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

Entry: Bywater@h2g2 - A140383
Author: Michael Bywater - U168455


Hey, Jodan! Am I doing it right with this pick-thing?

This extended Entry surely has a venerable history, but it dates from before the onset of the Brackish Broad-Carping Castration. I'm a newbie, so apols if this is all Old Hat to Low Numbers.

I love it though. This example's probably the most penetrable of several similar link sequences - but MB's whole oeuvre is worth a browse.

I found some of these the other day and bookmarked them to submit here. I didn't get to this one though. It's more contained than the ones I followed through. They're excellent.

Who was he though? In a space of two months there's about 150 entries and did you notice the messages were the same on every entry through the whole linked set? Do any Old Hats know?

A definite gem I think,
Waz

Well, the actual picking comes for the week between the first friday of the month and the second friday of the month, but you're currently doing your civic duty as a miner to submit it.

Presumably this is the real thing:

http://www.tdv.com/html/michael_b.html

Perhaps I should warn you that I did a CAC on this man's personal space about a year ago.
Supposedly, Shazz is running it this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A430570

Ooops. At least it's topical, anyhow.
This is going to be a trouble mining-wise. I can't remember which long-hoarded gems I found for myself and which ones other subtle-revealers subtly revealed.
Not that I claim to be subtle, note. Not unless you're all really gullible.

(Woh, tr! )

Shucks, t'weren't nuthin'...

I used to use the Random Entry feature a lot when I was panicky about a deadline.

I also used to spend hours rummaging through old entries on this site.

Them were the days.

Trouble down t'mine? There shouldn't be should there? If the UG's a collection of all the good staff, all the backlogged good stuff ought to be dug up and set out on its shelves at some point.
Waz

Yep.
There aren't many Researchers in this guy's league.
Maybe that should be a mission of the UG, to signpost the few really good writers, rather than just individual pieces?
It's the way of it really.
The prolific Researchers leave a lot of stuff of broadly similar standard. All of it may be good, or all of it not so good.
Those few who leave one gem do so because they're here and gone.

Very few in that league, for that type of writing. But there's other types of writing.

I don't know, you're getting into the question of where you set the bar and participation and all that.

I think I think that it's the work, the piece of writing that matters. If someone produces one gem among otherwise average pieces, that one gem deserves being seen even if its writer never hits that standard again.
Waz

I love your idealism, Waz.
I'll believe it, if you can show me an example of a piece uniquely inspired among a Researcher's otherwise ordinary output.

, ok, I'll keep an eye out. I saw a piece the other day that I liked, went to their homespace to see if there was more and there was nothing of the same standard. I can't remember which it was or whether it was real gem quality.

Might have it bookmarked somewhere.
Waz

Confession. I went off to check my own idea of a closest example - Nyss's "Suicide Narrative". An exception that proves the rule. It's not fair to suggest that it's a complete one-off, because she can certainly write, but that piece just shocks me like nothing else.
Perhaps the kind of inspiration you mean needs an extreme experience to focus it. If a great piece comes entirely from within, then the spring won't just dry up afterwards.

I was thinking that, yes. But also sometimes the circumstances to actually sit and write and take time might be few and far between. Or even the circumstances that freed up enough processing space in the brain.

Michael Bywater is a professional columnist. He used to write a weekly column of astonishing rage, wit and vitriol for Punch, which kept me in shocked stitches throughout the 1980s. I knew he had been involved in Starship Titanic, because I emailed him, (the exchange now sadly lost in various PC upgrades), but I didn't know he had seeded h2g2.

The *really* annoying thing is I got an email from the Starship Titanic website in April 1999 about this new Digital Village thing, and did I want to join in?

I was too busy at the time, and binned it.

Anyway, he is a genius, and front-paging his stuff is most definitely one of the things that the UG is for.

Ben

tr's link above goes to the April Fool edition of CAC .

The real CAC feature is at A416675.

Waz

Hey! Don't blame me. That was when Shazz and Greebs was testing a new medication.
I had nothing to do with it.

Posting to say this was been picked from the Alternative Writing Workshop (AWW) by the miners for inclusion in the h2g2 UnderGuide. It will be featured as a UG entry on h2g2's front page in due course and then be displayed on the shelves of the UnderGuide Archives at A2112490 and the official archives at C1233.

More information can be found at the <./>underguide</.> HQ.

With thanks,
Waz on behalf of the UnderGuide.