yes minister: a lesson in software engineering

Having seen how tiring and arduous the process of negotiating a contract and cutting a deal is, I suddenly found one of Sir Humphrey's verbose explanations to Prime Minister Hacker rather appropriate:

Sir Humphrey: ... To put it simply, Prime Minister, certain informal discussions took place involving a full and frank exchange of views, after which there arose a series of proposals which on examination proved to indicate certain promising lines of enquiry, which when pursuit led to the realization that the alternative courses of action might in fact, in certain circumstances, be susceptible of discreet modification, leading to a reappraisal of the original areas of difference and pointing a way to encouraging possibilities of compromise and cooperation which if bilaterally implemented with appropriate give and take on both sides might, if the climate were right, have a reasonable possibility at the end of the day of leading rightly or wrongly to a mutually satisfactory resolution."
Jim Hacker: "What the hell are you talking about?!"
Sir Humphrey: "We did a deal."
{source: The Episode Guide (also includes a real audio clip of the scene)} CAUTIONARY NOTE for users of Microsoft Internet Explorer: You *might* see a lot of gibberish when you get to the page. I have no idea why this happens, and I don't really care (especially since the pages were composed using Microsoft FrontPage!). Here's how you get around it: (1) Go to the parent page. Click on the tab labelled "Episodes" (as it turns out, the tabs don't work in Mozilla! Touché) (3) Scroll down to the listing of episodes from "Yes Prime Minister". Click on the link for episode 5 in series 2: "2.5 - Power to the People". This should bring you to the page of interest.