It was dark, it was murky, with rain falling hard
When I saw to the stock (in my pink leotard)
I was feeding the guinea-pigs, when my umbrella
Was caught by the wind; but, hey, I’m a stout feller
(Don’t answer that, Grant) but O! What a to-do!
My glasses had gone, in the mud, straw and poo:
Disappeared so completely in th’enveloping fog
Past even the sight of my neighbours and dog.

Dog, looking for missing spectacles. Yesterday

What was to be done? I’m as blind as a bat!
I called my optician – “don’t worry about that,”
She said: “carefully grope your way down into town,
We’ll have some spares made in an hour – come on down.”

Right now I’m enjoying a latte in Main
Just opposite Woolworths (now gone down the drain)
While I wait for the call that new specs are assembled
But referees, editors, authors – don’t tremble !
I’ve kept up with my inbox, pared it down to the bone
By good grace and Steve Jobs and my lovely iPhone.
By conversing with colleagues, and reading reports
The great world of science will never be short
Of constructive assistance and discourse from Gee
So my challenge is this: can you ever tell me
That the iPhone’s no way for an editor’s life
Given that it works amid hassle and strife
When else I might not have been able to do
The work that I’m paid for? Now, over to you!

Envoi: On First Looking Into Henry’s Inbox

I’ve been in trouble on the internet
But never did I get in deeper shit
Than when I wrote with prescience and wit
Of how I could, with neither fear nor fret
Read papers on my iPhone: how I set
The wails of outrage free upon my frame!
How authors, bloggers, managers exclaimed
That I’d besmirched them. But I’d haply bet
That had I used the iPhone to accept
A manuscript, and not reject it, then
No eyebrows would have risen, and no presage
Of doom had crossed my transom. I’d have slept
Unmindful of the failure of men
To tell between the medium and the message.