I may have mentioned this before, but The Quiet One kept some strange company. Ordinarily he would go out of his way to stay out of other people’s way. Just occasionally, however, he would come across someone who tickled his fancy, and he would build up a real bond. One of these would be Dan Dan the Computer Man. The Quiet One came across Dan when they were working together as odd job gardeners round the local park. They’d been sent there by the social security on a temporary work placement. And for our Quiet One it was the least of many evils, one of which was having his dole money cut off.
The Quiet One liked a bit of gardening, and had spent many happy hours pottering about down on the allotments. So working round the park was not really any hardship for him. Well, other than the technical difficulties of having to be in a certain place at a certain time. This was never his strong point. But as it was a short term placement he coped the best he could. Some aspects he quite enjoyed. The fresh air, the working with your hands, the nearness to nature. That sort of thing. And even the mixing and mingling with other blokes. They’re a rum bunch, said our Quiet One, but good lads. You can learn a lot from them, he said. And he did.
Apart from the learning about the practicalities of gardening, looking after roses, giving wallflowers some tender loving care, which fertilisers to use, the best manure, and so on, The Quiet One had his eyes opened to many things. This was partly as a result of making acquaintance with the aforementioned Dan Dan the Computer Man. Dan was another quiet soul. A very clever man. Possibly too clever for his own good, if you’ll excuse me using that horrible phrase. Dan had recently completed a short spell inside, and was struggling to adapt back to civilian life. He was a classic case of what became known as white collar crime. He’d been cooking the books at the company where he was employed as an accountant. His accounting became a little too creative. They’d made it too easy for him, he argued. It was criminal putting temptation in a man’s way like that, he said. He was only human after all. And eventually he got too greedy, too careless, and inevitably caught and banged to rights.
So this outwardly respectable and to all accounts regular guy had to go and do his time, coming to terms with losing a good job, a good wife, and a young kid. Back out in the big wide world he found it hard to get back on to the merry-go-round of work. I suppose understandably employers were sympathetic but wary. Not that that was of much help to Dan. But he wasn’t bitter. He’d found faith inside, in more ways than one. He wasn’t obviously a bible basher, but he had become warmly religious in the nicest way, and now it was a real consolation to him. He didn’t force it down your throat, but it was clear finding Christianity had made a real difference to him, and provided crucial support. Now you could argue the whys and wherefores about religion until kingdom come or the cows come home, and I’ve personally got no time for it, but it worked for Dan. That’s neither here nor there though. For the other big thing in Dan’s life was computers, and it was computers that he was forever preaching about. They were the way, the truth, and the light, and he wanted to be part of it.
To put this into context it needs to be explained that computers back then did not dominate our lives in the way they do now. Sure computers had been around since the year dot. Think of all the old pulp science fiction stuff. Think of that book, The Tin Men, by Michael Frayn. One of my favourites. There’s a computer, and this is the start of the ‘70s, that is meant to generate newspaper stories using different permutations of recurring themes and strands. Very prescient. When Dan Dan the Computer Man was dreaming his dreams we were at a crucial point in the world’s history. Computers were about to take over. Anyone who was anyone was getting a word processor. The huge clunky manual typewriter I would sit at dreaming of being Jack Kerouac was heading for a museum. Computer programming was the line of work to be in, and Dan wanted some of it.
So Dan was doing what he could to get himself on any free computer courses going, while keeping body and soul together in any way he could. As he would tell our Quiet One, incessantly, computer programmes should stop people like himself falling foul of temptation. He wanted to get in there and computerise accountancy, get rid of all the manual ledgers, the ability to change a figure here and there. Well, it all seemed incredibly naive to us. After all, if you could cook the books, then the same sort of opportunities would be available on computers, but what did we know. Dan thought it took an ex-con to stop another con, and there was some poetry in that.
