5 perlepigraphs - list of Perl release epigraphs
9 Many Perl release announcements included an I<epigraph>, a short excerpt
10 from a literary or other creative work, chosen by the pumpking or release
11 manager. This file assembles the known list of epigraph for posterity,
12 and also links to the release announcements in mailing list archives.
14 I<Note>: these have also been referred to as <epigrams>, but the
15 definition of I<epigraph> is closer to the way they have been used.
16 Consult your favorite dictionary for details.
20 =head2 v5.17.0 - Charles Stross, "Singularity Sky"
22 L<Announced on 2012-05-26 by Zefram|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2012/05/msg187214.html>
24 `Welcome, comrades!' Burya opened his arms toward the soldier.
25 `Yes it is true! With help from our allies of the Festival, the iron
26 hand of the reactionary junta is about to be overthrown for all time!
27 The new economy is being born; the marginal cost of production has
28 been abolished, and from now on, if any item is produced once, it can
29 be replicated infinitely. From each according to his imagination,
30 to each according to his needs! Join us or better still, bring your
31 fellow soldiers and workers to join us!'
33 There was a sharp bang from the roof of the Corn Exchange, right at the
34 climax of his impromptu speech; heads turned in alarm. Something had
35 broken inside the spork factory and a stream of rainbow-hued plastic
36 implements fountained toward the sky and clattered to the cobblestones
37 on every side, like a harbinger of the postindustrial society to come.
38 Workers and peasants alike stared in open-mouthed bewilderment at this
39 astounding display of productivity, then bent to scrabble in the muck
40 for the brightly colored sporks of revolution. A volley of shots rang
41 out and Burya Rubenstein raised his hands, grinning wildly, to accept
42 the salute of the soldiers from the Skull Hill garrison.
44 =head2 v5.16.0 - W.H. Auden - September 1, 1939
46 L<Announced on 2012-05-20 by Ricardo
47 Signes|http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2012-05/msg00728.html>
50 To undo the folded lie,
51 The romantic lie in the brain
52 Of the sensual man-in-the-street
53 And the lie of Authority
54 Whose buildings grope the sky:
55 There is no such thing as the State
56 And no one exists alone;
57 Hunger allows no choice
58 To the citizen or the police;
59 We must love one another or die.
61 -- W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939
63 =head2 v5.15.9 - Bob Dylan - Blowin' In The Wind
65 L<Announced on 2012-03-20 by
66 Abigail|http://nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/184824>
68 How many roads must a man walk down
69 Before you call him a man?
70 Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
71 Before she sleeps in the sand?
72 Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannonballs fly
73 Before they're forever banned?
74 The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
75 The answer is blowin' in the wind
77 How many years can a mountain exist
78 Before it's washed to the sea?
79 Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
80 Before they're allowed to be free?
81 Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head
82 Pretending he just doesn't see?
83 The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
84 The answer is blowin' in the wind
86 How many times must a man look up
87 Before he can see the sky?
88 Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
89 Before he can hear people cry?
90 Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
91 That too many people have died?
92 The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
93 The answer is blowin' in the wind
95 -- Bob Dylan, Spring 1962
97 =head2 v5.15.8 - The KLF - The Manual-How To Have A Number One The Easy Way
99 L<Announced on 2012-02-20 by Max
100 Maischein|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2012/02/msg183919.html>
102 "Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who
103 Doctor Who, in the Tardis
104 Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who
105 Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who
106 Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who"
108 Gibberish of course, but every lad in the country under a certain
109 age related instinctively to what it was about. The ones slightly
110 older needed a couple of pints inside them to clear away the mind
111 debris left by the passing years before it made sense. As for
112 girls and our chorus, we think they must have seen it as pure crap.
113 A fact that must have limited to zero our chances of staying at The
114 Top for more than one week.
116 Stock, Aitkin and Waterman, however, are kings of writing chorus
117 lyrics that go straight to the emotional heart of the 7" single
118 buying girls in this country. Their most successful records will kick
119 into the chorus with a line which encapsulates the entire emotional
120 meaning of the song. This will obviously be used as the title. As
121 soon as Rick Astley hit the first line of the chorus on his debut
122 single it was all over - the Number One position was guaranteed:
124 "I'm never going to give you up"
126 =head2 v5.15.7 - Penelope Lively, The Voyage of QV66
128 L<Announced on 2012-01-20 by Chris 'BinGOs' Williams
129 |http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2012/01/msg182230.html>
131 "Laboratories," announced Henry. "Kindly don't touch anything."
133 He led us into a long low brick shed. Outside there was a
134 notice on a piece of board, crudely printed in red paint,
135 which said GRATE SIENCE DISCOVERYS DONE HERE SSSH! BRING YOUR
136 OWN BUKKIT NO PINCHING ANYWUN ELSE'S EXPERRYMENTS CANTEEN OPEN
139 There were a lot of large black monkeys inside, all intently
140 busy on what they were doing. Some of them were pouring stuff
141 out of bottles into buckets and carefully stirring the ensuing
142 mixture; others were at work with glass tubes and jars, blowing
143 and measuring and mixing; others were crouched over long benches
144 with tools and heaps of bits and pieces of metal, cutting and
145 bending and constructing. There was a great deal of noise and
146 chatter. Every now and then one of them would give a whoop of
147 excitement and all the others would gather round and jump up and
148 down cheering and applauding.
150 "Chimps," said Henry. "They're awfully clever."
152 =head2 v5.15.6 - Ursula K. Leguin, A Wizard of Earthsea
154 L<Announced on 2011-12-20 by Dave
155 Rolsky|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/12/msg180962.html>
157 Ged had thought that as the prentice of a great mage he would enter at once
158 into the mystery and mastery of power. He would understand the language of the
159 beasts and the speech of the leaves of the forest, he thought, and sway the
160 winds with his word, and learn to change himself into any shape he
161 wished. Maybe he and his master would run together as stags, or fly to Re Albi
162 over the mountain on the wings of eagles.
164 But it was not so at all. They wandered, first down into the Vale and then
165 gradually south and westward around the mountain, given lodging in little
166 villages or spending the night out in the wilderness, like poor
167 journeyman-sorcerers, or tinkers, or beggars. They entered no mysterious
168 domain. Nothing happened. The mage's oaken staff that Ged had watched at first
169 with eager dread was nothing but a stout staff to walk with. Three days went
170 by and four days went by and still Ogion had not spoken a single charm in
171 Ged's hearing, and had not taught him a single name or rune or spell.
173 =head2 v5.15.5 - Nikolai Gogol, The Diary of a Madman
175 L<Announced on 2011-11-20 by Steve
176 Hay|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/11/msg179588.html>
178 This day - is a day of the greatest solemnity! Spain has a king. He has
179 been found. I am that king. Only this very day did I learn of it. I
180 confess, it came to me suddenly in a flash of lightning. I don't understand
181 how I could have thought and imagined that I was a titular councillor. How
182 could such a wild notion enter my head? It's a good thing no one thought of
183 putting me in an insane asylum. Now everything is laid open before me. Now
184 I see everything as on the palm of my hand. And before, I don't understand,
185 before everything around me was in some sort of fog. And all this happens, I
186 think, because people imagine that the human brain is in the head. Not at
187 all: it is brought by a wind from the direction of the Caspian Sea. First
188 off, I announced to Mavra who I am. When she heard that the king of Spain
189 was standing before her, she clasped her hands and nearly died of fright.
190 The stupid woman had never seen a king of Spain before. However, I
191 endeavoured to calm her down and assured her in gracious words of my
192 benevolence and that I was not at all angry that she sometimes polished my
193 boots poorly. They're benighted folk. It's impossible to tell them about
194 lofty matters. She got frightened because she's convinced that all kings of
195 Spain are like Philip II. But I explained to her that there was no
196 resemblance between me and Philip II, and that I didn't have a single
197 Capuchin . . . I didn't go to the office . . . To hell with it! No friends,
198 you won't lure me there now; I'm not going to copy your vile papers!
200 -- Nikolai Gogol, The Diary of a Madman,
201 trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
203 =head2 v5.15.4 - Steve Jobs
205 L<Announced on 2011-10-20 by Florian
206 Ragwitz|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/10/msg178412.html>
208 A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they
209 don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions
210 without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of
211 the human experience, the better design we will have.
213 =head2 v5.14.2 - L<< Larry Wall, January 12, 1988 <992@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> |http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sources.d/msg/5d17fa68c250b9b2 >>
215 L<Announced on 2011-09-26 by Florian
216 Ragwitz|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/09/msg177618.html>
219 It's not so much that people don't value the programs after they have them--they
220 do value them. But they're not the sort of thing that would ever catch on if
221 they had to overcome the marketing barrier. (I don't yet know if perl will
222 catch on at all--I'm worried enough about it that I specifically included an
223 awk-to-perl translator just to help it catch on.) Maybe it's all just an
224 inferiority complex. Or maybe I don't like to be mercenary.
