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

Informants are wanted for Afgncaap5's Holistic Detective Agency. Benefits include the possibility of your name being included on the front page of the office. Pay is ridiculously low. Reply by posting to this forum, as I'll need someone to ask questions in the event that I'm ever stumped. Keep in mind: just being an informant doesn't take you off of the suspects list. Thanks

I wish to volunteer my services as an Informant. I used to be a professional journalist, so I'm pretty good at nosing around and telling stories.
Also, I have a possible clue for you in the dreadful case of Mayor Mercury's Missing Mackerel. I had a tank of Fenny fishes on my page which was my pride and joy. Then, one dreadful day, they disappeared to be replaced by long white rectangles that looked distressingly like fish fingers with the breadcrumbs scraped off. These remains were all the more poignant because, along the top of each rectangle, you could just see a trace of the missing fishes' colours. (My fishes were Bantam Fishes, bearing the distinctive claret and amber stripes of my beloved Bradford City FC).
Grief-stricken, I opened a special aquarium for the fishes in the hope that they would one day be miraculously restored to health. But look at it now - which you can do on http://www.h2g2.com/A231841 - and you can see that the rectangles have gone, and have been replaced by square boxes with red crosses in them! Clearly the fish-filching fiend has returned to the scene of his/her/its dreadful crime!
I hope this helps. Oh, and have a on me.

Ok, count me in. If you get paid in doughnuts, do we get the holes?

Okay, you're both hired. I might not ever get around to putting your names up, but I'll remember you two as informants. Thanks for the clues, and thanks for all the fish!

I thought I'd slip you a fin...
I've got information, meet me in the parking garage or something. I'll be wearing a trench coat and smoking a hookah. (The red, white and blue tophat may be a give away too!)

~shhhh~

Okay U.S. Thanks for the fin, and the info. I hope it isn't more info on the Fenny Fish. I can't handle much more of that. So, what's the scoop?

I volunteer to be an informant, after you solved my case and all
I don't know what information I may have which is relevant to your current cases... but anyway.
Joanna
PS I don't require payment at this time

Hi there! Congratulations on your recent successes, and thank you for the link to my page. I will return the compliment forthwith.
However, in the interests of accuracy I feel I should point out that I no longer have an aquarium. I demolished it because, thanks to you, I no longer needed it! It was there simply to store the remains of my Fenny fish during the recent fish-filching crisis - but thanks to your good work they have been restored to life, and are swimming happily across my page right now!
Perhaps I could be described as useful because of my journalistic career and my contacts in the h2g2 underworld? After all, I do get around the site quite a lot, and I'm not at all sure about some of the characters I hang out with...

Thanks for volunteering Joanna, and I'll make sure to eventually get around to updating the front page. I'll eventually get around to fixing everything. Maybe I should even ask the mayor to make a picture for my new pet telepathic goldfish, eh? Don't worry: the bowl I keep him in is lead plated. No way that his telekinesis can get out. I think.

*Eats a doughnut*

Oh, and thanks for the delivery of doughnuts, Joanna. I'm still waiting for *certain* people to grant me my fishes for the Filched Fenny Fish Felon/Mystery Of Mayor Mercury's Missing Mackerals/Investigation of Imaginative Icthiods. However, these doughnuts should get me through. For now. Would you mind your description (Joanna) to read "Provider Of Doughnuts *AND* Info! And like the doughnuts, the info is full of holes . . ."

Okay, maybe something a bit less. I dunno.

Okay, informants, some orders of buisiness:

1) Assuming you've all read the latest edition of the POST, you know about the serious alligations that I have been charged with. I want you all to start making it look as if I'm bent on revenge against the person who wrote the article. That way, another article may be written which could expand this into the biggest news since the Fenny Fish dissapeared! This could be good for buisiness!

2) Sorry about not updating the page lately. I'll get around to adjusting the informants list soon.

3) Activision should make a sequel to Zork.

Thank you. Now, here's hoping that Mr./Mrs./Ms. Snoopy looks under this forum!

Okay, I've got some orders of buisiness for us. I've got several cases that I want info on if you have it, so look around h2g2 and tell me if you find anything about them.

1) Bluebottle is having rumors spread about him in the POST. He wants to know why these rumors are being spread, and what they want.
2) Assuming you read this weeks edition of the POST (in which I couldn't find any BB rumors), you know that h2g2 may or may not be spying on us. Tell me if you figure anything out.
3) There is one other case, but I think I've got that under control.

Now, for the stuff I'm sure you're all looking forward to: the main page update! I finally added Joanna's name to the list of informants, added a new case file, and altered the description of Ormondroyd. Well, hope you get to read this. I'm off to do a little investigative work.

RE: 2. there are often lots of TDV employees online who never post... just stay in the user window doing nothing.... I think you should be suspicious of them

You know, you do have a point. Thanks for the info.

My pleasure
Anything else?

PS currently we have Sam, who did actually say something today, Anna, who posted once yesterday, and Adam C, who's purpose in life is to test things...

Sam, Anna, Adam C. Got it. Thanks! You know what? This kind of investigation may actually lead to an article somewhere . . .

Also Shim of the Blue fish.... on now, nothing for a week....
Researcher 5 is also on a lot, although he posted once last week, previously several weeks before that, and evidently doesn't yet have a name..... I wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't replied to something I'd said, they're very unobtrusive...
They are watching us.

Hope you don't mind that I'm writing this down. Gonna send it to the POST.

Although, from what I'm hearing, h2g2 itself isn't spying on us, it's TDV contacts who merely have access to h2g2. But the real question is: "WHY?"

Why? You're a detective, my dear Afgncaap5. You're snooping around and they don't want you finding anything out that they don't want you to know, so they keep their eyes on you. I'd offer my services as an informant on the grounds that I own a Café and am exposed to pelnty of gossip there, except that you yourself frequent said café, and could probably hear anything I can hear.

So I'll just offer my services with no grounds whatsoever. Grounds are messy, they get all over the place and they're disgusting when you find them in the bottom of your coffee cup. Ya need 'em to brew the coffee, though.

Oh, and I've left a note for you on this page -- an official hire from the Aroma Café. Keep the case under wraps, I don't want the subject to know he's being followed!

~Irving