h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's all very well, but I was hoping for some advice on how to stop my dentures from slipping out into soup tureens at posh parties....

Try stretching a hair net over your face or alternatively wear a stocking on your head. Eating the soup can then be achieved by making a small hole in the chosen item and using a funnel.

Surely dentures are the ultimate form of oral fixation? You should nurture them, swathe them in Dentubrite. And hey! If they should occassionally slip into the odd tureen - make light of it, give a manic giggle and slurp them out again in the manner of a child bobbing for apples at Halloween.

I tried both of these suggestions in the past.

The Hardwick-Smythes ostracized me, and forbade me ever to play backgammon with their son Nigel, and the Bellingham-Gibbetts called the police and sued me over the pair of silk stockings I borrowed from their daughter FFffiona....

It was a very low ebb in my social diary.

Well, I am not at all sure that you were "in" with the right crowd in the first place. The only decent Hardwyck-Smythes were jailed for fluff rustling some fifteen years ago. As for their relatives, they don't even allow sparklers on bombfire night so no wonder they took the rather radical action of removing Nigel from the equation. Anyway, backgammon is hard enough when you are able to give it your fullest concentration, but trying to decide whether to double or not with your head in a bucket of water (or tureen of soup) and trying to get your teeth around a granny smith is next to impossible. Especially if you are, at the same time, filled with the morbid fear that they, your teeth, might slip out at any moment.

You know, when you look at it like that, you're absolutely right!

To hell with the Hardwick-Smythes and their accursed social mores; to hell with backgammon, I never wanted to play it anyway. If I want to duck my head, dentures, or even feet in the next soup tureen I meet, I jolly well shall.

I have you down as a glass-half-full type of person. Shall we do dinner? The Warwickshire Harbinger-Asteroids are down for the weekend, I'm sure they'd love to meet you.

Dinner is a strange concept for me. Firstly, being a partially intelligent shade of the colour indigo, I don't really eat anything, except the occassional tube of rubber sollution glue, just to keep me regular you understand.

Secondly, there seems to be a deal of confusion amongst ape descended life forms about what dinner really means; some would say that it takes place in the middle of the day after breakfast and before...er...dinner, others would say that it occurs sometime after lunch and at about the same time as....er...dinner.

Thirdly, I have a table booked at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and would be happy to invite you and your guests to join me at whatever time of day you wish (assuming that you have fulfilled your quota of impossible things for the day) and partake of an adhesive of your choice.

Dear Hue,

I was touched by your invitation to dinner at such a famous restaurant, so much so that I have started on a draft list of impossible things to do before breakfast:

1. Make a taxman laugh;
2. Kill my grandad now, and make a fly wink out of existence
5,000,000 years ago;
3. .......

Assuming I can complete the list, and carry out the impossible deeds, I shall look forward to a nice Bostick starter, with perhaps Prit Stik and a side order of Araldite.

I look forward to seeing the Universe explode with you.

Yours sincerely

King Olaf the Hesitant

PS. May I bring the Harbinger-Asteroids? Nice couple. He's in lampshades, she's the daughter of a fishmonger, but that's all behind her now.

Dear Olaf,

I am pleased that you have taken to the task (and the invitation) so whole-heartedly. But please call me Blat if you want to address me. "Hue" was just a name I used when….well, actually I've never used the name "Hue".

Anyway I am sure the chef at the RATEOTU can find some fillet off the slab for Mrs Harbinger-Asteroids! But you will have to warn Mr Harbinger-Asteroids that he cannot bring his swatches and wire frames into the restaurant. There's the health hazard to consider, of course, but the waiters may attempt to serve them drinks.

On second thoughts we could charge the whole thing to the wire frames and probably get away with it. Tell him to bring in the whole lorry load. They could do a turn between courses. We could make shapes and things. It will be far more interesting than the end of the universe, which is, after all a pretty boring spectacle.

They are welcome! They are all welcome!

Yours aye
Blat.