226 So I guess I'd say that the reason some software comes free is that the
227 mechanism for selling it is missing, either from the work environment, or from
228 the heart of the programmer.
231 =head2 v5.15.3 - Oscar Wilde, All Art is Quite Useless
233 L<Announced on 2011-09-20 by Stevan
234 Little|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/09/msg177427.html>
236 All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath
237 the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol
238 do so at their peril.
240 It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
241 Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the
242 work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the
243 artist is in accord with himself.
245 We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as
246 he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless
247 thing is that one admires it intensely.
249 All art is quite useless.
251 -- Oscar Wilde, From the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray
254 =head2 v5.15.2 - Rainer Maria Rilke, The Third Duina Elegy
256 L<Announced on 2011-08-20 by Ricardo
257 Signes|http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2011-08/msg00694.html>
259 True, it is strange to live no more on earth,
260 no longer follow the folkways scarecely learned;
261 not to give roses and other especially auspicious
262 things the significance of a human future;
263 to be no more what one was in infinitely anxious hands,
264 and to put aside even one's name, like a broken plaything.
265 Strange, to wish wishes no longer. Strange, to see
266 all that was related fluttering so loosely in space.
267 And being dead is hard, full of catching-up,
268 so that finally one feels a little eternity.–
269 But the living all make the mistake of too sharp discrimination.
270 Often angels (it's said) don't know if they move
271 among the quick or the dead. The eternal current
272 hurtles all ages along with it forever
273 through both realms and drowns their voices in both.
275 -- Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino, The First Elegy
276 trans., C. F. MacIntyre
278 =head2 v5.15.1 - Greg Egan, "Permutation City"
280 L<Announced on 2011-07-20 by Zefram|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/07/msg175014.html>
282 Carter held out a hand towards the middle of the room. `See that
283 fountain?' A ten-metre-wide marble wedding cake, topped with a
284 winged cherub wrestling a serpent, duly appeared. Water cascaded
285 down from a gushing wound in the cherub's neck. Carter said, `It's
286 being computed by redundancies in the sketch of the city. I can
287 extract the results, because I know exactly where to look for them --
288 but nobody else would have a hope in hell of picking them out.'
290 Peer walked up to the fountain. Even as he approached, he noticed
291 that the spray was intangible; when he dipped his hand in the water
292 around the base he felt nothing, and the motion he made with his
293 fingers left the foaming surface unchanged. They were spying on
294 the calculations, not interacting with them; the fountain was a
297 Carter said, `In your case, of course, nobody will need to know
298 the results. Except you -- and you'll know them because you'll
301 =head2 v5.15.0 - Neil Gaiman, "The Graveyard Book"
303 L<Announced on 2011-06-20 by David Golden|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/06/msg173748.html>
305 If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all
306 you will have gained.
308 =head2 v5.12.4 - William Schwenck Gilbert, "Trial By Jury"
310 L<Announced on 2011-06-20 by Leon Brocard|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/06/msg173725.html>
312 You cannot eat breakfast all day,
313 Nor is it the act of a sinner,
314 When breakfast is taken away,
315 To turn his attention to dinner;
316 And it's not in the range of belief,
317 To look upon him as a glutton,
318 Who, when he is tired of beef,
319 Determines to tackle the mutton.
320 Ah! But this I am willing to say,
321 If it will appease her sorrow,
322 I'll marry this lady today,
323 And I'll marry the other tomorrow!
325 =head2 v5.14.1 - L<< Larry Wall, January 12, 1988 <992@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> |http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sources.d/msg/5d17fa68c250b9b2 >>
327 L<Announced on 2011-06-16 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/06/msg173650.html>
329 At this point I'm no longer working for a company that makes me sign
330 my life away, but by now I'm in the habit. Besides, I still harbor
331 the deep-down suspicion that nobody would pay money for what I write,
332 since most of it just helps you do something better that you could
333 already do some other way. How much money would you personally pay
334 to upgrade from readnews to rn? How much money would you pay for
335 the patch program? As for warp, it's a mere game. And anything you
336 can do with perl you can eventually do with an amazing and totally
337 unreadable conglomeration of awk, sed, sh and C.
339 =head2 v5.12.4-RC2 - James Russell Lowell, "Eleanor makes macaroons"
341 L<Announced on 2011-06-15 by Leon Brocard|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/06/msg173609.html>
343 Now for sugar, -- nay, our plan
344 Tolerates no work of man.
345 Hurry, then, ye golden bees;
346 Fetch your clearest honey, please,
347 Garnered on a Yorkshire moor,
348 While the last larks sing and soar,
349 From the heather-blossoms sweet
350 Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet,
351 And the Augusts mask as Junes, --
352 Eleanor makes macaroons!
354 =head2 v5.12.4-RC1 - Ogden Nash, "The Clean Plater"
356 L<Announced on 2011-06-08 by Leon Brocard|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/06/msg173352.html>
358 Pheasant is pleasant, of course,
359 And terrapin, too, is tasty,
360 Lobster I freely endorse,
361 In pate or patty or pasty.
362 But there's nothing the matter with butter,
363 And nothing the matter with jam,
364 And the warmest greetings I utter
365 To the ham and the yam and the clam.
368 And I think very fondly of food.
369 Through I'm broody at times
370 When bothered by rhymes,
374 =head2 v5.14.0 - L<< Larry Wall, January 12, 1988 <992@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> |http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sources.d/msg/5d17fa68c250b9b2 >>
376 L<Announced on 2011-05-14 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/05/msg172326.html>
378 At the start of any project, I'm programming primarily to please
379 myself. (The two chief virtues in a programmer are laziness and
380 impatience.) After a while somebody looks over my shoulder and says,
381 "That's neat. It'd be neater if it did such-and-so." So the thing
382 gets neater. Pretty soon (a year or two) I have an rn, a warp, a patch,
383 or a perl. One of these years I'll have a metaconfig.
385 I then say to myself, "I don't want my life's work to die when this
386 computer is scrapped, so I should let some other people use this. If I
387 ask my company to sell this, it'll never see the light of day, and nobody
388 would pay much for it anyway. If I sell it myself, I'll be in trouble with
389 my company, to whom I signed my life away when I was hired. If I give it
390 away, I can pretend it was worthless in the first place, so my company
391 won't care. In any event, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission."
393 So a freely distributable program is born.
395 =head2 v5.14.0-RC3 - American Airlines Gate Agent, last call
397 L<Announced on 2011-05-11 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/05/msg172282.html>
399 This is the last call for flight 1697 with service to Chicago and
400 continuing service to San Francisco. All passengers should already be
401 aboard. If you aren't aboard at this time, you will be denied boarding
402 and your bags will be offloaded.
404 =head2 v5.14.0-RC2 - Greg Grandin, Fordlandia, "the Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City"
406 L<Announced on 2011-05-04 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/05/msg171879.html>
408 Over the course of nearly two decades, Ford would spend tens of millions
409 of dollars founding not one but, after the plantation was defastated
410 by leaf blight, two American towns, complete with central squares,
411 sidewalks, indoor plumbing, hospitals, manicured lawns, movie theaters,
412 swimming pools, golf courses, and, of course, Model Ts and As rolling
413 down their paved streets.
415 Back in America, newspapers kept up their drumbeat celebration, only
416 obliquely referencing reports that things were not progressing as the
417 company had hoped. But there was one note of skepticism. In late 1928,
418 the Washington Post ran an editorial that read in its entirety: "Ford will
419 govern a rubber plantation in Brazil larger than North Carolina. This is
420 the first time he has applied quantity production methods to trouble"
422 =head2 v5.14.0-RC1 - Bill Bryson, "In a Sunburned Country"
424 L<Announced on 2011-04-20 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/04/msg171253.html>
426 But then Australia is such a difficult country to keep track of. On
427 my first visit, some years ago, I passed the time on the long flight
428 reading a history of Australian politics in the twentieth century,
429 wherein I encountered the startling fact that in 1967 the prime minister,
430 Harold Holt, was strolling along a beach in Victoria when he plunged into
431 the surf and vanished. No trace of the poor man was ever seen again.
432 This seemed doubly astounding to meE<0x2014>first that Australia could
433 just I<lose> a prime minister (I mean, come on) and second that news of
434 this had never reached me.
436 =head2 v5.13.11 - Walt Whitman, L<Leaves of Grass|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaves_of_Grass>
438 L<Announced on 2011-02-20 by Florian Ragwitz|http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2011-03/msg00560.html>
440 When the full-grown poet came,
441 Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its
442 shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;
443 But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled,
444 Nay he is mine alone;
445 --Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each
447 And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands,
448 Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,
449 And wholly and joyously blends them.
451 =head2 v5.13.10 - Egill Skalla-GrÃmsson, L<Egils saga Skalla-GrÃmssonar|http://www.heimskringla.no/wiki/Egils_saga_Skalla-Gr%C3%ADmssonar>
453 L<Announced on 2011-02-20 by Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/02/msg169340.html>
455 Skalat maðr rúnar rÃsta,
456 nema ráða vel kunni.
