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

Hello, this is the port of call for number of the h2g2 paperless paperchase
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A458372 .

If you're first here, place number 15 below...
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Mel

Erm, well I'm first here - but not deliberately - I'm working on Question 9 and thought it was something about Ritual Suicide/Hari Kiri/Sepuku - but I can#t spell the latter and am having problems with it!!!

So I won't set a clue... Yet!

Not sure why this is the answer but it is - Something to do with Cider???


OK My turn to set a clue!

A Demon's firelighter? Would you fall for this one?

A Demon's firelighter, would you fall for that?

A well used drinking term, (bottoms Up) shortened to this game.(butts up (see the article)) Will you play?(not on your life)

Mel

Yeah got the last bit - butt the first bit got me - lucky I found it while searching for the Samurai link!

Oh that was easy. Shelob's thought process:

"Clearly I should read an article on the game of suicide because I expect it will refer to another game that sounds a bit like one of any number of drinking salutations I could think of."


Of course, Orcus telling me the answer helped a bit as well.

(You should see me when I'm being rude! )

If you search for butts, or butts up it comes up as the first answer, if you search for game it's on the first page.

How easy do you need me to make it Shelob. Do you want me to spoon feed you the answers?

It's a shame Orcus told you the answer, no-one told people the answer to your airport clue, I searched for it, the only reason I found it is because I'm not so literal thinking as to presume the answer is always the name of the article.

I'd never heard of it before, but when other searches to do with aeroplanes had returned fruitless, I tried airports, only then did I find your answer.

A _slightly_ disgruntled Mel

The answer to my airport clue (a place that one flies into) *is* the name of the article, KU + L + US + UK, and that article comes up first whether you search for airport or for kulusuk. I had to work pretty hard to come up with a solvable clue for that one. Nice to know my efforts are appreciated.


Now, I would like you to know a couple of things:

1. Despite what you might think from my advice to Bagpuss I spent *considerably* more than five minutes trying to solve this clue myself.

2. Orcus told me the answer spontaneously. He knows me rather well and could probably tell that I had lost interest and wasn't coming back.

Here is my list of "well used drinking terms" from a few days ago:

cheers
sante
line them up
skol
health
bottoms up
salute
my round
boozing
glugging
getting them in
toast
last orders

None of them, including bottoms up, shortens to the name of a game. Which one do I pick? I thought of plenty more afterwards too.

Futhermore, even if I picked bottoms up, bottom shortens to butt in the same way that finger shortens to digit. Butt isn't even "short for" bottom. It's just slang for the same thing.

I can see what you meant but

Bottoms up -> butts up [Search]... Suicide [Reads article]

just isn't going to happen without several additional clues. As, indeed, you have discovered.

I did also look up games and investigate likely looking articles. Lots of them aren't there? I sure read plenty. I don't remember whether or not I looked at either of the (identical) Suicide articles but there isn't anything in your clue to suggest doing so. After nine or ten pages of search results I wasn't even getting warm so I decided to do something less pointless instead.

Games are supposed to be fun. I don't enjoy wasting my time and that was what I felt I was doing. I don't want to be spoon-fed the answers, I would simply like a *fair chance* of solving the clue.

There is more than one reason why one might feel _disgruntled_, you know.