That Old Time 2018 IT songbook: Verity, Verity - give us your lyrics, do! We're half crazy, all for the love of you

It's that time of year, in the northern hemisphere, when IT specialists reluctantly abandon their rugged, outdoor lifestyle, and gather around Mama's upright piano to sing some favourite old songs... with updated, satirical lyrics. Like these. An Agile Briefing (To this tune1) First thing – I've trashed the agenda. I dare …

[Semper Phoenix]

Brava! Encore :)

[David Roberts]

Modem song. :-)

One thing about Virgin Media is that the engineers come out for free.

None of that "If it turns out to be your fault you are in deep shit!" malarkey.

Happened to me twice; first time when I removed a rats nest of legacy BT wiring by the front door. Turns out that VM link into your current internal wiring as well as providing their own master socket. Second time was when the builders went a little too deep when extending the drive and scraped the buried cable. $Deity knows what it would have cost if Open Reach had been supporting the connection.

[imanidiot]

Re: Modem song. :-)

In that second case it'd be the builders paying, not you. Like hell I'd let them get away with a fuck-up like that.

[tony2heads]

Alternative tune most big IT companies

You're unbelievable from EMF

[Alister]

Yay! Stob!

Far too long since the last one, but thank you, it was worth waiting for.

Now wandering round the office singing:

"Six foot, seven foot, eight foot BUNCH! Daylight come and me wan' go home"

RIP Dave Neal.

[Geoffrey W]

Re: Yay! Stob!

I'm not sniping or nit picking so don't take this the wrong way, but it's been less than 2 months since the last one, on the occasion of the columns 30th anniversary, which doesn't seem far too long to me. I'm only pointing it out in case you've been missing the Stobs so you can seek && gosub to it.

[Alister]

Re: Yay! Stob!

@Geoffrey W

You're absolutely right, I missed the September one. Thanks!

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Great stuff, Verity!

And an extra thumbs up for reminding me of that Tom Lehrer song. Might learn to sing that on my way to work, although "I hold your hand in mine", "The Masochism Tango", and "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" do confuse other cycling commuters enough already.

The modem song is a stroke of genius

[Geoffrey W]

Re: Great stuff, Verity!

My favourite Tom Lehrer is "The Irish Ballad", and my favourite version is by Barbara Manning (she titles it "Rickety Tickety Tin"). She does it totally deadpan without humour and it is sinister to the power 3. Go sing that on the bus.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Great stuff, Verity!

My favourite Tom Lehrer is "The Irish Ballad"

Thanks for reminding me - it's been years since I've sung that for Granddaughter Major (now quickly closing in on her sixth birthday). She should be particularly appreciative of verse four now that Granddaughter Minor has appeared on stage and is taking the spotlight.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: Great stuff, Verity!

I can't wait for the next outage & just swap Virgin for Telus & post it in our group chat.

[Will Godfrey]

A breath of fresh air

Very welcome after a puzzling time with a bit of code. I'm too embarrassed to say for how long, but I'd forgotten that memset was in the string.c library not std.

[7teven 4ect]

it's unix time, there's no need to give up RAID

[John Gamble]

I think we've finally found the musical that will overtake Hamilton on Broadway.

Quick, line up the venture capitalists investors!

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick, line up the venture capitalists investors!

You want I should put you in touch with Max Bialystok already?

Can we call it "Springtime for DevOps"? I know the film is called The Producers, but a musical called The Producers and about DevOps would be taking oxymoronicity to a new level.

[StuntMisanthrope]

Fancy a drink?

Here’s my number, it’s the same as my balance. I’m duplicitous if you’re asking. #whattookyousolong

[Anonymous Coward]

More traditional version

Jacob Rees-Mogg is supposed to be a hoot at parties doing impressions of the London working class.

This old man, he played Brexit

Nothing easier than to exit.

This old man, he played wait

Two years arguing then too late.

This old man, he told lies

Boris Johnson - no surprise.

This old man said "pay down debt"

Made a killing on buy to let.

This old man, he got stuck

They asked "Business?", he said "****".

This old man wanted more

Moved his money far off shore

One day Barnier called their bluff

Said "That’s it, don’t like it, tough."

Rees-Mogg, Paddy whack, threats from Peter Bone

This old government’s now completely stoned.

[SVV]

Like A Rolling Stones

I live in an apartment on the 99th floor of my block

And sit home swearing at Windows cos my Azure region is a crock

In flies a guy dressed up like a union jack

And says "I've lost 50 grand cos my business relied upon this cack"

They said "hey you get off my cloud

hey you get off of my cloud

hey you get off of my cloud

Don't hang around or we'll bring you down"

[JimC]

Did a set of that sort of thing at a work event

We'd just got registered for ISO2000 QA. One song was Katrina and the Waves "Walking on Sunshine" retitles as "Knee deep in paper". Unfortunately I've lost the lyrics, but the chorus was of course "Knee deep in paper whoa-oh"

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Whoot

@ Verity - Is this the same Dave Neal who died in January that went under the username of Whoot, who had a fight with a swan (about 14 years ago) & wrote letters on behalf of his dog Poppy to companies?