457 Þat verðr mörgum manni,
458 es of myrkvan staf villisk.
459 Sák á telgðu talkni
460 tÃu launstafi ristna.
461 Þat hefr lauka lindi
462 langs ofrtrega fengit.
464 =head2 v5.13.9 - John F Kennedy, L<Inaugural Address January 20, 1961|http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy%27s_Inaugural_Address>
466 L<Announced on 2011-01-20 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/01/msg168335.html>
468 In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been
469 granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I
470 do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it. I do not believe
471 that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other
472 generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this
473 endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from
474 that fire can truly light the world.
476 And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you;
477 ask what you can do for your country.
479 My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you,
480 but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
482 Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world,
483 ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which
484 we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history
485 the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love,
486 asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's
487 work must truly be our own.
489 =head2 v5.13.8 - Roger Williams, L<"The Fifth Gift"|http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/8/19/21304/8493>
491 L<Announced on 2010-12-19 by Zefram|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/12/msg167271.html>
493 The aliens called the box a "matter generator," but we'd be more inclined
494 to call it a matter duplicator. By connecting switches and potentiometers
495 between the copper posts it was possible to make the box mark off two
496 cubic rectangular areas of volume. Make a certain contact, and these
497 areas would be isolated within perfectly reflective fields. They could
498 be expanded or contracted by altering resistances between other posts.
499 As I worked out the user interface I built a little control panel for
500 the device. It was actually a clever way for the aliens to do things;
501 instead of trying to build controls we could use, they built us an
502 interface we could attach to controls that made sense to us. It could
505 Once you had made the contact that established the shielded volumes,
506 if you made another certain contact the contents of the first volume
507 were copied to the second. The machine copied metal, plastic, steel,
508 and diamond with equal ease. Copies of copies of copies of copies were
509 indistinguishable from the originals at any magnification, even using
510 techniques like X-ray crystallography.
512 =head2 v5.13.7 - Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, 'The Matrix'
514 L<Announced on 2010-11-20 by Chris 'BinGOs' Williams|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/11/msg166162.html>
516 [Neo sees a black cat walk by them, and then a similar black cat walk by them just like the first one]
520 [Everyone freezes right in their tracks]
522 Trinity: What did you just say?
523 Neo: Nothing. Just had a little deja vu.
524 Trinity: What did you see?
525 Cypher: What happened?
526 Neo: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.
527 Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same cat?
528 Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure.
529 Morpheus: Switch! Apoc!
531 Trinity: A deja vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
533 =head2 v5.13.6 - Haruki Murakami, "Kafka on the Shore"
535 L<Announced on 2010-10-20 by Tatsuhiko Miyagawa|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/10/msg165183.html>
537 The boy called Crow softly rests a hand on my shoulder, and with that
540 "From now on -- no matter what -- you've got to be the world's toughest
541 fifteen-year-old. That's the only way you're going to survive. And in order
542 to do that, you've got to figure out what it means to be tough. You following
545 I keep my eyes closed and don't reply. I just want to sink off into sleep
546 like this, his hand on my shoulder. I hear the faint flutter of wings.
548 "You're going to be the world's toughest fifteen-year-old," Crow whispers
549 as I try to fall asleep. Like he was carving the words in a deep blue tattoo
552 (Translated from Japanese by Philip Gabriel)
554 =head2 v5.13.5 - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, "The Room in the Dragon Volant"
556 L<Announced on 2010-09-19 by Steve Hay|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/09/msg164238.html>
558 Candle in hand I stepped in. I do not know whether the quality of
559 air, long undisturbed, is peculiar; to me it has always seemed so, and
560 the damp smell of the old masonry hung in this atmosphere. My candle
561 faintly lighted the bare stone wall that enclosed the stair, the foot
562 of which I could not see. Down I went, and a few turns brought me to
563 the stone floor. Here was another door, of the simple, old, oak kind,
564 deep sunk in the thickness of the wall. The large end of the key
565 fitted this. The lock was stiff; I set the candle down upon the
566 stair, and applied both hands; it turned with difficulty, and as it
567 revolved, uttered a shriek that alarmed me for my secret.
569 For some minutes I did not move. In a little time, however, I took
570 courage, and opened the door. The night-air floating in puffed out
571 the candle. There was a thicket of holly and underwood, as dense as a
572 jungle, close about the door. I should have been in pitch-darkness,
573 were it not that through the topmost leaves there twinkled, here and
574 there, a glimmer of moonshine.
576 Softly, lest any one should have opened his window at the sound of the
577 rusty bolt, I struggled through this till I gained a view of the open
578 grounds. Here I found that the brushwood spread a good way up the
579 park, uniting with the wood that approached the little temple I have
582 =head2 v5.13.4 - Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
584 L<Announced on 2010-08-20 by Florian Ragwitz|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/08/msg163150.html>
586 `How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!' thought Alice;
587 `I might as well be at school at once.' However, she got up, and began to repeat
588 it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what
589 she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:--
591 "'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
592 "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
593 As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
594 Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.'
597 `That's different from what I used to say when I was a child,' said the Gryphon.
599 `Well, I never heard it before,' said the Mock Turtle; `but it sounds uncommon
602 Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if
603 anything would ever happen in a natural way again.
605 `I should like to have it explained,' said the Mock Turtle.
607 `She can't explain it,' said the Gryphon hastily. `Go on with the next verse.'
609 `But about his toes?' the Mock Turtle persisted. `How could he turn them out
610 with his nose, you know?'
612 `It's the first position in dancing.' Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by
613 the whole thing, and longed to change the subject.
615 =head2 v5.13.3 - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, "Good Omens"
617 L<Announced on 2010-07-20 by David Golden|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/07/msg162230.html>
619 Look at Crowley, doing 110 mph on the M40 heading towards
620 Oxfordshire. Even the most resolutely casual observer would
621 notice a number of strange things about him. The clenched teeth,
622 for example, or the dull red glow coming from behind his
623 sunglasses. And the car. The car was a definite hint.
625 Crowley had started the journey in his Bentley, and he was
626 dammned if he wasn't going to finish it in the Bentley as well.
627 Not that even the kind of car buff who owns his own pair of
628 motoring goggles would have been able to tell it was a vintage
629 Bentley. Not any more. They wouldn't have been able to tell
630 that it was a Bentley. They would only offer fifty-fifty that it
631 had ever even been a car.
633 There was no paint left on it, for a start. It might still have
634 been black, where it wasn't a rusty, smudged reddish-brown, but
635 this was a dull charcoal black. It traveled in its own ball of
636 flame, like a space capsule making a particularly difficult
639 There was a thin skin of crusted, melted rubber left around the
640 metal wheel rims, but seeing that the wheel rims were still
641 somhow riding an inch above the road surface this didn't seem to
642 make an awful lot of difference to the suspension.
644 It should have fallen apart miles back.
646 =head2 v5.13.2 - Iain M Banks, "Use of Weapons"
648 L<Announced on 2010-06-22 by Matt S Trout|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/06/msg161112.html>
650 We deal in the moral equivalent of black holes, where the normal laws -
651 the rules of right and wrong that people imagine apply everywhere else
652 in the universe - break down; beyond those metaphysical event-horizons,
653 there exist ... special circumstances.
655 =head2 v5.13.1 - Miguel de Unamuno, "The Sepulchre of Don Quixote"
657 L<Announced on 2010-05-20 by Ricardo Signes|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/05/msg160275.html>
659 And if anyone shall come to you and say that he knows how to construct
660 bridges and that perhaps a time will come when you will wish to avail
661 yourself of his science in order to cross over a river, out with him! Out
662 with the engineer! Rivers will be crossed by wading or swimming them, even
663 if half the crusaders drown themselves. Let the engineer go off and build
664 bridges somewhere else, where they are badly wanted. For those who go in
665 quest of the sepulchre, faith is bridge enough.
667 =head2 v5.13.0 - Jules Verne, "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth"
669 L<Announced on 2010-04-20 by LE<0xe9>on Brocard|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/04/msg159275.html>
671 The heat still remained at quite a supportable degree. With an
672 involuntary shudder, I reflected on what the heat must have been
673 when the volcano of Sneffels was pouring its smoke, flames, and
674 streams of boiling lava -- all of which must have come up by the
675 road we were now following. I could imagine the torrents of hot
676 seething stone darting on, bubbling up with accompaniments of
677 smoke, steam, and sulphurous stench!
679 "Only to think of the consequences," I mused, "if the old
680 volcano were once more to set to work."
682 =head2 v5.12.3 - Howard W. Campbell, Jr., "Reflections on Not Participating in Current Events"
684 L<Announced on 2011-01-21 by Ricardo Signes|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2011/01/msg168368.html>
686 I saw a huge steam roller,
687 It blotted out the sun.
688 The people all lay down, lay down;
689 They did not try to run.
690 My love and I, we looked amazed
691 Upon the gory mystery.
692 'Lie down, lie down!' the people cried.
693 'The great machine is history!'
