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

[op]

[b17]
Read your article, Marv and totally agree.
~Peace out.

I don't know of any threads where such discourses are taking place. I agree that netiquette would sort it out, but only know of a few disagreements, and they've been sorted out...

I've seen some fairly heated discussions here on h2g2 and have even been involved in at least one. It's not nice and here at the Atelier things aren't like that. Each grouping of people on this site seems to develop their own little ways of dealing with things - the atelier is no exeption and it can be intimidating to outsiders, especially if they do something different and are then shouted down by the crowd (or ignored or whatever).
I think I've given up trying to work out what I was saying there, I'm not sure at all. Perhaps I should think a bit more about this before starting to type
Anyway, don't know about you all but I'm going to go and get pizza for my lunch and that's good.

I swear it, I'm really going to leave for the beach today, but departure is now deferred till lunch cos of some minor things the last inspection turned up: a miniscule leak at a corner of the dishwasher, an overhead fan not working in one room... so a repairman is on his way out to sort it out and I'll at least get to head oout with a reasonably good feeling about the progress of the sale.

The atelier is the epicenter of Continuity with a capital C, and the entities who attend here are the sort who prefer to reason things out. The other captial C is Consensus. I suspect that even our lurkers feel that way.

I just watched the second half of Gormenghast last night, saw the first part the night before. The whole thing had a narrator, start to finish: was that on the original BBC production?? At first I thought I had accidentally hit a button on my remote that did TV for the blind, but then I realised the narrator was making space on the sound track for the dialogue and then continuing a very rich descriptive text, and eventually I got used to it.

The characters were very true to the Mervyn Peake illustrations, visually, and it was great fun to spot the artistic references. My favourite renditions were the Prunesquallors. And Spike Milligan had a cameo, too!!!

Ah, Spike "I think I'll just fly out this window" Milligan. Mind you the teachers are basically a beginners guide to British Comedy Today, and did make me laugh. There wasn't any voice over that I remember when watching it, but then it was also done in four parts. Wasn't Christopher Lee brilliant?

Christopher Lee was totally gothic, in the original sense. The interior of Flay's thatched hut was pure William Blake. As for the narration, it's as I suspected, a dumbing down of the thing for us illiterate Amerikans who would not have had a clue what was going on unless somebody told us. "Steerpike shimmies up the ancient slates and straddles the roof ridge to look around, his long hair blowing in the wind..." "The twins both purse their mouths and look to the right..."

Maybe I DID accidentally hit a button that brought up TV for the blind, but how can there be such a thing? I guess eventually I'll purchase it so I can enjoy the original ambience...

Who played Bellgrove? I kept thinking I recognised him, but what with the sideboards thoughts of Noddy Holder kept getting in the way.

The repair entity has just been, and meeting all the items on the inspector's list will be fixed while I'm gone. Whew!

Bellgrove was Stephen Fry, according to http://www.bbcamerica.com/programs/gormenghast.html which IS a BBC URL, but bbcamerica, so I'm not sure if it will stay. If not try searching for Gormenghast on the BBC Online search engine.

If still unsure Stephen Fry played Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde, as well as just being terribly witty in his own right.

[Affy]

Gormenghast was the first thing that I watched on BBC America when we got that channel - now one of my favorites. And yes, I seem to remember the voice over myself...

Sorry, start over...

Morning all!

Lil, sounds like good news on the home front, no pun intended. My fingers remain crossed that this couple is it. (My toes, however, I fear, are crossed for us right now. )

T, I'm so glad that you have found allergy friendly horses! I also am a huge horse fan, and think that everyone should be allowed a chance on them.

G7

Funny that Stephen Fry should be mentioned, as I've finally bought the fourth series of Jeeves & Wooster on tape.

Right, I am now about to try on some very formal clothes, try my poshest accent, and head off for the school prom, which for some reason I neglected to mention beforehand.

I know I had something useful to add to this conversation, but I just can't remember what it was, or who I wanted to reply to.

*twiddles his thumbs in a corner*

Oh yeah! I remember. I was going to ask what all this talk about Continuity was about.

Chris have a good time this evening. I always found it quite fun to dress up to go out to the university balls.

Continuity is about how we interact in this virtual space. If we create a construct them we must be able to logically account for that construct (be it an animated entity or not). Examples in the atelier are the bots (matina the maidbot and chloe the junior maidbot), springie the unau, pierot the parrot. If in one post we were talking about one of these then in the next it can't not be there (kind of like not being able to un-invent the bomb).
Following this rule can make things kind of silly at times (like when there was a python called monty around) but when people don't follow the rule, it can get much sillier and in a way some people don't like.

I think that's the jist of it.

Well, there's more to it than that, but that's probably all that one needs to know for this conversation forum. Another bit of continuity is that people can't control other people's characters or creations without specific permission. For instance, Matina and Chloe are under the control of pretty much everyone up here to an extent, even though they bear the CLI Logo.

Oh, and there are other special rules developed for things like role playing, but we probably don't need to get into those right now.

So, you can ask Matina for a cup of tea but you can't decide what she looks like. You can ask for a description though and researchers that have been around long enough will be able to tell you (or Affy, her creator might be here, in which case you get the definitive version). You can't take Matina off to the Café, for example, but Lil can do so just because Lil is Lil. Complicated, isn't it?

We had a bad episode last year when Matina's predecessor (Minoova) was hijacked. Another researcher registered in her name and did unspeakable continuity damage. We all got very upset - especially Styx the Rat who had legitimately been promoted from creation to researcher.

It was a very sad time .

It was indeed. But now we have Matina, and hopefully no one will steal her away.

* the bot*

Now, Matina, can I have some tea please.

G7

How does one get promoted from creation to researcher?

Lil, if you should read the backlog I watched Gormenghast last night too. You definitely hit the "second audio program" button or your PBS station mixed up the sound tracks, because the version I saw did not have the narration.

Perhaps I should keep Zeppo from jumping on newcomers to the Atelier. I hope he didn't scare Timory off.

It was probably done by magic. Anyhow, the net result is that you can't "script" Styx in the same way as you might, say, Springie. Styx has a mind of his own. And we all love him dearly .

Speaking of Styx, it's been a while since he poked his little rodent head in here.