Thursday: The Lion, The Chips And The Ringtone

Thursday 26/06/2006
Wrote a news story today about a zoo in Denmark that's using Bluetooth to track children as they wander around the place. Which is a fun thing by itself, but as I was typing away I was irresistibly reminded of an old music hall turn of which I'm fond. And I'm never one to resist temptation...

The Lion, The Chips And The Ringtone (with apologies to Stanley Holloway and Marriott Edgar)

There's a big zoo near Aalborg in Denmark
With lions and tigers and all
Where the children kept wandering freely
And never returned to a call


The keepers were vexed by this problem
And decided that wireless was best
They bought a big bag of Bluetooth
And fixed the bits to the kids' vests


The first beta test was called Albrecht
A Ramsbottom, there with his Ma.
"Don't worry" they told his poor mother
"With Bluetooth, he'll never be far"


"The server keeps tags on your offspring
In a big Danish place tree, all sweet
You send it a mobile message
It'll tell you just where to meet"


A grand little lad was young Albrecht
All dressed in his best, quite a swell
With a phone with an Eminen ringtone
The finest that Voda could sell


Away from the gaze of his mother
Albrecht inspected the kit
No logo, no chrome, not a Nike?
No kid would be seen dead with such sh..


So Albrecht, disliking the module
Hurled it straight at a big chimpanzee.
The chimp took one look at the gadget
And ate it, with cackling glee.


His mother grew tired of the penguins
She hadn't seen Al for an age.
"He's off with the apes," said the system
"Zone Thirty. Inside the cage"


But Albrecht was not in Zone Thirty
He'd gone over to Zone Thirty One
Where Wallace, an scabby old lion
Was asleep in the rare Danish sun


Now Albrecht had heard about lions
How they was ferocious and wild
And to see Wallace lying so peaceful
Well it didn't seem right to the child


But he knew not to wake the old hunter
The snores, now, were something to hear
If he recorded them into his mobile
They'd give all his posse the fear


So straight way the stout little fellow
As brave as a gangsta on crack
Took his phone with the Eninem ringtone
Held it up to the comatose cat


By this time, his mother was worried
Who knows what wildlife he'd wreck?
So to forestall an expensive lawsuit
She decided to call him and check


The ringtone went off with a clatter
And Wallace awoke with a roar
Not liking American rappers
He decided to even the score


The keeper heard the commotion
And went to the cage at a run
And there was The Real Slim Shady
At play in the lion's fat tum


You could see what Wallace was thinking
Between burping and licking his lips
"I've always found children quite toothsome
But they taste even better with chips"


The moral for techno designers
Who make clever things for their pay
Is no matter how smart they are inside
The users will have the last say