694 My love and I, we ran away,
695 The engine did not find us.
696 We ran up to a mountain top,
697 Left history far behind us.
698 Perhaps we should have stayed and died,
699 But somehow we don't think so.
700 We went to see where history'd been,
701 And my, the dead did stink so.
703 =head2 v5.12.2 - William Gibson, "Pattern Recognition"
705 L<Announced on 2010-09-06 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/09/msg163852.html>
707 CPUs. Cayce Pollard Units. That's what Damien calls the clothing
708 she wears. CPUs are either black, white, or gray, and ideally
709 seem to have come into this world without human intervention.
711 What people take for relentless minimalism is a side effect
712 of too much exposure to the reactor-cores of fashion. This
713 has resulted in a remorseless paring-down of what she can and
714 will wear. She is, literally, allergic to fashion. She can
715 only tolerate things that could have been worn, to a general
716 lack of comment, during any year between 1945 and 2000. She's a
717 design-free zone, a one-woman school of and whose very austerity
718 periodically threatens to spawn its own cult.
720 =head2 v5.12.2-RC1 - William Gibson, "Pattern Recognition"
722 L<Announced on 2010-08-31 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/08/msg163670.html>
724 The front page opens, familiar as a friend's living room. A frame-grab
725 from #48 serves as backdrop, dim and almost monochrome, no characters in
726 view. This is one of the sequences that generate comparisons with
727 Tarkovsky. She only knows Tarkovsky from stills, really, though she did
728 once fall asleep during a screening of The Stalker, going under on an
729 endless pan, the camera aimed straight down, in close-up, at a puddle on
730 a ruined mosaic floor. But she is not one of those who think that much
731 will be gained by analysis of the maker's imagined influences. The cult
732 of the footage is rife with subcults, claiming every possible influence.
733 Truffaut, Peckinpah -- The Peckinpah people, among the least likely, are
734 still waiting for the guns to be drawn.
736 =head2 v5.12.1 - Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
738 L<Announced on 2010-05-16 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/05/msg160109.html>
740 "Now suppose," chortled Dr. Breed, enjoying himself, "that there were
741 many possible ways in which water could crystallize, could freeze.
742 Suppose that the sort of ice we skate upon and put into highballs --
743 what we might call ice-one -- is only one of several types of ice.
744 Suppose water always froze as ice-one on Earth because it had never
745 had a seed to teach it how to form ice-two, ice-three, ice-four
746 ...? And suppose," he rapped on his desk with his old hand again,
747 "that there were one form, which we will call ice-nine -- a crystal as
748 hard as this desk -- with a melting point of, let us say, one-hundred
749 degrees Fahrenheit, or, better still, a melting point of one-hundred-
752 =head2 v5.12.1-RC2 - Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
754 L<Announced on 2010-05-13 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/05/msg160066.html>
756 San Lorenzo was fifty miles long and twenty miles wide, I learned from
757 the supplement to the New York Sunday Times. Its population was four
758 hundred, fifty thousand souls, "...all fiercely dedicated to the ideals
761 Its highest point, Mount McCabe, was eleven thousand feet above sea
762 level. Its capital was Bolivar, "...a strikingly modern city built on a
763 harbor capable of sheltering the entire United States Navy." The principal
764 exports were sugar, coffee, bananas, indigo, and handcrafted novelties.
766 =head2 v5.12.1-RC1 - Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
768 L<Announced on 2010-05-09 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/05/msg159971.html>
770 Which brings me to the Bokononist concept of a wampeter. A wampeter is
771 the pivot of a karass. No karass is without a wampeter, Bokonon tells us,
772 just as no wheel is without a hub. Anything can be a wampeter: a tree,
773 a rock, an animal, an idea, a book, a melody, the Holy Grail. Whatever
774 it is, the members of its karass revolve about it in the majestic chaos
775 of a spiral nebula. The orbits of the members of a karass about their
776 common wampeter are spiritual orbits, naturally. It is souls and not
777 bodies that revolve. As Bokonon invites us to sing:
779 Around and around and around we spin,
780 With feet of lead and wings of tin . . .
782 =head2 v5.12.0 - Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
784 L<Announced on 2010-04-12 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/04/msg158820.html>
786 'Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for she was
787 not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, 'why
788 your cat grins like that?'
790 'It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, 'and that's why. Pig!'
792 She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite
793 jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby,
794 and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:--
796 'I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know
797 that cats COULD grin.'
799 'They all can,' said the Duchess; 'and most of 'em do.'
801 =head2 v5.12.0-RC5 - Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
803 L<Announced on 2010-04-09 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/04/msg158720.html>
805 'Not QUITE right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; 'some of the words
808 'It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly, and
809 there was silence for some minutes.
811 =head2 v5.12.0-RC4 - Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
813 L<Announced on 2010-04-06 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/04/msg158567.html>
815 'It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, 'when one wasn't
816 always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and
817 rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole--and yet--and
818 yet--it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what
819 can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that
820 kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!
822 =head2 v5.12.0-RC3 - Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
824 L<Announced on 2010-04-02 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/04/msg158346.html>
826 At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them,
827 called out, 'Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'LL soon make you
828 dry enough!' They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse
829 in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt
830 sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.
832 'Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, 'are you all ready? This
833 is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! "William
834 the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted
835 to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much
836 accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of
837 Mercia and Northumbria --"'
839 =head2 v5.12.0-RC2 - no announcement
841 Available on CPAN since 2010-04-01.
843 =head2 v5.12.0-RC1 - Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
845 L<Announced on 2010-03-29 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/03/msg158060.html>
847 So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the
848 hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of
849 making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and
850 picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran
853 There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so
854 VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh
855 dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it
856 occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time
857 it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH
858 OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on,
859 Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had
860 never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to
861 take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field
862 after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large
863 rabbit-hole under the hedge.
865 In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how
866 in the world she was to get out again.
868 =head2 v5.12.0-RC0 - no epigraph
870 L<Announced on 2020-03-21 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/03/msg157761.html>
872 =head2 v5.11.5 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Christabel"
874 L<Announced on 2010-02-21 by Steve Hay|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/02/msg156957.html>
876 A little child, a limber elf,
877 Singing, dancing to itself,
878 A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
879 That always finds, and never seeks,
880 Makes such a vision to the sight
881 As fills a father's eyes with light;
882 And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
883 Upon his heart, that he at last
884 Must needs express his love's excess
885 With words of unmeant bitterness.
886 Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
887 Thoughts so all unlike each other;
888 To mutter and mock a broken charm,
889 To dally with wrong that does no harm.
890 Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
891 At each wild word to feel within
892 A sweet recoil of love and pity.
893 And what, if in a world of sin
894 (O sorrow and shame should this be true!)
895 Such giddiness of heart and brain
896 Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
897 So talks as it's most used to do.
899 =head2 v5.11.4 - Fyodor Dostoevsky, "Crime and Punishment"
901 L<Announced on 2010-01-20 by Ricardo Signes|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2010/01/msg155848.html>
903 And you don't suppose that I went into it headlong like a fool? I went
904 into it like a wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you
905 mustn't suppose that I didn't know, for instance, that if I began to
906 question myself whether I had the right to gain power -- I certainly
907 hadn't the right -- or that if I asked myself whether a human being is a
908 louse it proved that it wasn't so for me, though it might be for a man
909 who would go straight to his goal without asking questions.... If I
910 worried myself all those days, wondering whether Napoleon would have
911 done it or not, I felt clearly of course that I wasn't Napoleon.
913 =head2 v5.11.3 - Mark Twain, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
915 L<Announced on 2009-12-20 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/12/msg154838.html>
917 "Say -- I'm going in a swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of
918 course you'd druther work -- wouldn't you? Course you would!"
920 Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: "What do you call work?"
922 "Why ain't that work?"
924 Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly: "Well, maybe it
925 is, and maybe it aint. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer."
927 "Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you like it?"
929 The brush continued to move. "Like it? Well I don't see why I oughtn't
930 to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"
932 That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom
933 swept his brush daintily back and forth -- stepped back to note the effect
934 -- added a touch here and there-criticised the effect again -- Ben
935 watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more
936 absorbed. Presently he said: "Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."
938 =head2 v5.11.2 - Michael Marshall Smith, "Only Forward"
940 L<Announced on 2009-11-20 by Léon Brocard|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/11/msg153646.html>
942 The streets were pretty quiet, which was nice. They're always quiet here
943 at that time: you have to be wearing a black jacket to be out on the
944 streets between seven and nine in the evening, and not many people in
945 the area have black jackets. It's just one of those things. I currently
946 live in Colour Neighbourhood, which is for people who are heavily into
947 colour. All the streets and buildings are set for instant colourmatch:
948 as you walk down the road they change hue to offset whatever you're
949 wearing. When the streets are busy it's kind of intense, and anyone
950 prone to epileptic seizures isn't allowed to live in the Neighbourhood,
951 however much they're into colour.
