The h2g2 Post 31.03.25

Created Jan 30, 2025 | Updated 3 Days Ago

A crest bearing the legend The H2G2 Post

Posted: 31^st March 2025

This week's title is Fact, Fiction, and Everything In-Between. In a zig-zag, starting upper left: imaginary scene involving Santa and a squirrel at the baggage claim, each with separate suitcases. A black and white cat with gold eyes looking up. A yellow repair van painted with Shrek motifs. A Scottish shop window with a display of wool hanging from a miniature tree. A hooded crow by the seaside. An orange-and-white cat seated by a window. Some yellow flowers. A group of herons in bushes. A sparrow in a bush. A hawk flying. Hazelnut blooms, which look like sausages. A nuthatch walking on a wooden deck for some reason. An imaginary scene in which a giant planetoid appears to fill the sky behind a fountain on the White House lawn. Finally, another imaginary scene in which moonlight floods in a window into a room with cobwebs, dust, a transparent ghost, and a cat riding on a Roomba.

This just in: the world continues to be weird. There are, however, different flavours of weird. For example, there is the sort of weird that goes on in your headline news these days. People in power, people with money and no brains doing things no decent person would even think of.

We don't talk about them. Well, not much, unless we're making mock. We do quite a bit of that this week. Make mock of evil, that is. And stupidity. We're murder on stupidity.

And there's our flavour of weird. Spicy, yes, but with an undertone of kindness. People not afraid to point out the obvious.
The natural world is beautiful. It is, and we don't have to own it, interfere with it, or commodify it. Just help when we can, and remind everyone to treat it with reverence. Oh, yes: and post photos and go, 'Oh, look what I saw the other day!'
Growing things are a sign of hope. Like hazelnuts. And flowers. More, please.
Cats are nice to look at. Also nice to talk to, listen at, pet, and try to psychoanalyse. (Unsuccessfully.) Almost everybody likes cats. If you don't, please be warned: there are two in this issue.
Sometimes the planet is trying to make us laugh. Don't believe me? Check out Bluebottle's amazing van sighting.
Sometimes we are trying to make us laugh. Be nice: even a lame joke among friends can do you good. And some of the ones in this week's issue even pass the chortle test. Trust me.

There's fiction in this issue. Just to change things up, FWR's short story is warm and fuzzy and will make you feel good. Believe it or not, there is no evisceration, mayhem, or blood-letting at all. Whereas mine is awful and shocking and science-fiction-y and suggests that the author was possessed by the ghost of Rod Serling. Caveat lector.

We've got beauty, and humour, and cinema ('the capybara. . . was played by a baby camel'), and challenges. Please remember to comment (if you're still having the negative-number problem try this link), share on social media, and send more Stuff so you don't have to read so much of mine.

Have the best week you can out there, and be on the lookout for sunshine and new friends.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

Cover for Life in Potentia, DG's new book, available from Lulu.

Cover for A Crime Has Been Committed, the latest omnibus book, available from Lulu.

Cover for A Trio of Tales, Paulh's new book, available from Lulu.

Why should you buy h2g2 fiction?	Proceeds go to site upkeep.
Plus, they're fun to read. And make great gifts.	Click the pics for details.

Quote of the Week:
Premium chatbots provided more confidently incorrect answers than their free counterparts.

Klaudia Jazwinska and Aisvarya Chandrasekar, 'AI Search Has a Citation Problem', Columbia Journalism Review, The Media Today, 6 March 2025.