To be honest I really have no idea how far Dan got with his plan. I have an inkling that the last I heard he was running a painting and decorating business, which really has little to do with computers I guess, but it’s a good line of work to be in. Anyway, the reason I mention Dan is that inadvertently he sowed the seeds for the parting of the ways. Or, if you like, prepared the way for the days when The Outside of Everything would be no more. For, it was Dan’s perpetual prattling about computers that fired our Quiet One’s enthusiasm for the cursed machines. Oh it wasn’t an overnight thing. Oh no. Little by little, though, the bug got to him. As the hardware and software became more accessible, so The Quiet One acquired the knowledge.
And was there ever anyone more suited to the communion of souls between man and machine? Withdrawing from the world and all human life form was hardly a bind for him. I never shared his enthusiasm for the world of computers myself. Undeniably they have their uses, but that’s as far as it goes. The Quiet One, though. He fell in love in a big way. Forget the old scenario of young kids sitting around in the garage dreaming of being the group that changes the world. The Quiet One instead became the grown up bloke sitting in his living room, putting together beats and melodies and graphics to die for on his PC for pretty much no one’s eyes or ears but his own. A waste in a way but there’s a kind of perfect poetry to his madness.
I often think that whoever dreamed up the internet did so with The Quiet One in mind. What could be more apt for him than the ability to communicate solely electronically, negating the need to mix and mingle. As the years went by he grew ever more distant from the madding crowd, and as the years progressed so his graphic design business flourished, and we saw less and less of him. Naturally enough when he deigned to make contact it was in an exclusively electronic way.
The last time I got an email from him there was a photo attached of one of those bushes at an old stately home which had been carefully cultivated into one of those beasts of yore you’d see on an old coat of arms. I knew what he was getting at. One of our oldest challenges to him had been to design a coat of arms for The Outside of Everything. He had a lot of fun with that. Came up with something too. Anyway, he sent this photo. And under the photo he had added the immortal phrase: A life of topiary not toping. That was an oblique reference to one of his favourite fallen souls, who was with The Quiet One and Dan Dan the Computer Man when they were working round the park. This fallen soul was prone to proffering all sorts of odd advice. And this was phrase, a life of topiary not toping, was one of them. We vowed once to put a chap book together of this fallen soul’s greatest words of wisdom. One day perhaps.
I may have mentioned this before, but The Quiet One kept some strange company. Ordinarily he would go out of his way to stay out of other people’s way. Just occasionally, however, he would come across someone who tickled his fancy, and he would build up a real bond. One of these would be Dan Dan the Computer Man. The Quiet One came across Dan when they were working together as odd job gardeners round the local park. They’d been sent there by the social security on a temporary work placement. And for our Quiet One it was the least of many evils, one of which was having his dole money cut off.
The Quiet One liked a bit of gardening, and had spent many happy hours pottering about down on the allotments. So working round the park was not really any hardship for him. Well, other than the technical difficulties of having to be in a certain place at a certain time. This was never his strong point. But as it was a short term placement he coped the best he could. Some aspects he quite enjoyed. The fresh air, the working with your hands, the nearness to nature. That sort of thing. And even the mixing and mingling with other blokes. They’re a rum bunch, said our Quiet One, but good lads. You can learn a lot from them, he said. And he did.
Apart from the learning about the practicalities of gardening, looking after roses, giving wallflowers some tender loving care, which fertilisers to use, the best manure, and so on, The Quiet One had his eyes opened to many things. This was partly as a result of making acquaintance with the aforementioned Dan Dan the Computer Man. Dan was another quiet soul. A very clever man. Possibly too clever for his own good, if you’ll excuse me using that horrible phrase. Dan had recently completed a short spell inside, and was struggling to adapt back to civilian life. He was a classic case of what became known as white collar crime. He’d been cooking the books at the company where he was employed as an accountant. His accounting became a little too creative. They’d made it too easy for him, he argued. It was criminal putting temptation in a man’s way like that, he said. He was only human after all. And eventually he got too greedy, too careless, and inevitably caught and banged to rights.