953 =head2 v5.11.1 - Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
955 L<Announced on 2009-10-20 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/10/msg152360.html>
957 Milo had been caught red-handed in the act of plundering his countrymen,
958 and, as a result, his stock had never been higher. He proved good as his
959 word when a rawboned major from Minnesota curled his lip in rebellious
960 disavowal and demanded his share of the syndicate Milo kept saying
961 everybody owned. Milo met the challenge by writing the words "A Share"
962 on the nearest scrap of paper and handing it away with a virtuous disdain
963 that won the envy and admiration of almost everyone who knew him. His
964 glory was at a peak, and Colonel Cathcart, who knew and admired his
965 war record, was astonished by the deferential humility with which Mil
966 presented himself at Group Headquarters and made his fantastic appeal
967 for more hazardous assignment.
969 =head2 v5.11.0 - Mikhail Bulgakov, "The Master and Margarita"
971 L<Announced on 2009-10-02 by Jesse Vincent|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/10/msg151376.html>
973 Whispers of an "evil power" were heard in lines at dairy shops, in
974 streetcars, stores, arguments, kitchens, suburban and long-distance
975 trains, at stations large and small, in dachas and on beaches. Needless
976 to say, truly mature and cultured people did not tell these stories
977 about an evil power's visit to the capital. In fact, they even made fun
978 of them and tried to talk sense into those who told them. Nevertheless,
979 facts are facts, as they say, and cannot simply be dismissed without
980 explanation: somebody had visited the capital. The charred cinders of
981 Griboyedov alone, and many other things besides, confirmed it. Cultured
982 people shared the point of view of the investigating team: it was the
983 work of a gang of hypnotists and ventriloquists magnificently skilled in
986 =head2 v5.10.1 - Right Hon. James Hacker MP, "The Complete Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister"
988 L<Announced on 2009-09-23 by Dave Mitchell|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/08/msg150172.html>
990 'Briefly, sir, I am the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, known as
991 the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private
992 Secretary. I, too, have a Principal Private Secretary, and he is the
993 Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly
994 responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Under
995 Secretaries and two hundred and nineteen Assistant Secretaries.
996 Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretaries are plain
997 Private Secretaries. The Prime Minister will be appointing two
998 Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and you will be appointing your own
999 Parliamentary Private Secretary.'
1001 'Can they all type?' I joked.
1003 'None of us can type, Minister,' replied Sir Humphrey smoothly. 'Mrs
1004 McKay types - she is your Secretary.'
1006 I couldn't tell whether or not he was joking. 'What a pity,' I said.
1007 'We could have opened an agency.'
1009 Sir Humphrey and Bernard laughed. 'Very droll, sir,' said Sir
1010 Humphrey. 'Most amusing, sir,' said Bernard. Were they genuinely
1011 amused at my wit, or just being rather patronising? 'I suppose they
1012 all say that, do they?' I ventured.
1014 Sir Humphrey reassured me on that. 'Certainly not, Minister,' he
1015 replied. 'Not quite all.'
1017 =head2 v5.10.1-RC2 - no epigraph
1019 L<Announced on 2009-08-18 by Dave Mitchell|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/08/msg150015.html>
1021 =head2 v5.10.1-RC1 - no epigraph
1023 L<Announced on 2009-08-06 by Dave Mitchell|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/08/msg149498.html>
1025 =head2 v5.10.0 - Laurence Sterne, "Tristram Shandy"
1027 L<Announced on 2007-12-18 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2007/12/msg131636.html>
1029 He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that
1030 he did not conceive how the greatest family in England could stand it
1031 out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short
1032 noses.--And for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it
1033 must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same
1034 number of long and jolly noses, following one another in a direct line,
1035 did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the kingdom.
1037 =head2 v5.10.0-RC2 - no epigraph
1039 L<Announced on 2007-11-25 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2007/11/msg130978.html>
1041 =head2 v5.10.0-RC1 - no epigraph
1043 L<Announced on 2007-11-17 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2007/11/msg130653.html>
1045 =head2 v5.9.5 - no announcement
1047 L<Pre-announced on 2007-07-07 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2007/07/msg126358.html>,
1048 available on CPAN with same date, but never actually announced.
1050 =head2 v5.9.4 - no epigraph
1052 L<Announced on 2006-08-15 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2006/08/msg115782.html>
1054 =head2 v5.9.3 - no epigraph
1056 L<Announced on 2006-01-28 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2006/01/msg109086.html>
1058 =head2 v5.9.2 - Thomas Pynchon, "V"
1060 L<Announced on 2005-04-01 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20050401150702.2b4a70d5@grubert.mandrakesoft.com>
1062 This word flip was weird. Every recording date of McClintic's he'd
1063 gotten into the habit of talking electricity with the audio men and
1064 technicians of the studio. McClintic once couldn't have cared less
1065 about electricity, but now it seemed if that was helping him reach a
1066 bigger audience, some digging, some who would never dig, but all
1067 paying and those royalties keeping the Triumph in gas and McClintic
1068 in J. Press suits, then McClintic ought to be grateful to
1069 electricity, ought maybe to learn a little more about it. So he'd
1070 picked up some here and there, and one day last summer he got around
1071 to talking stochastic music and digital computers with one
1072 technician. Out of the conversation had come Set/Reset, which was
1073 getting to be a signature for the group. He had found out from this
1074 sound man about a two-triode circuit called a flip-flop, which when
1075 it turned on could be one of two ways, depending on which tube was
1076 conducting and which was cut off: set or reset, flip or flop.
1078 "And that," the man said, "can be yes or no, or one or zero. And
1079 that is what you might call one of the basic units, or specialized
1080 `cells' in a big `electronic brain.' "
1082 "Crazy," said McClintic, having lost him back there someplace. But
1083 one thing that did occur to him was if a computer's brain could go
1084 flip or flop, why so could a musician's. As long as you were flop,
1085 everything was cool. But where did the trigger-pulse come from to
1088 =head2 v5.9.1 - Tom Stoppard, "Arcadia"
1090 L<Announced on 2004-03-16 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/8587d77c565f2d43>
1092 Aren't you supposed to have a pony?
1094 =head2 v5.9.0 - Doris Lessing, "Martha Quest"
1096 L<Announced on 2003-10-27 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/63a8c34385de82a1>
1098 What of October, that ambiguous month
1100 =head2 v5.8.9 - Right Hon. James Hacker MP, "The Complete Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister"
1102 L<Announced on 2008-12-14 by Nicholas Clark|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2008/12/msg142571.html>
1104 Frank and I, unlike the civil servants, were still puzzled that such a
1105 proposal as the Europass could even be seriously under consideration by
1106 the FCO. We can both see clearly that it is wonderful ammunition for the
1107 anti-Europeans. I asked Humphrey if the Foreign Office doesn't realise
1108 how damaging this would be to the European ideal?
1110 'I'm sure they do, Minister, he said. That's why they support it.'
1112 This was even more puzzling, since I'd always been under the impression
1113 that the FO is pro-Europe. 'Is it or isn't it?' I asked Humphrey.
1115 'Yes and no,' he replied of course, 'if you'll pardon the
1116 expression. The Foreign Office is pro-Europe because it is really
1117 anti-Europe. In fact the Civil Service was united in its desire to make
1118 sure the Common Market didn't work. That's why we went into it.'
1120 This sounded like a riddle to me. I asked him to explain further. And
1121 basically his argument was as follows: Britain has had the same foreign
1122 policy objective for at least the last five hundred years - to create a
1123 disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against
1124 the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and
1125 Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Italians
1126 and Germans. [The Dutch rebellion against Phillip II of Spain, the
1127 Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and the Second World War - Ed.]
1129 In other words, divide and rule. And the Foreign Office can see no
1130 reason to change when it has worked so well until now.
1132 I was aware of this, naturally, but I regarded it as ancient history.
1133 Humphrey thinks that it is, in fact, current policy. It was necessary
1134 for us to break up the EEC, he explained, so we had to get inside. We
1135 had previously tried to break it up from the outside, but that didn't
1136 work. [A reference to our futile and short-lived involvement in EFTA,
1137 the European Free Trade Association, founded in 1960 and which the UK
1138 left in 1972 - Ed.] Now that we're in, we are able to make a complete
1139 pig's breakfast out of it. We've now set the Germans against the French,
1140 the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch... and
1141 the Foreign office is terribly happy. It's just like old time.
1143 I was staggered by all of this. I thought that the all of us who are
1144 publicly pro-European believed in the European ideal. I said this to Sir
1145 Humphrey, and he simply chuckled.
1147 So I asked him: if we don't believe in the European Ideal, why are we
1148 pushing to increase the membership?
1150 'Same reason,' came the reply. 'It's just like the United Nations. The
1151 more members it has, the more arguments you can stir up, and the more
1152 futile and impotent it becomes.'
1154 This all strikes me as the most appalling cynicism, and I said so.
1156 Sir Humphrey agreed completely. 'Yes Minister. We call it
1157 diplomacy. It's what made Britain great, you know.'
