panamaus. The true story of David Cholmondeley Palmer^†

As I recall, I first met panamaus at a cryptography conference run by my then employers. At the time he was teaching number theory at Manchester University and I was doing data meta-analysis for Her Majesty's Government in Cheltenham. I was at the conference as part of a GCHQ group who were looking for talent, head-hunting if you will. When I hear stories of how the government recruited people for the WWII Code School at Bletchley Park, I flash back to that conference. This wasn't just a man who knew numbers, could crack The Times' cryptic crossword, he had a refinement rarely found in my circles. Erudite, brilliant, direct and charming, he could easily have booted Benedict Cumberbatch out of his role in The Imitation Game. Of course after the last talk of the evening, I buttonholed him and dragged him down to the pub for a beer, which naturally became several, and led to our lasting friendship.

That

The National Park of Costa Rica, (Parque Nacional de Costa Rica) is a small plaza located in San Jose, Costa Rica. While Costa Rica has many large and wild national parks, the National Park is something much different.

Measuring about a city block, or 700 by 300 feet, the park is an urban plaza with paths, benches, a small artificial pond, and in the center, a national monument depicting in allegorical form the expulsion of the filibuster William Walker. Around the plaza lie

when you lived in a house on Primrose Lane

it happened one night you were drinking chartreuse

and slept a sleep so sound and so deep

you dreamed of a poem 

a beautiful poem that longed to be read

but knowing full well there were spies all around

foreign agents and fellow travelers 

and knowing what lay in the hearts of third men 

a poem you kept was a poem you kept hidden  

pressed like powder in