Of Apples, Lemons and Eagles

Malcolm has long been a cheer-leader for most things Apple.

This goes back, more than two decades, to a close and loving acquaintance with a Mac Plus, which had supplanted his "first" computer, a BBC Micro. The Mac Plus (with an early Epson MX-80 dot-matrix printer) smoked the only realistic alternative: the Amstrad PCW8512 (though Malcolm also operated a couple of those, quite effectively).

Like all relationships, there have been occasional moments of friction. The Performa 5200 0f 1995-6 was a particularly fraught period.

And now we have the whole MobileMe shambles.

It begins to seem -- touch vinyl -- as though the worst of the transition is over. Having been away from home, reliant on "borrowed" time and passing wi-fi links, Malcolm's problems may have been thus magnified. But, he has not been impressed. The acquisition of routine "@mac.com" mail has been quite erratic. His iPod touch no longer happily syncs (And there's no chance he'll attempt any software upgrade his current side of the Ocean).

So, in his chagrined state, to parody the famous Skibbereen Eagle editorial, on the Emperor of Russia (over the 1905 "Bloody Sunday" St Petersburg riots), Malcolm wants Steve Jobs and all at One, Infinite Loop, to know he has his eye upon them. (Note that Bruce Anderson, in his Indy piece last 12th May, typically cocked up the West Corkonian reference).

After thought:

The Skibbereen Eagle reference is well-known: Anderson (see above) regarded it as an:

old joke ... [that] has long since grown green mould.

What is less well-rehearsed is the follow-up:

... in 1917 after the success of the storming of the Winter Palace the Editor of the Southern Star which was the successor of the Skibbereen Eagle received a telegram from Lenin simply saying, “spassiba kamerad”, “thank you, comrade”.

Malcolm may yet be saying the same to Jobs, when he has grown accustomed to the new surname@me.com dispensation. Sphere: Related Content