1159 =head2 v5.8.9-RC2 - Right Hon. James Hacker MP, "The Complete Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister"
1161 L<Announced on 2008-12-06 by Nicholas Clark|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2008/11/msg142422.html>
1163 There was silence in the office. I didn't know what we were going to do
1164 about the four hundred new people supervising our economy drive or the
1165 four hundred new people for the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office, or
1166 anything! I simply sat and waited and hoped that my head would stop
1167 thumping and that some idea would be suggested by someone sometime soon.
1169 Sir Humphrey obliged. 'Minister... if we were to end the economy drive
1170 and close the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office we could issue an immediate
1171 press announcement that you had axed eight hundred jobs.' He had
1172 obviously thought this out carefully in advance, for at this moment he
1173 produced a slim folder from under his arm. 'If you'd like to approve
1176 I couldn't believe the impertinence of the suggestion. Axed eight
1177 hundred jobs? 'But no one was ever doing these jobs,' I pointed out
1178 incredulously. 'No one's been appointed yet.'
1180 'Even greater economy,' he replied instantly. 'We've saved eight hundred
1181 redundancy payments as well.'
1183 'But...' I attempted to explain '... that's just phony. It's dishonest,
1184 it's juggling with figures, it's pulling the wool over people's eyes.'
1186 'A government press release, in fact.' said Humphrey.
1188 =head2 v5.8.9-RC1 - Right Hon. James Hacker MP, "The Complete Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister"
1190 L<Announced on 2008-11-10 by Nicholas Clark|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2008/11/msg141515.html>
1192 A jumbo jet touched down, with BURANDAN AIRWAYS written on the side. I
1193 was hugely impressed. British Airways are having to pawn their Concordes,
1194 and here is this little tiny African state with its own airline, jumbo
1197 I asked Bernard how many planes Burandan Airways had. 'None,' he said.
1199 I told him not to be silly and use his eyes. 'No Minister, it belongs to
1200 Freddie Laker,' he said. 'They chartered it last week and repainted it
1201 specially.' Apparently most of the Have-Nots (I mean, LDCs) do this - at
1202 the opening of the UN General Assembly the runways of Kennedy Airport are
1203 jam-packed with phoney flag-carriers. 'In fact,' said Bernard with a sly
1204 grin, 'there was one 747 that belonged to nine different African airlines
1205 in a month. They called it the mumbo-jumbo.'
1207 While we watched nothing much happening on the TV except the mumbo-jumbo
1208 taxiing around Prestwick and the Queen looking a bit chilly, Bernard gave
1209 me the next day's schedule and explained that I was booked on the night
1210 sleeper from King's Cross to Edinburgh because I had to vote in a
1211 three-line whip at the House tonight and would have to miss the last
1212 plane. Then the commentator, in that special hushed BBC voice used for any
1213 occasion with which Royalty is connected, announced reverentially that we
1214 were about to catch our first glimpse of President Selim.
1216 And out of the plane stepped Charlie. My old friend Charlie Umtali. We
1217 were at LSE together. Not Selim Mohammed at all, but Charlie.
1219 Bernard asked me if I were sure. Silly question. How could you forget a
1220 name like Charlie Umtali?
1222 I sent Bernard for Sir Humphrey, who was delighted to hear that we now
1223 know something about our official visitor.
1225 Bernard's official brief said nothing. Amazing! Amazing how little the FCO
1226 has been able to find out. Perhaps they were hoping it would all be on the
1227 car radio. All the brief says is that Colonel Selim Mohammed had converted
1228 to Islam some years ago, they didn't know his original name, and therefore
1229 knew little of his background.
1231 I was able to tell Humphrey and Bernard /all/ about his background.
1232 Charlie was a red-hot political economist, I informed them. Got the top
1233 first. Wiped the floor with everyone.
1235 Bernard seemed relieved. 'Well that's all right then.'
1239 'I think Bernard means,' said Sir Humphrey helpfully, 'that he'll know how
1240 to behave if he was at an English University. Even if it was the LSE.' I
1241 never know whether or not Humphrey is insulting me intentionally.
1243 Humphrey was concerned about Charlie's political colour. 'When you said
1244 that he was red-hot, were you speaking politically?'
1246 In a way I was. 'The thing about Charlie is that you never quite know
1247 where you are with him. He's the sort of chap who follows you into a
1248 revolving door and comes out in front.'
1250 'No deeply held convictions?' asked Sir Humphrey.
1252 'No. The only thing Charlie was committed too was Charlie.'
1254 'Ah, I see. A politician, Minister.'
1256 =head2 v5.8.8 - Joe Raposo, "Bein' Green"
1258 L<Announced on 2006-02-01 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/28caf52e41ebe723>
1260 It's not that easy bein' green
1261 Having to spend each day the color of the leaves
1262 When I think it could be nicer being red or yellow or gold
1263 Or something much more colorful like that
1265 It's not easy bein' green
1266 It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things
1267 And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're
1268 Not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water
1271 But green's the color of Spring
1272 And green can be cool and friendly-like
1273 And green can be big like an ocean
1274 Or important like a mountain
1277 When green is all there is to be
1278 It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?
1279 Wonder I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful
1280 And I think it's what I want to be
1282 =head2 v5.8.8-RC1 - Cosgrove Hall Productions, "Dangermouse"
1284 L<Announced on 2006-01-20 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/d231fc554af8cc51>
1286 Greenback: And the world is mine, all mine. Muhahahahaha. See to it!
1288 Stiletto: Si, Barone. Subito, Barone.
1290 =head2 v5.8.7 - Sergei Prokofiev, "Peter and the Wolf"
1292 L<Announced on 2005-05-31 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/9a545704a0062f16>
1294 And now, imagine the triumphant procession: Peter at the head; after him the
1295 hunters leading the wolf; and winding up the procession, grandfather and the
1298 Grandfather shook his head discontentedly: "Well, and if Peter hadn't caught
1299 the wolf? What then?"
1301 =head2 v5.8.7-RC1 - Sergei Prokofiev, "Peter and the Wolf"
1303 L<Announced on 2005-05-20 by Nicholas Clark|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2005/05/msg100711.html>
1305 And now this is how things stood: The cat was sitting on one branch. The
1306 bird on another, not too close to the cat. And the wolf walked round and
1307 round the tree, looking at them with greedy eyes.
1309 In the meantime, Peter, without the slightest fear, stood behind the
1310 gate, watching all that was going on. He ran home,got a strong rope and
1311 climbed up the high stone wall.
1313 One of the branches of the tree, around which the wolf was walking,
1314 stretched out over the wall.
1316 Grabbing hold of the branch, Peter lightly climbed over on to the tree.
1317 Peter said to the bird: "Fly down and circle round the wolf's head, only
1318 take care that he doesn't catch you!".
1320 The bird almost touched the wolf's head with its wings, while the wolf
1321 snapped angrily at him from this side and that.
1323 How that bird teased the wolf, how that wolf wanted to catch him! But
1324 the bird was clever and the wolf simply couldn't do anything about it.
1326 =head2 v5.8.6 - A. A. Milne, "The House at Pooh Corner"
1328 L<Announced on 2004-11-28 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20041128000836.GA304@Bagpuss.unfortu.net>
1330 "Hallo, Pooh," said Piglet, giving a jump of surprise. "I knew it was
1333 "So did I,", said Pooh. "What are you doing?"
1335 "I'm planting a haycorn, Pooh, so that it can grow up into an oak-tree,
1336 and have lots of haycorns just outside the front door instead of having
1337 to walk miles and miles, do you see, Pooh?"
1339 "Supposing it doesn't?" said Pooh.
1341 "It will, because Christopher Robin says it will, so that's why I'm
1344 "Well," aid Pooh, "if I plant a honeycomb outside my house, then it will
1345 grow up into a beehive."
1347 Piglet wasn't quite sure about this.
1349 "Or a /piece/ of a honeycomb," said Pooh, "so as not to waste too much.
1350 Only then I might only get a piece of a beehive, and it might be the
1351 wrong piece, where the bees were buzzing and not hunnying. Bother"
1353 Piglet agreed that that would be rather bothering.
1355 "Besides, Pooh, it's a very difficult thing, planting unless you know
1356 how to do it," he said; and he put the acorn in the hole he had made,
1357 and covered it up with earth, and jumped on it.
1359 =head2 v5.8.6-RC1 - A. A. Milne, "Winnie the Pooh"
1361 L<Announced on 2004-11-11 by Nicholas Clark|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2004/11/msg95786.html>
1363 "Hallo!" said Piglet, "whare are /you/ doing?"
1365 "Hunting," said Pooh.
1369 "Tracking something," said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously.
1371 "Tracking what?" said Piglet, coming closer.
1373 "That's just what I ask myself, I ask myself, What?"
1375 "What do you think you'll answer?"
1377 "I shall have to wait until I catch up with it," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
1378 "Now, look there." He pointed to the ground in front of him. "What do
1381 "Track," said Piglet. "Paw-marks." He gave a little squeak of
1382 excitement. "Oh, Pooh!" Do you think it's a--a--a Woozle?"
