Monday, February 20, 2006
The fable of the ferryman and the hole
A technique I have found helps me to take a detached view of a problem is to turn it into a story, with the characters representing parts of my problem. I thought that someone might enjoy the following. I'm not going to tell you what it's about (that would be telling!) except that I have some part in the role of "Sinbad".
Enjoy!
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Hello friends, my name is Omar (Or something like that. When you get to be three and a bit thousand years old like me, you tend to forget some details and get others mixed up). A mutual friend asked me to tell you a little story which he thought you would like. My story is set a long, long time ago in the sunny country of Greece, but of course it wasn’t called Greece then but had lots of other names instead. Like many good stories it starts “Once upon a time…”
Once upon a time (a long, long time ago) there was ferryman called Charon who lived in Greece. Old Zeus, who lived up on Mount Olympus had given him a good job ferrying cows from one side of the River Styx to the other. Every day Charon did his job and was well paid for it. Both he and Zeus should have been happy, but they weren’t, because they had a few problems. The first problem was that the Styx was not a very nice river. In fact it was more like an open sewer. This was probably because of all the cows living along its banks. The second problem was that Charon’s boat (called the “Thetis”) had a bad leak. Charon thought he had sorted this one out by hiring a local lad called Hercules to bail the boat out. The leak was so bad that if Hercules hadn’t been there the boat would have sunk, but he and Charon got on with the job and made the best of things. The third problem was the worst of all: an old man with an unpronounceable name (it contained no vowels) who lived in a faraway city where they lived on chocolate, chips and beer kept sticking his nose into their business. (Given the circumstances that must suggest that he had no sense of smell but that, as they say, is another matter). Anyway, the old fellow with the unpronounceable name got on to Zeus and threatened that if he didn’t stop Charon ferrying animals “up to their hocks in sh1t” (as he put it), he would stop him ferrying animals at all. Now, Zeus was keen on the ferrying business. In fact, he wanted Charon to carry sheep and cows in the same boat which was something he couldn’t do at the moment. So, Zeus decided that Charon must either get his boat fixed or get a new boat.
Zeus was a hands-off sort of god, so he told Charon what to do and left him to get on with it. Charon was a ferryman, not a boat builder, so the first thing he did was to find someone to choose someone to choose the design of the boat. He made a good choice. He found a sailor, called Sinbad who knew about boats and told him to fix Charon’s problem. Sinbad had a good poke around the old “Thetis” and decided that it was beyond repair. So, it had to be a new boat. Charon agreed and got on with ferrying cows while Sinbad got on with looking for a new boat.
Sinbad looked high and low. He decided quickly that building a new boat from scratch would take too long and might finish up with a leak anyway. However, he found two boat-builders who had designs which were approved by the old fellow with the unpronounceable name. One design was called “Europa” and the other was called “Greenfly”. Both builders said they could build a copy for Charon and include any changes that he wanted at the same time. Sinbad thought this sounded good so he went and told Charon and Zeus. The funny thing was that the boat-builders were neighbours who lived in a faraway land where it was very damp.
The decision process took a lot longer than Sinbad expected, but in the end Hera (Zeus’ wife) got the casting vote and she said “I’m not having anything named after one of your (Zeus’) old girlfriends”, so that was that and “Greenfly” was chosen.
While Zeus and Charon were discussing the deal, Sinbad hired a team of expert joiners to do a survey of the old “Thetis” and compare it to the “Greenfly”. They called it a “gap-fit analysis”. They did a thorough job and they wrote down everything they found. One of the things they found was a dirty great gap between two of the planks in the bottom of the “Thetis” where they didn’t fit together properly. That was the explanation for the leak! Being the kind of people they were they wrote down its length, width and precise cross-sectional area (2.5 square inches). They were good joiners, but they weren’t boat-builders or sailors.
Zeus and Charon came back and told Sinbad he had got the job. Sinbad was happy but before getting on with the job Sinbad went out and got ratted with his old mate Ulysses (who funnily enough came for the same town as the two families of boat-builders). Sinbad and Ulysses went back a long way. They had sailed around a lot together and they had a shared hobby. They really loved watching Hollywood actresses, especially scantily clad ones.
Sinbad came back, nursing a hangover and got on the job. What happened next was a real surprise, especially for Sinbad. Nobody knows quite why it happened. Some people say Hercules had a word with Charon because he was worried about losing his job. Some people say old Bacchus was stirring things up. Some people say Charon didn’t completely trust Sinbad. If that’s the case, then I can’t say I blame him, Sinbad had been around a bit and had (shall we say) a bit of a reputation. Whatever the reason (and it might have been some of all three, or even something else), Charon had been reading the “Fit-Gap analysis” and spotted one of the “gaps” between “Greenfly” and “Thetis”. Straightaway he went to Sinbad and told him that he wanted a 2.5 square inches hole drilled in the bottom of the copy of the “Greenfly”!
