Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Cyrano de Saltash



Sometimes my life is like a poor parody of Cyrano de Bergerac. In the real play Christian is handsome but tongue-tied and he loves the beautiful Roxanne. Cyrano is charming and eloquent but is ugly and has a very big nose. In the scene that everybody can remember Cyrano hides under a balcony and prompts Christian as he woos Roxanne.

In my version I'm shy talking to woman and have the big nose, Cyrano de Saltash is a beautiful woman. Some years ago at band practice I asked for help text-flirting with a woman I'd met. Cyrano took my phone and sent several messages pretending to be me. I still don't know what they said but I must have been charming and persuasive because the next time we met we were in bed together within an hour. (it was monstrous)

A few weeks ago I got talking to a woman from Helston. She eventually texted me and I asked Cyrano for help formulating my reply. I ended up as nothing more than a text message proxy service where I would forward text from Helston towards Cyrano, and then rephrase her replies in my own words and send them back to Helston. The system performance was poor with some replies taking up to a couple of hours. Worse, I couldn't tell which messages were intended for me, and which were intended to be forwarded on to Helston. (In the end it petered out)

Richard “in-band signalling” B

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