1384 =head2 v5.8.5 - wikipedia, "Yew"
1386 L<Announced on 2004-07-19 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/68340e2e4c39222c>
1388 Yews are relatively slow growing trees, widely used in landscaping and
1389 ornamental horticulture. They have flat, dark-green needles, reddish
1390 bark, and bear seeds with red arils, which are eaten by thrushes,
1391 waxwings and other birds, dispersing the hard seeds undamaged in their
1392 droppings. Yew wood is reddish brown (with white sapwood), and very
1393 hard. It was traditionally used to make bows, especially the English
1396 In England, the Common Yew (Taxus baccata, also known as English Yew) is
1397 often found in churchyards. It is sometimes suggested that these are
1398 placed there as a symbol of long life or trees of death, and some are
1399 likely to be over 3,000 years old. It is also suggested that yew trees
1400 may have a pre-Christian association with old pagan holy sites, and the
1401 Christian church found it expedient to use and take over existing sites.
1402 Another explanation is that the poisonous berries and foliage discourage
1403 farmers and drovers from letting their animals wander into the burial
1404 grounds. The yew tree is a frequent symbol in the Christian poetry of
1405 T.S. Eliot, especially his Four Quartets.
1407 =head2 v5.8.5-RC2 - wikipedia, "Beech"
1409 L<Announced on 2004-07-09 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/f92175725af7a5ad>
1411 Beeches are trees of the Genus Fagus, family Fagaceae, including about
1412 ten species in Europe, Asia, and North America. The leaves are entire or
1413 sparsely toothed. The fruit is a small, sharply-angled nut, borne in
1414 pairs in spiny husks. The beech most commonly grown as an ornamental or
1415 shade tree is the European beech (Fagus sylvatica).
1417 The southern beeches belong to a different but related genus,
1418 Nothofagus. They are found in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New
1419 Caledonia and South America.
1421 =head2 v5.8.5-RC1 - wikipedia, "Pedunculate Oak" (abridged)
1423 L<Announced on 2004-07-07 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/ca6ce4a7ed9f219c?pli=1>
1425 The Pedunculate Oak is called the Common Oak in Britain, and is also
1426 often called the English Oak in other English speaking countries It is a
1427 large deciduous tree to 25-35m tall (exceptionally to 40m), with lobed
1428 and sessile (stalk-less) leaves. Flowering takes place in early to mid
1429 spring, and their fruit, called "acorns", ripen by autumn of the same
1430 year. The acorns are pedunculate (having a peduncle or acorn-stalk) and
1431 may occur singly, or several acorns may occur on a stalk.
1433 It forms a long-lived tree, with a large widespreading head of rugged
1434 branches. While it may naturally live to an age of a few centuries, many
1435 of the oldest trees are pollarded or coppiced, both pruning techniques
1436 that extend the tree's potential lifespan, if not its health.
1438 Within its native range it is valued for its importance to insects and
1439 other wildlife. Numerous insects live on the leaves, buds, and in the
1440 acorns. The acorns form a valuable food resource for several small
1441 mammals and some birds, notably Jays Garrulus glandarius.
1443 It is planted for forestry, and produces a long-lasting and durable
1444 heartwood, much in demand for interior and furniture work.
1446 =head2 v5.8.4 - T. S. Eliot, "The Old Gumbie Cat"
1448 L<Announced on 2004-04-22 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/c7333acf03ef4015>
1450 I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;
1451 The curtain-cord she likes to wind, and tie it into sailor-knots.
1452 She sits upon the window-sill, or anything that's smooth and flat:
1453 She sits and sits and sits and sits -- and that's what makes a Gumbie Cat!
1455 But when the day's hustle and bustle is done,
1456 Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun.
1457 She thinks that the cockroaches just need employment
1458 To prevent them from idle and wanton destroyment.
1459 So she's formed, from that a lot of disorderly louts,
1460 A troop of well-disciplined helpful boy-scouts,
1461 With a purpose in life and a good deed to do--
1462 And she's even created a Beetles' Tattoo.
1464 So for Old Gumbie Cats let us now give three cheers --
1465 On whom well-ordered households depend, it appears.
1468 =head2 v5.8.4-RC2 - T. S. Eliot, "Macavity: The Mystery Cat"
1470 L<Announced on 2004-04-16 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/84f6fdd73cc56a1b>
1472 Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw --
1473 For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
1474 He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
1475 For when they reach the scene of crime -- /Macavity's not there/!
1477 Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
1478 He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
1479 His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
1480 And when you reach the scene of crime -- /Macavity's not there/!
1481 You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air --
1482 But I tell you once and once again, /Macavity's not there/!
1484 =head2 v5.8.4-RC1 - T. S. Eliot, "Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat"
1486 L<Announced on 2004-04-05 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/e500353440769ebf>
1488 There's a whisper down the line at 11.39
1489 When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
1490 Saying 'Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
1491 We must find him of the train can't start.'
1492 All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster's daughters
1493 They are searching high and low,
1494 Saying 'Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble
1495 Then the Night Mail just can't go'
1496 At 11.42 then the signal's overdue
1497 And the passengers are frantic to a man--
1498 Then Skimble will appear and he'll saunter to the rear:
1499 He's been busy in the luggage van!
1500 He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
1501 And the the signal goes 'All Clear!'
1502 And we're off at last of the northern part
1503 Of the Northern Hemisphere!
1505 =head2 v5.8.3 - Arthur William Edgar O'Shaugnessy, "Ode"
1507 L<Announced on 2004-01-14 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/968fb8d71e23af69>
1509 We are the music makers,
1510 And we are the dreamers of dreams,
1511 Wandering by lonely sea-breakers,
1512 And sitting by desolate streams; --
1513 World-losers and world-forsakers,
1514 On whom the pale moon gleams:
1515 Yet we are the movers and shakers
1516 Of the world for ever, it seems.
1518 =head2 v5.8.3-RC1 - Irving Berlin, "Let's Face the Music and Dance"
1520 L<Announced on 2004-01-07 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/5ced50bebcd11c96>
1522 There may be trouble ahead,
1523 But while there's music and moonlight,
1524 And love and romance,
1525 Let's face the music and dance.
1527 Before the fiddlers have fled,
1528 Before they ask us to pay the bill,
1529 And while we still have that chance,
1530 Let's face the music and dance.
1532 Soon, we'll be without the moon,
1533 Humming a different tune, and then,
1535 There may be teardrops to shed,
1536 So while there's music and moonlight,
1537 And love and romance,
1538 Let's face the music and dance.
1540 =head2 v5.8.2 - Walt Whitman, "Passage to India"
1542 L<Announced on 2003-11-06 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/4714574f93967673>
1544 Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
1545 Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
1546 Cut the hawsers - hall out - shake out every sail!
1547 Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
1548 Have we not grovel'd here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
1549 Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
1551 Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only,
1552 Reckless O soul, exploring, I with the and thou with me,
1553 For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
1554 And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
1557 O farther farther sail!
1558 O daring job, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
1559 O farther, farther, farther sail!
1561 =head2 v5.8.2-RC2 - Eric Idle/John Du Prez, "Accountancy Shanty"
1563 L<Announced on 2003-11-03 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/7669de5804b792f6>
1565 It's fun to charter an accountant
1566 And sail the wide accountan-cy,
1567 To find, explore the funds offshore
1568 And skirt the shoals of bankruptcy.
1570 =head2 v5.8.2-RC1 - Edward Lear, "The Jumblies"
1572 L<Announced on 2003-10-28 by Nicholas Clark|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/83680ef3bbf7378d>
1574 They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
1575 In a Sieve they went to sea:
1576 In spite of all their friends could say,
1577 On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
1578 In a Sieve they went to sea!
1579 And when the Sieve turned round and round,
1580 And everyone cried, "You'll all be drowned!"
1581 They cried aloud, "Our Sieve ain't big,
1582 But we don't care a button, we don't care a fig!
1583 In a Sieve we'll go to sea!"
1585 Far and few, far and few,
1586 Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
1587 Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
1588 And they went to sea in a Sieve.
1590 =head2 v5.8.1 - epigraph same as v5.7.1
1592 L<Announced on 2003-09-25 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2003/09/msg82678.html>
1594 =head2 v5.8.1-RC5 - Terry Pratchett, "Lords and Ladies"
1596 L<Announced on 2003-09-22 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2003/09/msg82476.html>
1598 No matter what she did with her hair it took about
1599 three minutes for it to tangle itself up again,
1600 like a garden hosepipe in a shed [Footnote: Which,
1601 no matter how carefully coiled, will always uncoil
1602 overnight and tie the lawnmower to the bicycles].
1604 =head2 v5.8.1-RC4 - Terry Pratchett, "Interesting Times"
1606 L<Announced on 2003-08-01 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2003/08/msg79184.html>
1608 Grand Viziers were /always/ scheming megalomaniacs.
1609 It was probably in the job description: "Are you a
1610 devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good,
1611 then you can be my most trusted minister."
