Just at lunchtime, FedEx delivered my latest fix from Amazon. Along with a slightly subversive book for a four-year-old (AlphaOops! The Day Z Went First), I got Job Aids and Performance Support, mentioned here earlier, and a Georges Brassens CD.

I read the introductions in Job Aids, then went back to my desk. The CD had one of those strips meant to help remove the cellophane. Astonishingly, the start-here end was not (as with most CDs) entombed in the folded mysteries along the side of the package. It stuck out half an inch. No mistake about how or where to pull.

Even more astonishingly, once the cellophane was off, I didn’t have to wrestle one of those gluey strips decorated mockingly with “pull here.” I could actually play the music.

This simple, effective technology seemed to meet several of the characteristics in Job Aids: simple, relevant, and proximate to the task.

Sensible, like Brassens’ Les Copains D’Abord:

C’étaient pas des anges non plus,
L’Evangile, ils l’avaient pas lu,
Mais ils s’aimaient tout’s voil’s dehors,
Tout’s voil’s dehors,
Jean, Pierre, Paul et compagnie,
C’était leur seule litanie
Leur Credo, leur Confitéor,
Aux copains d’abord…

They were no angels
They hadn’t read the gospels
But as friends they ran with full sail
Jean, Pierre, Paul, and the rest
This was their litany,
Their creed, their confiteor:
Friends first of all…

Complete lyrics with an English translation; here’s Brassens singing Les Copains (in French)

A bonus, Brassens (not a performer who seemed relaxed, but still a legend in France) with one of his signature songs, Chanson pour l’Auvergnat (about Brassens’ beloved Auvergne region in south-central France). It’s even got subtitles.

Here’s the original French; here’s a translation that moves Auvergne to Glasgow but reaches for the spirit in Brassens’ original.