To say that Sinbad was surprised is an understatement. He was flabbergasted. His first reaction was to tell Charon “You must be fundamentally crazy. There’s absolutely no way I’m going to ask the boat-builders to drill a hole in the bottom of a perfectly good boat. You’ll let all the sh1t in!” But he didn’t. Instead, he told Charon he would think about it and sat down and had a smoke and a think. You may think that Sinbad smoking is an anachronism, but take it from me, he filled his pipe with some special herbal tobacco he grew in a greenhouse behind the boatyard and had a good, long smoke.
Now at this point I’d like to invite a little audience participation: what do you think Sinbad should have said to Charon? I’ve got a few suggestions, but you can come up with ideas of your own as well.
Suggestion 1: Sinbad tells Charon “You must be fundamentally crazy…”
Suggestion 2: Sinbad says “Look Charon, I’ve been thinking about your request, and I don’t think it’s a good idea. None of the boats I’ve sailed in has ever had a hole drilled in the bottom. I think if we drill a hole then you will let the Styx in and you will be no better than you are now”
Suggestion 3: Sinbad says: “Look Charon, I’ve been thinking about your request, and I don’t think it’s good idea. Neither the “Europa” or the “Greenfly” had a hole in the bottom, but the old “Thetis” does. If I get the boat builders to drill a hole, I’m afraid the awkward old man with the unpronounceable name will withdraw his approval. If he does that, then Zeus is going to be annoyed and life is going to be bad for all of us.
Suggestion 4: Sinbad says: “Charon, I’m a little uneasy about this hole business, but you’re the boss. If you want a hole, then a hole you shall have” (and under his breath says “and on your head be it” and crosses his fingers behind his back)
OK. Have you decided what you think Sinbad should say? Yes… Hmm. That’s interesting. To be honest I can’t remember exactly what he did say.
Now, on with the story.
Knowing Charon, no matter what Sinbad says, Charon is going to go away and think about it for a long time. Old Charon was really good at thinking.
Now here comes the next bit of audience participation. What do you think Charon decided? Now we have the benefit of hind-sight and maybe we’re smarter people, so we know that having a hole in the bottom of the boat is really not a good idea. The question is not what should he decide, that’s obvious, but what did he actually decide?
Again, I’m going to help you out with a few suggestions:
Suggestion 1: Charon says “Sorry Sinbad, this is all too much for me. I can’t decide, I’m going to talk to Zeus”. He set’s off up Olympus and is never seen again (probably gets a thunderbolt straight up his jacksie).
Suggestion 2: Charon says “Sinbad, I’ve listened to what you’ve said, I really want you to have that hole drilled”
Suggestion 3: Charon says “Sinbad, thanks for the advice. I think we should build the copy of the Greenfly without the hole. If we need it, we can add it later”
Now I’m going to tell you how the story ends. There are two possibilities, depending on whether the hole gets drilled or not.
Option 1: The hole is drilled (bad news).
The “Greenfly 2” is launched. It is on-time and within budget. There is much rejoicing and drinking of beer. Almost immediately it starts to fill with sh1t from the Styx. Charon does not look happy. He calls to Hercules who jumps into the boat and starts bail manfully.
Everyone laughs at Charon who has managed to make himself look a right Charlie by buying a new boat and asking for it to be built with an integral leak.
The old man with the unpronounceable name, who had been invited to the launch party is not pleased. In fact he is livid. He goes up to Zeus and gives him a good telling off. Zeus is so embarrassed that he in turn goes and has a good go at Charon who just sulks in his boat. The only person who is remotely happy is Hercules, and that is only because he is too dim to have expected anything better.
Option 2: The hole is not drilled.
The “Greenfly 2” is launched. It is on-time and within budget. There is much rejoicing and drinking of beer. Charon paddles away with a load of cows. He comes back with a load of sheep. Things a working pretty much as they should.
Everyone (with the exception of Hercules) but including Zeus and the old man with the unpronounceable name is happy. Even Charon almost forces a smile.
Zeus feels so sorry for Hercules that he finds him a new job cleaning out stables. Seems like all the jobs Hercules gets involve sh1t.
And that friends is the end of the story, except I hear you asking, “what happened to Sinbad?”
Well, the day they launched the “Greenfly” Sinbad had disappeared. Some people say they saw him and Ulysses sailing out of the harbour the night before, but they weren’t sure. Some other people said they overheard two men, who might have been Sinbad and Ulysses, in the taverna saying they were going to “sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars” but they weren’t sure either.
If Sinbad and Ulysses did sail off into the sunset, then that, as they say, is another story.
# posted by tom_gillies @ 4:10 PM 
