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

Entry: John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee - A2820836
Author: Pinniped - U183682


I hope you'll find this interesting in its own right, but I also want to make it clear that I have another motive.

You'll find that this is one of a pair of linked Entries, one (this one) factual and in Edited Guide-style, and the other a piece of creating writing. I've submitted the second to the AWW.
Both Entries have the same subject and describe the same events.

I don't intend that the two should be compared. They're different. But I do think that they're complementary.

I believe that the Guide would be improved if we could all agree on some way to include good quality writing in a wider range of styles than the EG yet admits. Grouped Entries like this could be one way of doing it. If the two pieces are reviewed in parallel, by Scouts and Miners respectively, then I think that the pair could potentially go into EG and UG at the same time, without any risk of embarrassment to the Beeb (the Towers' usual reason for disallowing links to non-EG Entries from EG Entries).

Everyone would have to consider that they're actually good enough, of course. Which is what the Review Fora are for.

Take a read of them both. Do you think, as I do, that they're better together than either would be alone?

(and if you'd rather not go beyond the PR version, I'm still eager to hear your critique of this one, as ever, and to make it as good as it can be)

Thanks for putting up with me, again!

Pin

Fascinating!

Have to dash off now but will come back to this later.

I found 'normal user' a bit tricky but I suppose you couldn't have had 'usual user'!

Jules

The PR one looks good, Pinniped! There shouldn't be much problem getting it into the Guide.

As for the other one, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Not my cup of tea at all.

Hi Pinniped,

Have read it again and can't find a deal to comment on - very thorough.

Found you a link to Fairport Convention's Discography - John Lee Single - if you want it and if it can be used here (I assume so but am no expert on links allowed):

http://www.fcfansite.fsnet.co.uk/

Jules

This EG one is very readable and enough detail is given to catch a reader's interest. There are some fascinating details found in the AWW version though that aren't here and could be. The background to Berry being the 'hangman of choice for discerning warders nationwide' being one such set of detail, now indelibly marked in mind. Thanks Pin.

Reading the two pieces, the EG version first, was like seeing the pot the archaeologists have just dug out the ground and then the computer reconstruction of the pot as new. I agree they complement each other. I like having the EG entry to show where the liberties are taken in the reconstruction in the other. Unlike Gnomon, I wouldn't have missed the opportunity to relive the events .

Going back to the detail - if the pieces are linked then I think the balance is right, you don't want too much repetition. If the pieces aren't linked then the two significant pieces of hard information I took in from the second read, ie the AWW one, was just how much of an expert Berry was ('celebrated practitioner' doesn't quite cover the calculation of tables) and how young Lee was at the time of the murder. (The d.o.b. is there but who works these things out as they read a story like this?)
Waz

Very interesting entry, Pinniped. This is well written and structured, and I can't think of any major failings of the PR version.

Is there any explanation - other than the will of God - as to why the trapdoor failed to open after the 'vigorous application of the joiner’s plane'? I remember reading somewhere about a theory that the gallows, built by prisoners, contained a warped board that moved under the weight of the prison chaplain, causing the trapdoor to jam shut. This would explain why the gallows worked during tests, as the chaplain wouldn't bother to stand in his official place for a mere trial.

See: http://www.torbytes.co.uk/op/tm3/lv2/item961-222.htm (click on the newspaper image to get a readable version)

- 'Saturday, 15th November 1884'. Requires a comma after November.
- 'The Murder' section, fifth paragraph. 'The shock and disgust of the townsfolk were intense' - were -> was
- Not a criticism, but every paragraph in the 'Early Life' section starts with the word 'John' or 'Lee'.

I shouldn't think this will have too much trouble getting into the EG

Thanks all!

Gnomon, I'd never have you any other way (if that doesn't sound too dodgy coming from a bitextual).
FWIW, when the idea came up here : F150575?thread=442950, you were in mind as a potential collaborator, but Trout bit first. Sometime, maybe?

Jules, thanks! 'Regular user' may be an improvement. I'll put that.

Waz, I considered putting the scaffold development bit (now in the AWW version, of course) into the PR version instead. It was written early, when there was just going to be an EG-piece, as the link above explains. The EG-style works well for shocking subjects, because it lends a detachment that reinforces the horror. One thing that was supposed to come over here is that the process of hanging was comparable in its brutality to the act of murder - IMO, anyway.

Rocket Man, thank you. Corrections to be applied. The mechanics of the failure are unclear from what I've read. A great many contradictory accounts and explanations have been offered, and a lot of them are unsatisfactory from an engineer's standpoint. I think a variant of your explanation is one of the more plausible; not necessarily the chaplain alone, but the weight of several people on the platform. They built it on cobbles in the van-yard, so a very large box structure may have been bearing on just a few points for support. With a crowd on it, deflection of the structure could then have caused the seizures. Should I add this hypothesis, or is it too much like conjecture?

Pin

I think that this, and the companion entry are wonderful - and that's not a superlative I've used in PR before.

It's nice to know that the 'good old days' never actually exisits.

Hi ~Pin.

On the PR entry :

This sentence 'The crime-scene evidence strongly suggests his involvement, even if it does not wholly sum to a coherent proof of what happened' - I think 'sum' should be replaced by 'add up' - (Isn't English strange ?)

On this occasion I think the 'PR' version is the stronger, though I preferred the more 'licensed' approach on the other entries. However I like the idea of a link in each entry to the alternate version, and agree this could add a new depth to certain types of entry.

All suggestions now incorporated, including a new paragraph (after Rocket Man) with a hypothesis for the trap failure.

I've read everything I've been able to find on the story. There are all kinds of suggestions about why the trap failed, but the one given is among the most frequently cited, and certainly the most believable from an engineering standpoint.

The new paragraph is really interesting

If you can be bothered, links to h2g2 entries could be added. I know that I prefer to put them in myself, so that it doesn't take as long to sub-edit and get into the guide.

Thanks Rocket Man - I will find and link Guide Entries.
Not just at the moment, though, because the search-thingy seems to have gone all shy again

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Well done!

Well done, Pin!

Hooray!

Congrats, Pinniped!

I like this one

Jules

thanks guys!
(Backson)

Hi there
When a Sub-Ed's assigned, I'd be really grateful for a word with them.
The reason is the second version, and how it's to be handled.
(As things stand, this Entry can't go into the Edited Guide, because it contains a link to another h2g2 Entry which is not Edited)
Pin

Maybe it could be arranged that both appear on the front page together - one EG, one UG, then you could take the links out as people could see they were together?

I know that this will mean future readers wouldn't know about the link between the two but it's an idea.

When they get picked of course!

Jules