1613 =head2 v5.8.1-RC3 - Terry Pratchett, "Interesting Times"
1615 L<Announced on 2003-07-30 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2003/07/msg79048.html>
1617 Lord Hong had a mind like a knife, although possibly
1618 a knife with a curved blade.
1620 =head2 v5.8.1-RC2 - Terry Pratchett, "Interesting Times"
1622 L<Announced on 2003-07-11 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2003/07/msg78102.html>
1624 Many an ancient lord's last words had been, "You can't kill
1625 me because I've got magic aaargh."
1627 =head2 v5.8.1-RC1 - Terry Pratchett, "Interesting Times"
1629 L<Announced on 2003-07-10 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2003/07/msg78009.html>
1631 Cohen was familiar with city gates. He'd broken down a number
1632 in his time, by battering ram, siege gun, and on one occasion
1635 But the gates of Hunghung were pretty damn good gates. They
1636 weren't like the gates of Ankh-Morpork, which were usually wide
1637 open to attract the spending customer and whose concession to
1638 defense was the sign "Thank You For Not Attacking Our City.
1639 Bonum Diem." These things were big and made of metal and there
1640 was a guardhouse and a squad of unhelpful men in black armor.
1642 =head2 v5.8.0 - Terry Pratchett, "Reaper Man"
1644 L<Announced on 2002-07-18 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2002/07/msg63720.html>
1646 There was the faint sound of footsteps.
1647 "Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last week,"
1648 said the low priest.
1649 There was a sound like the flushing of a very old dry lavatory.
1650 The footsteps stopped. The High Priest smiled to himself.
1651 "Right," he said. "See your two pebbles and raise you two pebbles."
1652 The low priest threw down his cards. "Double Onion," he said.
1653 The High Priest looked down suspiciously.
1654 The low priest consulted a scrap of paper. "That's three hundred
1655 thousand, nine hundred and sixty-four pebbles you owe me," he said.
1656 There was the sound of footsteps. The priests exchanged glances.
1657 "Haven't had one for poisoned-dart alley for quite some time,"
1658 said the High Priest.
1659 "Five says he makes it", said the low priest. "You're on."
1660 There was a faint clatter of metal points on stone.
1661 "It's a shame to take your pebbles."
1662 There were footsteps again.
1664 =head2 v5.8.0-RC3 - no epigraph
1666 L<Announced on 2002-07-13 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2002/07/msg63234.html>
1668 =head2 v5.8.0-RC2 - no epigraph
1670 L<Announced on 2002-06-21 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2002/06/msg62013.html>
1672 =head2 v5.8.0-RC1 - no epigraph
1674 L<Announced on 2002-06-01 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2002/06/msg60317.html>
1676 =head2 v5.7.3 - Terry Pratchett, "Reaper Man"
1678 L<Announced on 2002-03-04 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2002/03/msg53652.html>
1680 Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong.
1681 No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always
1682 got there first, and is waiting for it.
1684 =head2 v5.7.2 - Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"
1686 L<Announced on 2001-07-13 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2001/07/msg40370.html>
1688 His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools --
1689 the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up
1690 all three of them in his famous phrase, "You can't trust any
1691 bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing
1692 you can do about it, so let's have a drink."
1694 =head2 v5.7.1 - Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"
1696 L<Announced on 2001-07-13 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2001/04/msg33851.html>
1698 "What happens next?" asked Twoflower.
1700 Hrun screwed a finger in his ear and inspected it absently.
1702 "Oh,", he said, "I expect in a minute the door will be
1703 flung back and I'll be dragged off to some sort of temple
1704 arena where I'll fight maybe a couple of giant spiders
1705 and an eight-foot slave from the jungles of Klatch and then
1706 I'll rescue some kind of a princess from the altar and then
1707 I'll kill off a few guards or whatever and then this girl
1708 will show me the secret passage out of the place and we'll
1709 liberate a couple of horses and escape with the treasure."
1710 Hrun leaned his head back on his hands and looked at the
1711 ceiling, whistling tunelessly.
1713 "All that?" said Twoflower.
1717 =head2 v5.7.0 - Terry Pratchett, "Moving Pictures"
1719 L<Announced on 2000-09-02 by Jarkko Hietaniemi|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2000/09/msg17730.html>
1721 The Librarian had seen many weird things in his time,
1722 but that had to be the 57th strangest.
1723 [footnote: he had a tidy mind]
1725 =head2 v5.6.2 - Sterne, "Tristram Shandy"
1727 L<Announced on 2003-11-15 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/deb8cb9ad918716f>
1729 When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this
1730 sublunary word--the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of
1731 a substance, naturally takes a flight, behind the scenes, to see
1732 what is the cause and first spring of them--The search was not
1733 long in this instance.
1735 =head2 v5.6.2-RC1 - Sterne, "Tristram Shandy"
1737 L<Announced on 2003-11-15 by Rafael Garcia-Suarez|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/e3d4acc7a8dd3ce5>
1739 "Pray, my dear", quoth my mother, "have you not forgot to wind up the clock?"
1741 =head2 v5.6.1 - J R R Tolkien, "The Hobbit", Riddles in the Dark
1743 L<Announced on 2001-04-08 by Gurusamy Sarathy|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2001/04/msg33823.html>
1745 `What have I got in my pocket?' he said aloud. He was talking to
1746 himself, but Gollum thought it was a riddle, and he was frightfully
1749 `Not fair! not fair!' he hissed. `It isn't fair, my precious, is it,
1750 to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?'
1752 Bilbo seeing what had happened and having nothing better to ask
1753 stuck to his question, `What have I got in my pocket?' he said
1756 `S-s-s-s-s,' hissed Gollum. `It must give us three guesseses,
1757 my precious, three guesseses.'
1759 =head2 v5.6.1-foolish - no epigraph
1761 L<Announced on 2001-08-04 by Gurusamy Sarathy|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2001/04/msg33421.html>
1763 =head2 v5.6.1-TRIAL3 - I can't find the announcement
1765 No announcement available.
1767 =head2 v5.6.1-TRIAL2 - no epigraph
1769 L<Announced on 2001-01-31 by Gurusamy Sarathy|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2001/01/msg29934.html>
1771 =head2 v5.6.1-TRIAL1 - no epigraph
1773 L<Announced on 2000-12-18 by Gurusamy Sarathy|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2000/12/msg27738.html>
1775 =head2 v5.6.0 - J R R Tolkien, "The Hobbit", The Last Stage
1777 L<Announced on 2000-03-23 by Gurusamy Sarathy|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2000/03/msg10341.html>
1779 The dragon is withered,
1780 His bones are now crumbled;
1781 His armour is shivered,
1782 His splendour is humbled!
1783 Though sword shall be rusted,
1784 And throne and crown perish
1785 With strength that men trusted
1786 And wealth that they cherish,
1787 Here grass is still growing,
1788 And leaves are a yet swinging,
1789 The white water flowing,
1790 And elves are yet singing
1791 Come! Tra-la-la-lally!
1792 Come back to the valley.
1794 =head2 v5.6.0-RC3 - no epigraph
1796 L<Announced on 2000-03-22 by Gurusamy Sarathy|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2000/03/msg10140.html>
1798 =head2 v5.005_05-RC1 - no epigraph
1800 L<Announced on 2009-02-16 by LE<0xe9>on Brocard|http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2009/02/msg144227.html>
1802 =head2 v5.005_04 - no epigraph
1804 L<Announced on 2004-03-01 by LE<0xe9>on Brocard|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/6c240ad0b189cb47>
1806 =head2 v5.005_04-RC2 - Rudyard Kipling, "The Jungle Book"
1808 L<Announced on 2004-02-19 by LE<0xe9>on Brocard|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/83e5421124a7b49d>
1810 The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise
1811 the Jungle-People because they lived in the forest. And yet they
1812 never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use
1813 them. They would sit in circles on the hall of the king's council
1814 chamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men; or they would
1815 run in and out of the roofless houses and collect pieces of plaster
1816 and old bricks in a corner, and forget where they had hidden them,
1817 and fight and cry in scuffling crowds, and then break off to play up
1818 and down the terraces of the king's garden, where they would shake
1819 the rose trees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers
1822 =head2 v5.005_04-RC1 - Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
1824 L<Announced on 2004-02-05 by LE<0xe9>on Brocard|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/6aaeb6ec699bd116>
1826 Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had
1827 plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was
1828 going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what
1829 she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked
1830 at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with
1831 cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures
1832 hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she
1833 passed; it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great
1834 disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear
1835 of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as
1838 =head2 v1.0_16 - Johan Vromans, extemporarily
1840 L<Announced on 2003-12-18 by Richard Clamp|http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl5.porters/msg/9281dc6194d15940>
1842 =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1844 This document was originally compiled based on a list of epigraphs
1845 on L<Perl Monks|http://perlmonks.org> titled
1846 L<Recent Perl Release Announcement|http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=372406>