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

Wow, very dangerous stories. My father kept it very much on a small scale and blew up a toy truck in the garden. My grandma always told this story.

Yeah, an uncle of mine told me about... it was either one of his students or one of his student assistants (he taught auto-body at a community college). This fellow wasn't quite right. He was missing a few fingers, possibly a thumb. He was also trying to make a small pipe bomb and learned the hard way to carefully clean the pipe threads of any errant powder before screwing tight the cap.

I once made a play bomb.

Well... they shouldn’t have casted me.

In the 1970s I was au pair in Madrid to a German/Austrian family. They were fully integrated and had Spanish friends - all pre-pubescent boys (I think I was mainly supposed to look after the 4-year-old)

A few years later I heard that the middle boy had been killed playing on an old bomb site from the Spanish Civil War.

But the original story here - that crater in a field in Germany - was just weird.

I played in an orchestra with a girl whos boyfriend somehow got his hands on a WWII grenade. She died when he made her hold it while he drilled into it trying to disarm it.

You can't "make" somebody hold something unless you stick it to their hands. In that case, the girl's death would have been murder. Either that or the girl was an idiot. There's no way a sensible person would hold an explosive device while someone unqualified tried to disable it.

Unfortunately, the result is the same.

Perhaps she should be nominated for the Darwin Award.

Somehow these are really mean things of you to say.

That was what I was trying to say. I share your grief.

Unfortunately things like these are starting to get more likely to happen again, with the invention and rising popularity of "magnet fishing"

I didn't intend to be mean. I just have trouble with the idea of somebody being "made" to do something so dangerous. I suppose it's because my reaction would have been "You must be joking!", or something more earthy. My opinion of the boyfriend is best left unsaid.

Yeah! How DARE she trust her idiot boyfriend!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48868164


A rooster is taken to court for crowing in the mornings.

Reminds one of the book "A year in Provence" by Peter Mayle.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48868164

If the bird had been there when the couple built their holiday home they wouldn't have grounds for complaint. According to the article the crowing started in 2017. I know how noisy a cock's crowing can be. I can understand the couple being annoyed if they retired there because it was a quiet island.

Our neighbors had a flock of free-range (read feral) chickens that would roost in the trees and delay cars zooming down our residential street. I was very upset that some other neighbor complained and had the police tell them they had to get rid of them.

I don't even think there was any legal basis for this as we live in an unincorporated "town", so there are obviously no zoning laws.

I found the chickens quite adorable and entertaining, rather like the feral chickens that inhabit Key West.

http://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/UNCLE-SHELBYS-ABZ-BOOK-Primer-Tender/58067416/bd#&gid=1&pid=1

There's now a Rosa Parks Barbie:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49481684
I believe she 100% should be commemorated as much as possible - but as a Barbie....?!

<BB<

Should they also make a Claudette Colvin Barbie?

http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43171799

Speaking of influential people and "Barbie perfection". Can we have a Stephen Hawking Barbie doll?

Should we all have an emergency grab bag?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49631455

Can't help thinking there are too many items that would need regular updating/ duplication. A grab list might be useful, provided one has a few mins before leaving. I've sometimes wondered what my priorities would be, to take in the event of need.