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

Good job! I feel a newly awakened fear....

Got some pointers, in the spirit of...uh...pointing out things, though...actually, one-

-=Apart from actually catching sight of an adult beetle. Their presence, especially the presence of their young....=-
That's pretty awkward... you should probably change the period to a comma and shorten the resulting sentence...

-=Apart from actually catching sight of an adult beetle, the presence of them, specifically their young...=- Or something like that maybe? Just a suggestion...

Other than that, it was really good! You respectfully maintain your seat as "the Canadian gardener who knows all about scary bugs and stuff" . I especially liked the description of the bug, I feel I could spot it a mile away. Well, if I lived in the northeastern U.S. And if I didn't have this extensive nearsightedness problem.

Hi Fenchurch. You're right about the clumsy sentence. Thanks.

The beetles have been seen in warehouses all over the place, including your neck of the woods. Hopefully you won't have the opportunity to observe them in the wild.

What? ::gasp!:: Oh, no...I hadn't heard anything about it... I can just imagine the buggers eating through the tree by my apartment and *kaboom* That's the end of Fenchurch, or at least the birds near the window.

Erg...

Erg's a bit extreme. There are probably all kinds of tiny wee creatures there already who are capable of making a nuisance of themselves. The worst usually doesn't happen. Mother Nature takes care of that.

What kinds of trees are there on Fencurch's set? (Pruned a prop tree once. Think I mentioned that).

Sorry, I owe you an "h".

Thank you, I thought I had misplaced it. I don't know, it's really big. I was never into green leavy things and their names. I do know it's really big and the leaves are small and tough. That's about it.

The cool thing about the big leafy things is that, unbeknowst to the casual observer, they are engaged in nearly all the stuff that Humans think they have to themselves (or at most, share with a few animals). Most people are fooled by the difference in time-scale. It's like the episode of Startrek, where the last members of a dying super-civilisation kidnapped Captain Kirk, so that space babes in costumes by Benny Hill could force him to mate with them. Even Mr. Spock took a while, two or three commercial breaks, to figure out that Kirk and the space people were all still aboard the Enterprise, but living at a pace imposible for the crew perceive. Same with trees (except for the space babes and mating and such). Their lives are just as violent and contentious as ours, but slower. They migrate and fight wars and stuff, but so slowly that hardly anyone pays them attention.

So... the big leafy thing outside may be just *there* to you and your neighbours; but to other trees, it could be a breakdancing, wise-cracking fool... the life and soul of the party.

woops... now I owe you an "n".

Wow... that was really thought-provoking. Now I'm really upset about the long-horned beetles.

Time scales seem to be such a nuisance at times, what with the flies going too fast and the trees going too slow, or with us going too fast AND too slow... but I wonder, if trees develop/ live in so much of a "slower" state, how have they been able to survive and thrive so long on the planet? Wouldn't their evolutionary periods be slower, thus holding them susceptible to dangerous outside forces (weather, tree diseases, Asian long-horned beetles) for much longer than the usual species? Or were they just built tough from the start?

Trees may be slow, but they are prolific; which, in evolutionary terms, puts them in the fast lane. Also, they reach reproductive maturity quickly... faster than people. People run around a lot, dating, worrying about pimples, and so on; but trees don't give a hoot about that. And really, until the advent of the infernal combustion engine, trees were at least as efficient as people when it came to spreading their genes.

A tree is not alone in the woods, either. For everything that means to do a tree harm, there is another thing bent on doing the first thing just as much harm. Mother Nature probably has a special treat in store for us.

Wow, you know so much about trees... it's awe-inspiring. I suppose that's why you're John-the-*gardener* and I'm just Fenchurch M. etc.

Well, as you said, those beetles just may develop a taste for meat... da- dum...

Nah... I just watch a lot of TV.

When you think of it, it's really a wonder that there aren't more things - bugs, and so on - that prey on people. Even microbes mainly just stop for a snack. Reminds me of a song...

[sings... badly:]

Necrophytes... and sapprophytes... and little lambs eat ivy...

A... kid'lleativytoo... wouldn't you... ?