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

Whisky Oscar Whisky!!

I wonder who's responsible for the stocking tops?

The British Emergency Services (Police etc.) use the Nato alphabet (except for 'I' which is indigo). At least they did when LL was there ... and that's a few years ago!

It does say that (about indigo) near the end.

Great entry I hadn't realised it was copmmonly known as the NATO alphabet. I always thought of it as just the Emergency services / aircraft phonetic alphabet. Anyone remember Juliet Bravo?

Apparently there are two further words that can be included: "decimal" (for decimal point) and "stop" (for a full stop). In my experience though most communications are made in normal speech, and the phonetic alphabet only used where exact spellings are essential (such as car registrations, aircraft identity codes and names)

Aha, Jimster is credited now.

well done

Ooh la la

I agree about the entry and the picture, however I'm a bit at sea. The stocking tops are part of 'Tango' - I don't see a cat anywhere in the alphabet (dog and fox - yes, cat - no). Unless the cat is calles 'Whisky', of course!

I could have sworn I read that the cat's name was Charlie, but I can't find it now.

When British pilots first started using the phonetic alphabet, they worked on a way of indicating that radioed instructions were received clearly and would be obeyed. They settled on "Mike Roger" which was phonetic for M.R. and stood for "Message Received". "Mike Roger" was later shortened to "Roger" and the rest is history.

The cat's called Oscar, according to the pop-up message.

Did anyone watch Early Doors? It wasn't until I got the DVD that I realised the police radios always say something like "Alpha Romeo Sierra Echo Hotel Oscar Lima Echo Sierra".

Yeah, a lot of shows do that eh. War films are fileld with the nastier abbreviations, like SNAFU, FUBAR, and the one even worse than that which I can't remember. I have heaps somewhere

*filled*

"The cat's called Oscar, according to the pop-up message"

OK, at the expense of looking really stupid, what pop-up? (it may be obvious, however I can't spot it).

There is no such thing as a stupid question.

Hover your mouse cursor over the BLOB, and read what pops up.

Does "LOLO
AQIC
I82Q
B4IP"
count for anything 'though not egg's actually phonetic..................or is it??!

When I hold my cursor over the blob, nothing happens. I tried that earlier. Perhaps it's my browser. I use Camino. I'll try my other browser, Safari and see what happens.

Nope, nothing there either!

Not even on my least favourite browser, IE.

How strange!
I can see it, and I have IE.

OK, do the diagnostic and:

I've a Mac, so that might make a difference. Oh well.

Been away, so apologies for the delay in replying.

When I was searching through the BBC photo library, looking for source material to draw from, I foudn a picture of a cat - and yes, his name is Oscar. It just struck me as something that might reward those who could do a little lateral thinking - Charlie and Whisky are other good names though

IE is the only browser we develop for, hence the ALT tags, so again, apologies if the joke fell a bit flat for those using other browsers (I use Safari myself at home).