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

What a wonderful piece! Acting pretentious is so much fun (I tend to do it at the clubs and see if I can get the gullible blokes to buy me drinks all night) and good exercise too (if, as you pointed out, people get annoyed at your attitude).

With regard to vegitarianism, I've discovered that it is far more entertaining to be the only carnivore in a room full of veg-heads, espousing the invigorating benefits of a realy good, bloody, juicy porterhouse steak and how grandma would always serve beef tea to whomever was feeling under the weather.

Of course, just blathering about meat is not enough. You've got to know where the meat comes from, the name of the ranch, what the cows are fed and how many massages (in the case of Kobe beef) they receive before being sent for the chop.

Exotic meat is another good way to go. Having items like caribou sausage, loin of elk, mooseburgers, buffalo fillet and wild boar chops in the fridge are always fun to have on hand.

Protein-pretension?

There's a whole new field I hadn't considered. Maybe it'll become as big as string theory?

"Protein -pretention"! hah! May I quote you?

In the goth club scene in Los Angeles, CA, USA it's quite common to be vegetarian. Plus with all the rumours flying around about mad cow disease, animals pumped with chemicals and drugs and news stories about unsanitary meat-handling in markets and restaurants, more and more people are eschewing meat.

Not me or my friends, though. We're the irritating people who order steaks with "wipe it's arse and cut of the horns and send it on out!"

Feel free - though I claim first refusal of proteintion (tm).

Don't you just hate it when you think of the perfect witticism hours after the fact?

Vegetarian goths? An intriguing concept. The Sisters of Parsley and all that?

An excellent article, though I would maintain it's too easy to be pretentious with a shelf full of art-house films. Arguing the aesthetic pleasures of Hollywood takes real chutzpa.

As for carnivores, I believe the advice in 'Bluffer's Guide to University' which basically says always claim to be a vegetarian, even if it's the type that eats meat and fish.

Another truly pretentious activity is to be particularly fussy about wine with food. The best example of this I have seen was in an Italian restaurant, where one of my dining companions (an Italian), was choosing the wine on the basis of what direction the slope of the vineyard faces, together with the choice of food, and was debating the fact with the Sommelier, in apparent seriousness. Bravo!

And as for The Sisters of Parsley, Showpony, that's truly sage.

Oh indeed. The right wine for the food is a must. The relaxing of the guidelines concerning whether to drink red wine with white meat is something that must be guarded against. Your dining companion must be praised for taking the art of wine choosing to the nth degree. I prostrate myself before his obvious degree-level pretention

Yeah. You should hear him talk about different types of salt. The ladies love him, predictably.