At the risk of being accused of thread drift, has BEagle inadvertently given a taster (see 21:18 yesterday) for a new topic loosely based on Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man?
Jacques’ melancholy reflections (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII) bear comparison to Beagle’s eleven.
At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
From the “mewling and puking” in the Chimpunk nursed by the QFI through to the “second childishness” on the Bulldog, the comparisons are close. The “whining schoolboy with his satchel” learns the ropes on the JP before moving on to the heat of the Gnat. As the soldier, he becomes the Hunter (“quick in quarrel”), the Buccaneer (“jealous in honour”) and the Vulcan (oh, that reputation) before moving on to the justice of the Jetstream “full of wise saws” and the “fair round belly” of the Phantom . In his sixth age, the close fit of the pantaloon might well be as a result of a spreading midriff but the “slipper’d” image of the VC10 pilot flying across a “world too wide” is perhaps closer to the truth. And last of all, “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”: the Bulldog.
As for changes, I'd want a "whisper mode" and a 180db(A) sound system so I could fly up behind people and then scare the pants off them.