bastion of ‘latest in technology’, has come up with a novel idea for replacing old/broken equipment. They replace it with even older equipment. As there is a scarce supply of such pieces, it is advisable to get your order in as soon as possible. Seniority (senility) will be taken into consideration in the allocation of this equipment.

This policy has spread to other areas of the company and it is rumoured that a delegation from Fleet Planning paid a recent visit to ‘Zeppelin GmbH’ to evaluate the possibility of replacing our ageing 747’s with dingible airships. Think of the publicity. Aer Lingus has already featured on ‘Market Place’ and ‘Prime Time’m why not ‘ The Antiques Roadshow’?

KIDNAPPED!

Rumours, like elephants, were rampant in the upper south quarter of Imbus last week, that Michael Hackett had been kidnapped. Someone named Joe (a crack addict) had failed to return from the ALSAA pool two weeks previous, though his bicycle and clothes did appear. Joe has no bearing on the remainder of this bulletin. There had been concern for some weeks among Local Processing I.T. Specialists that a kdnap attempt may be imminent. When Mr. Hackett failed to appear in Imbus House for an entire morning’s sitting, fear, like balloons filled with helium, began to rise.

I.T. Specialists (a nomenclature yearned for but, like great heights, not yet attained) in Local Processing had feared a kidnap attempt since it had become apparent that not one of their number had made the slightest attempt to ease the burden breaking the Company’s back by taking a large amount of money and running. It seemed likely, and unreliable source said, that Aer Lingus management would attempt some other method of reducing the amount of I.T. work being carried out.

Throughout the morning, frenzied representations were made to all who would listen. It was pointed out that the SPLITS (Specialists in Processing Local Information Technology) should not be bracketed (parenthesized, curly-braced) with other Imbusians. They had never accepted the foul ‘structured methodology’ promulgated in other areas: they did in any case spend more time in meetings than programming: and they could not be blamed for such a bug mainframe taking up valuable pace in HOB.

Happily, later in the day Mr. Hackett returned to Imbus, saying that Computer Associates had treated him well and that he was happy to be back with his family. It is believed that no ransom was paid or even sought.

The bearing which Joe had lost was never recovered.

=======================================

Mates for Everyone.

MATES is the ‘Movie And Theatre Excursion Society’. Everyone in I.T. is invited to each MATES outing. Simply be at the place specified at the time specified.

To organise a trip to the cinema, put up a notice headed ‘MATES’ and give the name of the ‘fillum’, the cinema, meeting place and the meeting time.

=======================================

Barometric Pressures at Dublin Airport November 1993

Date	0400	0800	1200	1600	2000	2400
01/11	1013.2	1013.4	1012.8	1012.7	1012.2	1011.9
02/11	1022.4	1022.8	11023.9	1024.1	1024.6	1024.6
03/11	1034.2	1033.9	1034.1	1034.9	1034.5	1034.9
04/11	1033.3	1033.3	1033.3	1033.3	1033.3	1033.1
05/11	1028.2	1028.2	1029.1	1029.3	1028.5	1028.7
06/11	9999.1	1001.2	9998.9	1111.1	0000.0	9999.9
07/11	1034.4	EI105	1034.2	1036.7	1036.4	1033.3
08/11	1025.5	1025.5	USA.94	1024.4	1034.9	1034.4
09/11	LEVI501	1033.3	1033.3	1033.3	1033.4	1033.5

Phone-call overheard in Imbus

- "Good afternoon, Systems."

- "Good afternoon Systems... I hear you got engaged at
the weekend."

- "That's right..."

- "Congratulations. Tell me, do you have any nude photos of her?"

- "Nude photos? Er...no..."

- "Well, Would you like to buy some??!!"

Carry this card with you at all times.
It will remind you to contribute to Manus Sinistra,
the unofficial organ of I.T.

The following information was gleaned from completely unreliable sources.
If we've made a mistake we apologise.
If you've made a mistake it's NOT our problem.

       Engaged
Colin Byrnes to xxxxx.
Liam Mackey to xxxxx.
Debbie Cummins to xxxxx
Padraic Henry to xxxxx
Paul Donlon to xxxxx

      Married
David Murphy and xxxxx
Paul Graham and xxxxx

      New Arrivals
Fintan and xxxxx Roche - baby girl, xxxxx.
Mary and xxxxx White - baby boy, xxxxx.
Conor and xxxxx Harrington - baby boy, xxxxx.

      Who's Left (so far):
Phil Morris
Tom Finnerty
Martin Lacey
Tony Flynn
Tony Murray
Mary Power
Joanne Kane
Theresa Lynch
Pat Cormican
Hugh O'Mahony
Jackie Hickey

      Who's Left (to go in '93)
Tom Place - 26 Nov
Harry Sheridan - 17 Dec
Patricia Hegarty - 23 Dec

DID a rk ho ny REALLY GIVE ho ny TO ho ny ho ny?

WAS ho ny o ny ALSO INVOLVED?

FIND OUT IN

MANUS SINISTRA II

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue of ‘Manus Sinistra’.

No elephants were killed in the making of this newsletter