Some pseudoliterate has been reminiscing in the Guardian about the dotcom boom in Hoxton: “The satirical fanzine Shoreditch Twat, which I published, was born out of this confusion, seeking to make sense of the stampede of east London paradigms who talked much but seemed to achieve very little.”
Well I remember how we would scramble for shelter in the doorways of Old Street when a dustcloud rising above City Road gave early warning that a paradigm stampede was headed our way.
At any rate this provides an opportunity to revive one of the greatest puns of the twentieth century, which arose from a vicious wartime academic squabble in the Dublin Institute of Celtic Studies, when two professors resigned when their favoured candidate for a job failed to get it. All together now, the song of Myles na gCopaleen:
They sang in the choir
Of the Institute (Higher)
Binchy and Bergin and Best,
And when they saw fit
The former two quit,
Binchy and Bergin and Best,
But the third will remain
To try to regain
At whatever cost
Our paradigms lost,
Binchy and Bergin and Best.
I believe it’s usually spelt ‘na gCopaleen’ as B
The spidery hand of doom! An error, in a blog! It stands corrected, as do I.
I feel vaguely connected with the original article, as it was part of a piece about Nathan Barley who first came to life on tvgohome which was supported by NTK which is of course part of the Danny O’B and Dave G cosmology, with whom I from time to time and glancingly intersect. So that’s nice.
And since I’m among friends, I may get away with mentioning the secret blogwhere we’re trying out some ideas for our new consumer site. That too has some Barleyesque connection. But don’t tell anyone.
R
(I must leave some flowers on Myles’ grave one of these years)