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

It'd probably be easier just to link to the main H2G2 beach page as the beach & pool have mutated into climbing various sandcastles and swimming to Jupiter, all of which is a little complicated.
The H2G2 Waterworks and Beach is at:
http://www.h2g2.com/A208676

And, as you can see, I've been gathering new recruits!

Can I join?

When I was a child, the bathing suit for the woman with a mature figure was designed for a woman with a mature figure. Boned, trussed, and reinforced, those swim suits were not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a darn good job. Today, stretch - fabric bathing suits are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure chipped out of marble.

The woman with a mature figure has little choice. She can either front up at the maternity wear department, try on a floral costume with a skirt, and come away looking like a hippopotamus that has escaped from Fantasia - or she can wander around any run-of-the-mill bathing costume department and try to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluoro rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around. I made my choice and disappeared in to the small chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I noticed about the bathing suit was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra that goes into bathing suits was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets by a sling shot. And it comes with the bonus that as long as you can lever your body into a Lycra suit, you can protect your vital organs from shark attack; the reason being that any shark foolish enough to take a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer from jaw whiplash injury.

I fought my way into the first suit but as I twanged the last shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror. My bosom had disappeared. I found one cowering under my left armpit. It took a little longer to find the other -- flattened beside my 7th rib. The problem is today's suits don't have bra cups. The mature woman is meant to wear her bosom spread across her chest like a speed hump. I realigned my speed hump and turned to the mirror to make a full-view assessment.

The suit fit all right. Unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out of the top, bottom,
and sides. I looked like a lump of Playdough wearing an undersized piece of cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all these extra bits of me had come from, the sales girl poked her head around the curtain. "Oh, there y'all are," she gasped.

"Yes, they are ALL me," I replied, looking at the extra bits. I tried on a crinkled cream one which made me look like designer tape. I tried on a floral two-piece which made me look like an oversized napkin in a napkin ring. I struggled into one of leopard skin with a ragged frill and ended up looking like Tarzan on an off day. I donned a black one with a net midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning, and I tried on a pink one whose legs were so high cut I would have needed to wax my eyebrows to wear it!

Finally - success. I found the one that fit. A two-piece with a short-style bottom and halter-neck top. It was cheap, comfortable, and
bulge friendly. I bought it. When I got home, I read the label: "Material may become transparent in water."

So what's the point in wearing it? I may as well just go for the whole HRASC thing and avoid shark attacks, so can I join?

LOL! (sorry) There's a guide entry in there somewhere.

Yes, you're in! Come ye, come ye...

Yes, Irving is right. Sealia is a VR seal only, I am sorry to say. She is the Royal Seal of Damogran. Oddly enough she is not a dragon-shaped seal. As the country of Damogran began to form out of the goo it the Royal Seal appeared at the end of all of the Queen's comments and official decrees:
}:=8

This seal [see seal's 'official' stamp, above] began following the Queen around, and it eventually became clear that she was a 'seal' as well as a 'seal'. She appears to be a fluffy white baby harp seal. [very cute] As we got a closer look at her, she developed a personality, a liking for chock'lit, and an ability to play [sorta] bicycle horns. She also hates b-a-t-h-s. Which is odd for a seal. But she loves to swim and NEVER wears a bathing suit. Oh, and the citizens of Damogran named her Sealia. [sorta like in the song, but with different spelling]

She does not have her own page, and will probably not get one in the near future unless the Queen wants to give up the small remaining amount of time she spends in RL and live in Damogran permanently.

Sealia is honored to be considered real. She feels very much like the velveteen rabbit sometimes.
She would very much like to be part of a 'family membership' in HRASC with the Queen. do you have family memberships?

}:=8
[Sealia waves in an official, but cute, way]

Family memberships? Hmm.... I'll see what I can do....check back in a minute or so.

Ooooooohhhhh!
THANK YOU!
A family membership!
Sealia thanks you, I thank you. Sealia is getting 'real-er' all the time.

We are going to take our [virtual] 'Certificate of Family Membership' right down to the beach at St.Lucia--where the wondrous Flying Castle of Damogran is docked right now--and show it off.

Thank you, thank you. What an efficient and responsive agency you run here...

}:=8
[Sealia admires [virtual] Certificate]

Glad to be of service.

The actual (well, not actually actual, as they're on a computer, actually virtual, but more virtually actual) certificates WILL be done over Easter, as I'm taking my computer home, and have net access there.

Oh good, I'm happy.
I hope I'll be among the first to get one after all the adverts for HRASC I've been displaying everywhere now.

YEAH!

Then we'll even be more official, ourselves!

Sign me up please, I'm all for the safety as well as the astetic qualities.

Hey, anyways, I'm a girl that's built like a 12 year old boy.(Upper part only)
And I also had a hard time looking for a suit of good

- that is until I became a lifeguard here that is!!!

Erm...ahem..*cough*.. I don't ~quite~ know how to say this... but.. I've sort of... erm.. left my computer in Manchester.. a bit. Sorry. Please don't hit me.


And a note to any net-surfing thieves out there. There ~are~ two people still in the house. Not that I'd ever dream of a fellow researcher doing anything like that, just you never know who's reading this.

Greetings TY, sorry to here about the computer. You do realize that we will all have to get together and figure out an amicable solution to this little problem

Sorry for the absence but I'm back on HRASC duty

Courtesy

Please sign me up for H.R.A.S.C. It's a worthy cause.

I don't even own a swimming costume (haven't for as long as I can remember), and...
I've NEVER been attacked by a shark.
There it is... Proof!

I've also written an entry on Naturism which you might want to check out at http://www.h2g2.com/A333523

"DOWN WITH THE SWIMMING COSTUMES!"

Oh, what fun.

*signs up*
*strips off Swimming Cossie*
*realises she wasn't wearing one*
*puts on Swimming Cossie*
*strips off Swimming Cossie*

Ahh, that feels better...
Luke Rhinehart

More members! This is getting bigger than I ever imagined! (Must be all these naked lady members around )

Yes, all shall be signed up forthwith.

Um...
Sorry if this sounds completely ignorant, but
What is a 'Cossie' ?
Is it a suit? of some sort or a general word?
Just wondering, please help

swimming cossie = swiming costume/suit

Sign me and Mark Moxon up then. I think the logic of this is great.