24 April 2012
There once was a planet, So big, round and shiny And compared to it, All of it's people were tiny
A funny little race, All hairy and small Descended from apes, And not from there at all
Their planet had died, and they decided to fly To a funny little World Near alpha Centauri.
They settled in nicely, Made a village, then a town But before long It flooded And many apes drowned.
Because of the ruin, a small little group Went digging, far away, for a mineral named gloop
Now, gloop was expensive, Three grand to the pound And if you dug deep enough, It came spilling from the ground.
This posse heard rumours Of old miners, perhaps, Who left all their kit When the gloop trade collapsed.
They went off in search, Of this old buried shaft, And Eventually finding it, Through work, and hard graft.
They went down the lift, Into the dense inky pit, And went on a search To try to find all this kit.
One plucky digger, a Mason by trade, Found the whole damn control room, with a bucket and spade.
The party broke in, And made themselves at home After a little sweep-searching They came across a drone.
This robot was solid, And built explicitly for drilling They knew, with this thing, They were bound to make a killing...
They fired her up Got the drillbit twisting, And off to work they sent her, Into the mineshaft system.
They then put back their feet In a sly relaxation, While the robot was busy In gloop exploitation.
All of a sudden, Came a thundering crash, The rickety old mine Was not up to the task.
A pile of stone Had blocked up the door, And the exit sign bounced As it fell to the floor
Not only this happened, But something else worse: The air tube to the surface Got blocked up with earth.
They were trapped, With no oxygen, And next to no luck Their food had run out: They were pretty much fucked...
When all of a sudden, one had an idea: 'We control the little robot And we make it come here!'
'We put on it's Mic, and we shout and we shout, and then it can find us, and dig us all out!'
They set about typing It's course to the station And estimating their time left, For that, and for suffocation.
With The small little robot They were just within reach Given it's current speed: fifteen MPH.
They set about relaxing: It would all be okay But unfortunately, they were still there The very next day.
They had died, with no air, as the robot was still coming It was taking it's time It's little engines running
For those first miners: They had undergone change: from imperial, to metric When measuring range
The colony, however Used the imperial system So when the little robot, With it's shovels a'twistin', Gave the reading of 15 MPH It meant Metres per hour: which was a Mark of it's age.
So the gloop finders perished And are lying down there still, While the robot finds gloop And continues to drill.
There is an old saying Which seems to ring true: Don't confuse your units, And they won't confuse you.
Digging For Gloop • Opuss № I