ARMAGEDDON POP

I had not intended to pen a column today, but I find myself so thoroughly incensed that I simply must! Some malicious wretch has decided to make a mockery of me! Upon reaching the halfway point of reviewing my latest column, I discovered that some miscreant had placed a blinking tinfoil hat upon my head. I am fully aware that this insinuates I am mad!

I harbour very strong suspicions as to who the culprit is in this sordid affair, and thus confronted the programmer with my suspicions.

"Oh no," he had the audacity to claim, professing utter ignorance of who might be responsible. He asserted that he had endeavoured to replace the image with the correct one, but, of course, that was apparently quite impossible, he said. Something about an error in database indexing, he lamented.

To be perfectly frank, I do not believe that individual one whit. His eyes narrow the very moment he lays eyes upon me, and it has been that way ever since I requested a feature that would allow one to send one’s favourite chess positions to friends and family via that peculiar, yet admittedly rather entertaining device—the mobile telephone.

I shall be taking this matter up with the proprietor, for this cannot continue. Odd musical selections keep infiltrating the website, tinfoil hats are placed upon my crown, and, frankly, I find the atmosphere here to be generally disreputable.

"You do not intimidate me in the slightest," he retorted. "I have done nothing, and I could not care less about you and your tinfoil hats. If only you knew how hard I toil to keep this nonsense running, while you think solely of your chess games and how they might be presented in the most aesthetically pleasing manner. The remainder of the website you entirely disregard, save for berating a few poor musicians for reasons unbeknownst to anyone. I would be most grateful if you could vacate the premises forthwith, so that I might resume my work!"

As you may deduce from the above "exchange of pleasantries," the programmer and I are hardly on terms of endearment, but unlike that sort, I at least have the platform to express myself here, and I shall not yield an inch in my crusade for the old ideals, when a Gentleman was truly a Gentleman and music was, indeed, music. Nor shall I rest until that ridiculous tinfoil hat is removed. There simply must be a way.

P.S. A correction to one of my previous columns, and I quote: "Armageddon POP has graced us with no fewer than two new musical compositions: Modulation x 2 and Quiet." It should, of course, read: "Armageddon POP has graced us with ONE new musical composition: Quiet. The other song I have already listened to so you don't have to.". D.S.