Template:Oubliette capsule: Difference between revisions

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A [[negotiation oubliette]] is the lawyer’s equivalent of what {{author|Douglas Adams}} once called<ref>The wonderful {{br|The Meaning of Liff: The Original Dictionary Of Things There Should Be Words For}}, by {{author|Douglas Adams}} and {{author|John Lloyd}}. </ref> a “clabby” conversation: one struck up by a [[rent-seeker|commissionaire]] to avoid meaningful work, waste time and provoke maximum confusion. Negotiation oubliettes have a cosmological quality to them; like any [[Schwarzschild radius of institutional ennui|black-hole]] they are, by design, impossible to see ''directly'' — detectable only by their signature detritus; crushed aspirations of clarity and elegance swirling around an event horizon of nothingness like so many delicate dreams of greatness gurgling down a plughole. We enter them often, but always unwittingly, because only when we scrabble desperately for a way to back out do we realise what we have fallen into. Only then does the conceptual impossibility of such a withdrawal occur.
A [[negotiation oubliette]] is the lawyer’s equivalent of what {{author|Douglas Adams}} once called a “clabby” conversation:<ref>{{br|The Meaning of Liff: The Original Dictionary Of Things There Should Be Words For}}, by {{author|Douglas Adams}} and {{author|John Lloyd}}.</ref> one struck up by a [[rent-seeker|commissionaire]] to appear busy while avoiding difficult work, wasting time and provoking maximum forward confusion.  
 
Negotiation oubliettes have a cosmological quality to them; like any [[Schwarzschild radius of institutional ennui|black hole]] they are impossible to see ''directly'' — detectable only by their signature detritus: crushed aspirations of clarity and elegance swirling around an [[event horizon]] of nothingness, like so many gossamer dreams of greatness gurgling down a galaxy-sized plughole. We enter these space-tedium [[Singularity|singularities]] often, but always unwittingly, because only when we scrabble desperately for a way to back out do we realise what we have fallen into. Only then does the conceptual impossibility of such a withdrawal occur.

Revision as of 15:04, 11 June 2021

A negotiation oubliette is the lawyer’s equivalent of what Douglas Adams once called a “clabby” conversation:[1] one struck up by a commissionaire to appear busy while avoiding difficult work, wasting time and provoking maximum forward confusion.

Negotiation oubliettes have a cosmological quality to them; like any black hole they are impossible to see directly — detectable only by their signature detritus: crushed aspirations of clarity and elegance swirling around an event horizon of nothingness, like so many gossamer dreams of greatness gurgling down a galaxy-sized plughole. We enter these space-tedium singularities often, but always unwittingly, because only when we scrabble desperately for a way to back out do we realise what we have fallen into. Only then does the conceptual impossibility of such a withdrawal occur.

  1. ↑ The Meaning of Liff: The Original Dictionary Of Things There Should Be Words For, by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.
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