A bit of kulcher

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time with frighted peace to pant

as Shakespeare put it in the opening lines of Henry IV, Pt 1. I expect there were alarums and excursions. What he meant was "Well it's all go isn't it? Time for a breather". Which is what I'm doing, in the midst of wrestling with Linux. I've got somewhere, I'm just not sure where.

At Prom 19a last Sunday I recalled a rookie mistake I made when trying to send myself a test message (the relevance of which will become apparent...

<autobiographical-note>
When I was working on an X.400 Gateway (the Bluffer's Guide explanation for X.400 is "email for Europhiles", but if you want the nitty gritty pick the bones out of this) in the late '80s, I used the country code UK when I was specifying an address for my test message; and I had no idea why my Gateway wasn't recognizing me.  The reason was that the code for the United Kingdom is, for reasons best known to the Founding Fathers of X.400, GB. The code UK meant (at the time) Ukraine; it has since been changed to UA, according to this list...

<paranoid-supposition>
(or maybe I was just being hazed; writers were not always the most respected of colleagues in the IT world). In an earlier post I recalled this exchange:

I remember a conversation I had  with a Software Engineer more than 30 years ago, shortly after I started work with the Digital Equipment Corporation as a Technical Editor. He was trying to work out just what Technical Writers did (at the time I was at one remove from that, but if he could only get to grips with what Writers did he could then see what I did).  I  said things about making information clear and consistent and with repetition only when appropriate, and he raised an eyebrow and said "What, like the comments we put in our code?"

</paranoid-supposition>

...).
</autobiographical-note>

And Prom 19.a featured the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra (whence that memory, which has been skulking around undisturbed for nearly forty years). The orchestra was

[b]rought together by the Metropolitan Opera,  New York, and the Polish National Opera.... [L]ed by Canadian-Ukrainian conductor, Keri-Lynn Wilson. [It] includes recently refugeed ...

<hmm>
[sic: is this a word, 'To  refugee'? Not sure what I think of that.]
</hmm>

...Ukrainian musicians, Ukrainian members of European orchestras and some of the top musicians of Kviv, Liviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and elsewhere in Ukraine.

The Ukraine Ministry of Culture is granting a special exemption to military-age, male members of orchestras inside the country, enabling them to participate in a remarkable demonstration of the power of art over adversity. Following the inaugural concert in Warsaw, the orchestra’s first stop will be in London at the Proms ahead of concerts in European destinations including Amsterdam, Berlin, Edinburgh, Hamburg and Munich before culminating with concerts in New York and Washington. 

Source

The Ukraine Ministry of Culture granted a similar exemption for the singers I heard/felt (the basses were pretty fundamental) at the Cathedral of the Holy Family in 2014, accompanied by my two locally-based sisters, one of whom is now writing stern letters to the Celestial management  (dear old Jo, who was a great fan of the Proms).

Time I returned to the land of the living. But before I go, I just happened on this advert (but forbore to click on it; 

I've a pretty good idea how he pronounced 'research', but he's the sort of gosht writer I can do without).

b

Update: 2022.08.04.15:40 – Fixed a typo and linked to a source for the Prom quote. It's still not 'proper formated' though.😉