Two weeks ago, Dr. Ray Ridley and Ridley Engineering presented a contest in his popular Ohm Confinement cartoon series for the best recording of themselves singing the lyrics to this song to the original tune (the original Flanders & Swann recording is here):
The Consultant Cometh
‘Twas on the Monday morning The consultant came to call We have a specification we don’t understand at all He drew up his schematics, The parts were placed in bins But he didn’t know how to solder so we got an assembler in. Oh, it all makes work for the engineer to do. ‘Twas on the Tuesday morning The assembler started work "The design you have is awful – the last guy was a jerk" Parts went on the circuit board Wires went in the box But when he pushed the button, he died from electric shocks Oh, it all makes work for the engineer to do. ‘Twas on the Wednesday morning That the Safety man came in There wasn’t adequate clearance, when looking pin to pin He tested and he heated The Internet got killed He said "That’s not my problem", and he made sure we were billed. Oh, it all makes work for the engineer to do. ‘Twas on the Thursday morning The FCC found our address Emissions and noise were terrible and had to be suppressed She waved around antennas She added copper foil Then she shorted out the transformer to add to all the toil Oh, it all makes work for the engineer to do. ‘Twas on the Friday morning The Magnetics man was late He must have been nearly 90, his eyesight wasn’t great He twisted lots of wire He added turns of litz And when he was done with all of it, the circuit blew to bits! Oh, it all makes work for the engineer to do. On Saturday and Sunday, they do no work at all So ‘Twas on the Monday morning the consultant came to call.
-Lyrics by Ray and Denise Ridley The winner would win a lifetime license to RidleyWorks. There were a number of great submissions, with engineers showing their creativity in various ways.
So without further ado, the overall winner chosen by Dr. Ray and Denise Ridley is...
Michael Unnebäck, Producer; Adrian Emilsson, Vocals and Instrument; and Jakob Unnebäck, Animation
Winners in other specialized categories:
Best Duet
Tony Salsich, Vocals; David Powling, Piano; Adam Robinson, Video Recording
Best A capella
Daixun Zheng, Vocals
Best One-Man Band
John DiFiore, Vocals and Instruments
Congrats to all the winners!