Martyn Richard Jones

Gif sur Yvette, 12^th December 2017

Just because it looks like a bunch of half-baked crap, based on some well shoddy ideas and made by a surfeit of half-arsed chancers, doesn’t mean that it is, does it…

Even though it is.

Sorry! But, I digress.

If the Hadoop ecosphere were a box of chocolates, it would come in fantastic packaging that would make the grandest of Belgian chocolatiers emerald green with envy.

The magnificent Hadoop choccie box would contain elegant compartmentalised trays – like all good chocolate boxes, holding the most curious, exotic and eclectic mix of chocolates, toffees, boiled-sweets, truffles, chewing-gum, gob-stoppers, biscuits, small pieces of cake, sugar cubes and after-dinner mints.

It would be sold on Amazon and be ranked top on Google. Microsoft would make come-to-bed eyes at it. Ah, Chocs on Azure… better than the Milk Tray of IT.

Sweet makers of the world would hail it as the greatest thing since the edible Fabergé Easter egg. The press would claim it as their own and marvel at its tremendous ability to combat climate change, inequality and the rabies. Technologists would not be so reserved. A crock of shite has become a magnificent phoenix. Economists would hail it as the amazing Chocolate Revolution whose massive success will bring a much wanted tide that would float all but the feeblest of boats.

The chocolate box would contain wrapped chocolates, chocolates with no wrappers and wrappers with no chocolates. There would even be little stickers informing the sweet-toothed admirer that this chocolate is currently a framework chocolate, and is not available in this selection.

But… very soon… it will be in the ecosphere of chocolates…

And…

The wrappers would be made of all sorts of material. Paper, leaves, cardboard, tin and transparent coloured paper which if you looked through, would give you a completely deformalized and distorted view of the world around you. Roswell style.

Then again each and every one of the items in the box would have a different name, even though many things would appear to be similar or the same.

Some of the chocolates would be fresh, shine and new. Some would be stale, manky and have an interesting greenish mien – not quite chocolate limes, but getting there, organically. And, some would be made out of anything but chocolate.

Some of the sweets would have the tooth marks of someone who tried but gave up on the item. Other chocolates would be half eaten or bitten into pieces and just left there. Gum would have that ‘chewed and spat out’ look. Boiled sweets would be half-sucked. Gob-stoppers would be half-gobbed. And the liqueur chocolates would be filled with a Bollinger and Stolichnaya cocktail – chilled.

“Oh, what’s this chocolate called?”

“I don’t like that one”… puts it back in box … “I’ll have another one”.

Some chocolates would contain raisins. Some would contain nuts. Some chocolate would actually contain chocolate. Bloody European Union! There would be a card in the box with the words ‘Some chocolates may contain nuts’ printed in big-bold Times Roman font and then crossed out in pink crayon. Someone has scrawled caveat emptor, in what looks like raspberry jam, on the inside of the box lid. It could have been their own blood. But, does it even matter?

“Whose nuts are these?”

“Oye, mush! What’s your raisin d’etre?”

Some of the chocolates in the box are as soft as baby food. Some are as tough as old boots. Some of the chocolates taste of old boots with a whisper of baby food. Some chocolates taste of absolutely nothing. Maybe a waft of ozone at Brighton. Some chocolates are gooey. Others are slimy. Others are combinations of grapefruit jelly, bat-head inspired comfiture and 100-year-old aged Marmite. This is manna from heaven for the connoisseur looking for that something special – and every little-bit-of-lots will help, stuff.

We’ve done the presentation.

Now for the taste testing. What would that look like?

We get a bunch of volunteers together. Product testers. Product tasters. Chocolate makers.

How did the testing go, Joe?

Well, it was pretty eventful.

Joey, bit into a Java filled cookie-crème and the other cookies in the box all melted.

Janice, enjoyed the crunchy texture of the treacle and crushed glass on a barely-legal pastry and marzipan combo, but, was less than enamoured with the coffee in the A&E department.

Jill, had digestive issues with the Impala and Hive truffle. But has never felt so alive.

Jack tried to bag a little hop, skip and jump number, but it kept dying on him.

JR, dropped a piece of hadoochoc distribution on his keyboard and it made his mouse obese… and it ran really, really slowly and left lots of mouse droppings.

Bobby, tried to combine a couple of different chocolates and sweets and ended up busting up all his teeth. Big hand for Bobby…

Hugo, eventually lost all of the chocolates in a chocolatiers version of a reboot.

Coco doesn’t like chocolate, he’s a dog. He did pee in the box though. Coco is clever. Be like Coco.

At the end of the day, all pretty minor stuff.

So, if we ever get the Hadoop chocolate box I will indeed be expecting to see a surfeit of punters gorging themselves on this fantastic offer, and believing full-well they have got themselves the best deal in chocolates that they could ever get. Anywhere in the entire world.

No mind that the risks of eating these chocolates could put one in hospital – for more reasons than excuses for not delivering homework. Nor would it matter one jot that any medical bills would far outweigh any savings. Nor would it be worth mentioning that sitting on the toilet for six weeks is a pain in the… price not worth paying.

No. Because, none of this is relevant.

So, when push comes to shove, you’ll know, in your heart-of-hearts that buying and sharing a fab Hadoop chocolate box with all of your colleagues will be the right thing to do.

Because it was there.

And you are a misanthrope.

And you hate your work.

And this is payback.

Many thanks for reading.

Have a lovely Christmas.