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

so 4'11.75" ... remember I can't reach the top shelves in here when you put away the shopping, won't you guys?

now, I need some white wine, chicken, bread flour, yeast, spinach, green beans, sweetcorn, rice, oregano and olive oil.

*moves everything down a foot* This is a familiar situation. What's it like? Ah, I remember - shopping with my grandma in Bakewell. There's quite a large OAP population there and I usually get asked by a complete stranger to lift something from the top shelves. Typical supermarket planning - totally ignoring anything that doesn't fit their statistics.

That sounds oddly familiat too. I always get called to change the light bulbs when the go, and that sort of thing.

That is why girls like me at 5'5 get tall boyfriends, it makes life so much easier. Why struggle to do it yourself when you can get a handy male to do it for you?

I find a slight problem with conversation there, though - the girl gets a crick in her neck or the lad gets bored talking to the top of her head (it has to be said, it tends not to be the most expressive bit of the anatomy).

Just get her to stand on the stairs or something.

Well, while I was in Sheffield I had no problems - hilly as it is. Portsmouth's flat, though, something I find depressing for more reasons than just that (tall as I am, I still can't see over buildings, and Portsmouth's lybarinthene terraced estates do get rather claustrophobic).

I grew up in South Buckinghamshire, thats all hills, great big buggers all over the place. My grandparents used to live in Linconshire, which is flat as a snooker table. It felt very strange walking around there.

Seems too easy, doesn't it?

The thing about hills is that you can see out of the city from the middle, see over the houses, see farther. Flat places are much more enclosed.

never ever plan to go to north wales unless you are prepared for alot of vertical up and down hill walking. everything is on a slope and a combination of that and all the rain, makes it impossible to get around without the most unattractive footware!

I don't know - you can get some quite funky hiking boots these days Though that is coming from someone who dislikes stilettos (women wearing them, that is, not me...) Actually, I'm pretty clueless all round when it comes to what I think of fashionable footwear. I remember sitting in a women's shoe shop for ages while my sister chose some shoes. Rosie has a good taste in clothes - not showy, but sort of stylish-functional in a late-90's sort of way. I think she'd make the transition into young, high-flying professional very easily (despite the fact that she's studying Biology - there's not many jobs available ). However, the shoes on display in this shop looked terrible. Tacky, tarty, flimsy - for some reason they look rather good on feet though. Or are the decent shoes that women buy actually stored under the counter?

To be honest, I take no notice of what shoes people are wearing. There just there to stop you wearing hold in your feet.

I'm afraid that women's shoes are exactly as impractical as they look!
It's all part of the masochistic world of women's fashion! Does teetering on three inch stilletos look FUN to you? I can tell you it's not! But there you go, us women have to suffer for our art!

As a reply to a previous comment about North Wales, I'm going ta Aberystwyth University in September and the whole campus is at the top of a massive hill and the town is at the bottom. I'm going to have fun there!

Unless you are like me, where my feet wear what they choose to wear and if it goes with my clothes, then that's good.

Hurrah for foot democracy

I can well believe that women's shoes are as uncomfortable to wear as the look and I genuinely feel sorry for you. Though I'm unlikely to design shoes as a career, I rather enjoy designing furniture, so if anyone wants a nice comfy chair to collapse into as a result of their shoes...

Shouldn't TAP be participating in this conversation?

On a completely and utterly different note (apart, also, from offering welcome relief to fashion-challenged feet), I've just read an article in a magazine about a new car that's little more than the width of a motorbike+rider. Intended for city use, apparently, it's a two seater, with the passenger sitting behind the driver (in the same fashion as a fighter plane, though without the guns - mind you, some characters do still seem to see it fit to drive in cities with their vehicles adorned with bullbars). The testers had enormous fun (or so they said) just driving down the gaps between the lines of 'proper' cars waiting at lights, etc., to surprised looks from the drivers of these vehicles. All very well, but what happens when everyone owns one? They'll just make all the lanes narrower to suit, and then all the traffic jams will be just as long, only they'll be shorter (if you see what I mean).

I actually quite like the Smart cars that can bee seen about. They are as long as a normal car is wide, so they can be backed into metered spaces and you can park twice as many cars as normal.

Yes, they're rather good now that they've made them immune to elks (somehow, Mercedes managed to engineer both that and the A class in such a way that they had that problem, despite the fact that they're fundamentally different beasts under the skin). I seem to recall concepts around the time that the Smart was a concept that had removeable body panels. Do you know if that survived to the production car? (not sure)

Was that the one that was like a convertable pickup truck but you could insert some pannels to give it some back seats and to extend the roof?

Sounds familiar.

Latest concept from (I think) Pinifarina - a 4x4 built of scaffolding poles. I'll see if I can find a pic of it. Now *that* would be versatile (though a little draughty )