I called in to Red-Gate the other day to see Andrew Clarke, the Simple-Talk subeditor. As I arrived, he was excitedly rummaging in Tony Davis’s shoebox. This shoebox contains several contributions that time forgot. When Tony forgets one of my articles, it is usually his polite way of saying that it is beyond even his powers of rescue. What treasures lie therein? As we chatted, Andrew pulled out the following gem from an anonymous contributor whose identity is lost in the mists of time. I can see entirely how the healing process of amnesia kicked into Tony’s conscious brain, but I feel that, at long last, it should be given life.

It goes as follows…

My Visit To Red-Gate

After all that time using SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare, it was exciting to get invited to go to Red Gate’s prestigious International Headquarters in Cambridge, to give a short talk on ‘Advanced Paging in SQL Server 2008’.

 Ah, Cambridge. What thoughts well up in one’s minds’ eye. What images are conjured up? The stone cloisters, the glittering spires, musty bookshops, vibrant Cafe-culture, and college chapels. Keen students in scarves and blazers, riding on bicycles, the sound of distant church bells.

 I eagerly imagined Red Gate’s offices. The ivy clad walls, the oak bookcases, oil paintings of the founders severe in their Victorian dignity, the shambling donnish figures in tweed jackets and bottle glasses clutching well-thumbed books. A few museum cases lit by gothic stone windows.

  So it was rather a shock to arrive at the Science Park, on the Milton road, full of concrete and steel architecture. The Jeffries Building was a typical bold, uncompromising, modernist statement in chrome and glass by, one imagines, a little known architect determined to make a name as a radical force in the profession. I stepped up to the door which didn’t open. A sign indicated that I should go to a door at the side, where were placed a number of bell pushes and a speakerphone grill. Inside the building, through the glass, I could see  a deserted hallway, lightly furnished with ‘calming potted trees’ , made of plastic, from the Viking Catalogue. Strangely, the fallen leaves in the hall were real.

 I may be sneered at as a country cousin, but I know what to do in such circumstances. You press the right button and, eventually, a strange squeaky voice like an owl being strangled comes from the grill. You say your name, there is a disembodied click, and the door opens.

 I stumbled across the hall to the toilet. Now, here is a tip for any visitor eager to impress the Red Gate people he has come to see. Be careful with the taps of the basin. Turn the tap on with anything less than extreme caution and a Niagara Falls of water sprays the front on ones trousers in an uncompromisingly modernist way. My trousers were drenched. I stared in the full-length mirror in horror: it looked as if I had just had an episode of severe incontinence.

 After hurriedly dabbing myself down with paper towels, I felt ready for the next task: finding Red Gate. No sign visible.

 This new task turned out to be easy, however. I simply resolved to follow the first geeky-looking person I spotted. Luckily, I stumbled across a perfect specimen, like a ‘Far Side’ cartoon made flesh. He wandered across the hall lost in strange esoteric thoughts and led me, inexorably, to Red Gate.

 Now, any follower of the old blog of  ‘Disgruntled Brian’  might mistakenly expect the Red Gate offices to be ringing with diabolic laughter as marketing people hatched duplicitous, cunning, plans, the air reeking with sulphur and the crackle of static electricity.   Unfortunately the marketing department were all out that day on a team building excercise. Instead, the sunlight flooded through the gaunt steel windows, illuminating a tranquil, meditative, scene as deskbound geeks tapped away thoughtfully at several keyboards and screens at once, as they constructed huge, complex applications

 Still dripping slightly down my trousers, I made my way to the stairs at the back of the office to get to the meeting room upstairs where my talk was to be held, nodding amiably at the Geeks.  The door closed behind me with a click. I went upstairs. The door on the first floor required a swipe card. No human effort would persuade it to open.  It was immovable. I retreated back downstairs. To my dismay, I realized that, to get back in, also required a swipe-card! Trapped in the stairwell. Through the window of the door, I  could see the Geeks placidly keying in intricate code. I tapped on the door, but their concentration was complete, and their iPods were on . After ten minutes, a startled geek found me sitting disconsolately on the stairs as the audience for my talk sat stolidly in the meeting room upstairs, talking amongst themselves.

 Back in the office, the next task was to get a swipe card so I could move unhindered through all doors. This was given to me by a charming lady who apologized for my predicament.  Back up the stairs I went, and presented the card smartly to the offending door, only to be assaulted by a series of beeps followed shortly by a loud ringing noise. I  was aghast. The Architect of the building, as an act of vengeance on a humanity he obviously despised, had put two sensors on the door, one of which opens the door, and the other of which sets the burglar alarm. In my haste to get through the door to start my talk, I got it wrong. The alarm had gone off, and as an added bonus, also triggered a buzzer in the local police station. Everyone was very nice about it.

 And so it was, that fifteen minutes late, dripping from my trousers, and leaving chaos downstairs as the car-park filled with patrol cars, I burst into the meeting room, to be met by the startled gaze of my audience.

 Someone leapt to his feet and shook my hand warmly. ‘Did you find the place easily?’ he asked affably. I stepped back to shake his hand . My back  struck the partition wall of the meeting room. It made a crashing noise like the last trump, and woke a nearby dozing  support engineer in the open-plan area outside the meeting room.  Various  sales people looked up, startled, from their work. 

‘Oh yes, fine, no problems at all’, I replied.