So this outwardly respectable and to all accounts regular guy had to go and do his time, coming to terms with losing a good job, a good wife, and a young kid. Back out in the big wide world he found it hard to get back on to the merry-go-round of work. I suppose understandably employers were sympathetic but wary. Not that that was of much help to Dan. But he wasn’t bitter. He’d found faith inside, in more ways than one. He wasn’t obviously a bible basher, but he had become warmly religious in the nicest way, and now it was a real consolation to him. He didn’t force it down your throat, but it was clear finding Christianity had made a real difference to him, and provided crucial support. Now you could argue the whys and wherefores about religion until kingdom come or the cows come home, and I’ve personally got no time for it, but it worked for Dan. That’s neither here nor there though. For the other big thing in Dan’s life was computers, and it was computers that he was forever preaching about. They were the way, the truth, and the light, and he wanted to be part of it.
To put this into context it needs to be explained that computers back then did not dominate our lives in the way they do now. Sure computers had been around since the year dot. Think of all the old pulp science fiction stuff. Think of that book, The Tin Men, by Michael Frayn. One of my favourites. There’s a computer, and this is the start of the ‘70s, that is meant to generate newspaper stories using different permutations of recurring themes and strands. Very prescient. When Dan Dan the Computer Man was dreaming his dreams we were at a crucial point in the world’s history. Computers were about to take over. Anyone who was anyone was getting a word processor. The huge clunky manual typewriter I would sit at dreaming of being Jack Kerouac was heading for a museum. Computer programming was the line of work to be in, and Dan wanted some of it.
So Dan was doing what he could to get himself on any free computer courses going, while keeping body and soul together in any way he could. As he would tell our Quiet One, incessantly, computer programmes should stop people like himself falling foul of temptation. He wanted to get in there and computerise accountancy, get rid of all the manual ledgers, the ability to change a figure here and there. Well, it all seemed incredibly naive to us. After all, if you could cook the books, then the same sort of opportunities would be available on computers, but what did we know. Dan thought it took an ex-con to stop another con, and there was some poetry in that.
To be honest I really have no idea how far Dan got with his plan. I have an inkling that the last I heard he was running a painting and decorating business, which really has little to do with computers I guess, but it’s a good line of work to be in. Anyway, the reason I mention Dan is that inadvertently he sowed the seeds for the parting of the ways. Or, if you like, prepared the way for the days when The Outside of Everything would be no more. For, it was Dan’s perpetual prattling about computers that fired our Quiet One’s enthusiasm for the cursed machines. Oh it wasn’t an overnight thing. Oh no. Little by little, though, the bug got to him. As the hardware and software became more accessible, so The Quiet One acquired the knowledge.
And was there ever anyone more suited to the communion of souls between man and machine? Withdrawing from the world and all human life form was hardly a bind for him. I never shared his enthusiasm for the world of computers myself. Undeniably they have their uses, but that’s as far as it goes. The Quiet One, though. He fell in love in a big way. Forget the old scenario of young kids sitting around in the garage dreaming of being the group that changes the world. The Quiet One instead became the grown up bloke sitting in his living room, putting together beats and melodies and graphics to die for on his PC for pretty much no one’s eyes or ears but his own. A waste in a way but there’s a kind of perfect poetry to his madness.
I often think that whoever dreamed up the internet did so with The Quiet One in mind. What could be more apt for him than the ability to communicate solely electronically, negating the need to mix and mingle. As the years went by he grew ever more distant from the madding crowd, and as the years progressed so his graphic design business flourished, and we saw less and less of him. Naturally enough when he deigned to make contact it was in an exclusively electronic way.
The last time I got an email from him there was a photo attached of one of those bushes at an old stately home which had been carefully cultivated into one of those beasts of yore you’d see on an old coat of arms. I knew what he was getting at. One of our oldest challenges to him had been to design a coat of arms for The Outside of Everything. He had a lot of fun with that. Came up with something too. Anyway, he sent this photo. And under the photo he had added the immortal phrase: A life of topiary not toping. That was an oblique reference to one of his favourite fallen souls, who was with The Quiet One and Dan Dan the Computer Man when they were working round the park. This fallen soul was prone to proffering all sorts of odd advice. And this was phrase, a life of topiary not toping, was one of them. We vowed once to put a chap book together of this fallen soul’s greatest words of wisdom. One day perhaps.
