Lack of Routing

From: Andy Fawcett
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Lack of Routing: A filk
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 15:27:38 +0200

While I was sitting waiting for the Internet to behave itself earlier, I put my mind into gear and came up with this. It's not perfect, but it sums up my frustration at the Net here today...

Lack of Routing

To the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence"
These lyrics (c) 2001 Andy Fawcett
Scanning fixes by Joy Green

(in the last verse, IRC needs pronouncing as "eye-are-see" for it to sound right!)

Hello silence, my old friend,
Looks like the net has gone again,
It was a feeling softly creeping,
Could not reach websites, they were sleeping
And the feeling got embedded in my brain
Still remains
With this lack of routing

In sudden flashes it was there,
But not for long, I despair,
I just sat there and bashed my head
Traceroute said that TeleGlobe was dead
The network was quiet and there was nothing I could do
It was nothing new
There was still no routing

And in the quiet I could see
Lots affected, not just me
People typing without response
People not reaching loved ones
People writing email that might not get there
More despair
And still, no routing

"Oh Sh*t!" said I, "why today?
When I've got bills I have to pay!
Take my password, please let me in,
This connection belongs in the bin!"
But my pleas they were never heard,
It never worked
Because of lack of routing

And the people bowed and prayed
To the god that had been slayed
No access to their usual chat servers,
This was getting more perverse
And the error box simply said "Cannot
get connected to IRC"
Oh woe is me
There is never any routing

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