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

i love the tropical climates, so i must pack sunscreen. oh, for the good old days, when nobody heard of skin cancer. a big bottle of booze is a necessity, although i also sample quite a lot of the local fare.@

I'm banned from sunbathing as I've had a malignant melanoma removed which is a shame as it was a glorious past time and free. I think I must be part rock lizard or something..... Still, the good news is that I've been "clear" for nearly five years now even if I do look like a "goth"!

that IS good news. better to be a living gothess than an ailing bronzed goddess. the sun only wrinkles you, anyway...sigh. how about a vodka , Gwennie? @

Well... you shouldn't worry too much about looking like a Goth; that takes more than a so-called "cellar-tan" (see A148079).

Mmmm! Ta muchly Alicat. *Gwennie slurps vodka*

I've managed to fit all the dirty dishes into my dishwasher again - I'm getting really good at this. I had the bright idea of getting a slimline one as it's more economical and I was sure that two adults and two children couldn't possibly fill it up...... How wrong I was!

It's a sub-category of Parkinson's Law; in the same way that work expands to fill the time available, dirty dishes expand to fill the kitchen space available, albeit some of them may be out of sight in a dishwasher. I'm currently in a minute Chinese flat in HK, with a correspondingly minute sink and two house guests. Fortunately they're well brought up and wash up immediately we have more than six items in the dish sculpture.. Left to myself I work on the student principle of doing one big wash-up when there's nothing left clean.
Have often had cornflakes in a beer glass.

If you smash the dishes first you may shock yourself as to how much you can fit in there.

My poor excuse for a dish sculpture (what I am half-heartedly ading to as I write) is situated just to the left of my computer. I have a couple of plates (dried chicken parts, chocolate cake crumbs, etc.) two coffee cups and one fork, which fell to its doom to my unvaccuumed carpet.

Have you ever thought of using those paper plate type thingees??

I didn't think paper plates counted as dishes? There are paper plates among the collection though.

getting good and soggy for when you finally do a clearance. In Hk paper plates cost the same (nearly) as china ones which are environmentally better. They're running out of landfill round here.

Ah, but you could recycle them and sell 'em off as frizbies afterwards....

That's just reminded me. I have my own "sculpture" in the way of aluminium tins and glass bottled to take down the recycling bank. It's going to take me ages to "dispose" of them as I haven't been since early December. All the tins and bottles are very artfully stacked in plastic carrier bags in our yard - a bit of an eye sore really and I'm waiting for hubby to start nagging me about them....

December? HA!

I have bottles that have been screaming to be returned since February 1998!

I needed some space to store some paintings and was forced to remove quite a number of them from the garage.

This is one reason why I move so often (I've just signed a lease on a bigger place up the hill a bit and round the corner) It forces you to sort the junk. I wanted to put a candle in a bottle last night (!) and (gasp) couldn't find one. Who's been eating my bottles?

Ummm... *backs off slowly with guilty look on face*

we are very lucky here in Canada, as the recyclables are picked up at our doors, like garbage. we use blue tubs; one for paper & cardboard, one for tins, and one for glass and plastics. they come every two weeks, plenty of time for some artful creations.@

We also have that option but don't employ it. The land fill is just a few minutes down the street and much less expensive than having the garbage man pick it up.

you mean you don't recycle?@

Yes I do. The landfill isn't really a landfill anymore. They haul everything off to somewhere far away(I hope). The place is broken up into sections. Some bins are for paper some for plastics etc. All are clearly labeled.

*Gwennie stands with hands on hips and glares at Baron Bear Thing*

Shame on you! Tsk, tsk! I think that qualifies for at least one day of community service. You can start with the pile of stuff in my yard!

We don't have any door step collection of stuff for recycling here in the U.K. although I've approached my local council who just said it was too expensive. (They're going on my list of first against wall when the revolution comes....)

I lived in New Zealand for a couple of years and they used to collect tins, paper and plastic bottles on various weeks of each month. If they could afford to run such a service in a country with such a small popultion paying rates as N.Z., why not here in a highly populated U.K.?

Hmmm... sounds interesting....