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

No, no bailing here...

Hmm, the wonder of refectory lunches... Most of the students have disappeared into the vacation void, leaving a crew of support staff doing all the things that they don't have time for during term. The catering staff, naturally, cut down on the amount and range of food available in the refectory, which can lead to some bizarre food combinations. On Tuesdays I go to rehearsals straight from work, so I eat a hot meal at lunch time. Today I ended up with the interesting meal of chicken supreme with saute potatoes and stir-fried vegetables. Someone had rather overdone the soy sauce with the veg, I feel. And I had about the most normal possible combination of items. Macaroni cheese with stir-fry? Or risk the rather over-cooked-looking sprouts? I'm told that they had roast beef or roast stuffed peppers on offer yesterday. I expect the veg options were baked beans, beansprouts and hash browns.

What everyone considers popular music, Mr. D:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1422077

I am in the middle of a flag pole crisis at the moment. The rope has gotten stuck at the top and we cn't get it down to attach the flag. I don't have a ladder tall enough to prop against it to climb up and loosen it. The city doesn't have a bucket that will reach it. I have called the company who installed the pole and am waiting for a call back.

And there has been a mix-up in the order for paper supplies. I now have no paper towels for the dispensers, but I do have enough toilet paper for several months.

FG maybe coming to London?

Keep us posted on developments, please.

FG? In the UK? Keep us posted, and let me know if you are going to be venturing Beyond the Capital. But even if you aren't, you do realise that a meet will accrete around you whether you like it or not?

There used to be a lot of information available in people's names and titles.

Miss Smith would be her parents' eldest unmarried daughter. Her unmarried sisters would be Miss Lucy Smith, Miss Jane Smith etc, so you could tell whether or not the girl you fancied might be an heiress.

Mrs John Smith would be married. Mrs Jane Smith would be divorced. I am not sure whether widows were Mrs John or Mrs Jane.

In the US, Mrs Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born Bouvier, and the widow of Kennedy and Onassis, while Elizabeth Taylor dropped her husbands surnames on divorce, but should have kept them on their deaths. Thus Elizabeth Taylor Todd, (it was Mike Todd who died, wasn't it?) not Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky. Though it is a name to conjour with, isn't it?

I'm not saying it was good or bad. But it was information-rich.

B

The parcel has arrived. So that's OK then.

FG in London? Cool! Does cool still mean something positive?

Having decided what I want to get for S, darned if I can find any left in stock in any shops. Next year I'm spending Christmas pretending to be a monk or something. Preferably on a remote island just off the Orkneys.

*falls asleep on the sofa with a half-knitted Christmas present sock dangling from her hand*

Yes, perhaps me in the UK! My mother's favorite sister-in-law is an agent for a big global insurance company that shall remain unnamed. The company is holding their annual meeting in London in 2006. The s-i-l has invited my mother to tag along, and my mother in turn has invited me. As for dates, places, times and so on and so forth I don't have a clue, but I will let everyone know when and if this goes down.

And I expect to meet everyone.

That's exciting, FG. I hope it works out for you. You'll be treated royally by the UK salonistas.

At ~least~ everyone.

I'm printing the last of the Christmas cards I'm going to do this year, girding up for a conference call, and then, hopefully, making my final trip of 2005 to the Mighty WalMart.

That was a simulpost, but it worked.

What's the breaking news on the flagpole, Hypatia?

No news as yet on the flagpole. The flag is still not flying. The flagpole people have not returned my call. One staffer suggested we pile up boxes of toilet paper and climb on them to reach the top of the flagpole.

I have almost completed the christmas shopping. Only the book my sister-in-law wanted is still mising but that's really a minor problem. Even better - my grand-aunt has birtday on Jan 4th and I managed to find a present from the whole family for her. She'll get a radio-CDplayer. She is almost blind and that will give her a chance to listen the audio books. She'll be 91 btw.
For me Christmas will be busy and blessed time as all the mess (like selling house and dental surgery) will take place on 27th. After that the life will be a misery. I have to move out in January.
FG going to UK?
I saw a very good offer on plane tickets to Manchester but I haven't found any good reason or possibility to go there. Well, the fact that I've never been in UK would be a good reason, of course.

Mylar holographic wrapping paper is pretty, but it's a pig to use when the gift isn't square. Ordinarily I like to wrap a gift with exactly three pieces of cellotape to hold the paper in place, but with this stuff it takes 7 or 10 pieces, and even then I have bulges in the seams.

[Bagpuss]

for Affy.

Not bailing on the game, Lil, just can't think of a reasonable way to continue it at the moment.

"This isn't the same chap that had you and your team up all night trying to program something so you wouldn't all automatically fail is it?"

Yes. Yes, it is.

And for those keeping score in the long run, it is ALSO the same professor who gave me that nightmarish course in Icon programming when I started at the University.

I was so looking forward to finally getting away from all of his classes after this semester...but no, his classes want to stick around up through Christmas, it looks like.

I have just clean the kids' room. I have to wonder if they will notice the toys that I did throw away when they get the ones I confiscated back. My thoughts are that they won't.

I look forward to hearing how this experiment in child psychology goes. It's always been a puzzler to me. Kids (including me) tend to guard toys the way dragons guard gold. They pretty much ignore it for long periods of time, but often notice even a tiny portion of it missing.

That's a good insight, Affi. And the professor is a good candidate for counselling in aggression management.

Affy, sounds like your professor has just lost his mind. Even if you can't get him to drop it, any honor council will see that he's just not right in the head and you'll be in the clear.

> I am trapped in the house waiting for The Parcel from Amazon

I am also waiting on the Parcel from Amazon... mine is a pair of books by Spider Robinson, that R. will just love if I can get the package before he sees it and if it arrives on time... Phew! It's supposed to get here Friday.

> Iran has banned popular music on the radio and TV and Bolivia has elected a coca grower who openly hates the U.S. The earth is very interesting this morning...

Sharia don't like it... Rock the casbah, rock the casbah...

This particular cat in charge of Iran strikes me as a bonafide crazy. Somebody that should never have been elected, but because opinions are so polarized right now, managed to find a way to power.

It's too bad he's not an epileptic. Then there'd be a chance of the fit hitting the Shan.