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

The occasion is the shared birthday on 7 November of Garius Lupus, co-partner of Crater Labs Inc., and Asteroid Lil, hostess of Lil's Atelier and tenant of CLI. Also being celebrated are other chronologically near birthdays, such as those of sea and Bald Bloke.

The event is a banquet in which guests have taken on the identity of a character from either Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. The known guest list is given at the bottom of this post, although last-minute droppers-in are welcome, especially if they don a relevant character.

For the occasion, the large area that was originally a gallery has been cleared, converted to a traditional open ceilinged hall, and long tables have been arranged in a large square and covered with light green damask. The cutlery is sterling silver, the pates are Lil's favourite Denby Cotswold (long discontinued) stoneware, and the goblets are, under the circumstances, robust. CLI have invented a remarkable glass with the sparkle and heft of leaded crystal and the unbreakableness of common plastic, called Affitite, and Lil has commissioned a gross of glasses from them. Garius and Lil have large, rather ornate thrones facing each other across the hall. The rest of the guests are to be seated on comfortable armchairs of plush white velvet.

Seasonal flowers and white beeswax candles adorn all the tables, and Matina has drafted several CLI workbots to do the food serving. There are, additionally, inflatable squid hanging from the high beams.

After consideration of the theme, Lil and Matina have determined the following menu:

Appetizers:

Salad Quidditch - a medley of melon balls, julienne of raw carrot, pineapple straws and strawberries on a bed of mint leaves
Shrimp a la Gryffinn - giant peeled shrimp with spicy hot cocktail sauce
Dragon wings - chicken wings in mild barbeque marinade, grilled

Main courses

Bloody Baron Roast Beef au jus
Roast Turkey Dumbledore with cornbread stuffing
Quirrell's Vegetable Tempura
Dragon Alley Baked Swordfish

Vegetables and Side dishes

Every Flavour Beans
Golden Flitch Corn on the Cob
Fluffy Mashed Potatoes
Imagine Whirled Peas
Gibbet Gravy

Dessert will be announced. Beverages include Four Grapes Wine, Mead, phlog, and a Special Blue Powder Punch, as well as the usual range of teas and coffees.

The guests:

Sandra - Hermione
Garius - Sirius Black
Uncle Heavy - gollum
WM - Mrs. Weasley
Tonks - The Weasley twins
Mac - Neville Longbottom
Solnushka - Professor MacGonigall (can turn into a cat)
Marv - Hagrid
Titania - Peeves
Munchkin - Tom Bombadil
Bumblebee - Mafalda Hopkirk (Improper Use of Magic Office)
Afgncaap5 - Harry Potter
Gw7en - Mrs. Norris, a cat
d'Elaphant - Treebeard
Arlecchino - Pippin
Ioreth - Ioreth
Solsbury - Gandalf
Peripatetic Warrior Monk - Madame Maxine Olympe
Amy - Hedwig Owl, mail carrrier to HP
Styx - Draco Malfoy
Sporkulious Eglon - Professor Snape
sea - Rosie Cotton
Caerwynn - Mad Eye Moody
Guess Who? - Vol-ssh! You-Know-Who
ox - Strider

I'll take an FTTF, please!

*a CLIbot wearing a tuxedo and a boutoniere steps forward. As he does so, his pocket handkerchief is seen to be a name pin, "HAROLD, HEAD BUTLER"*

*Harold solemnly hands Ioreth a first-to-the-forum corsage of white roses and a half-bottle of Chateau Margaux 1935*

Oh and I would like to add a special anecdote about Joyce as I am currently procrastinating in the middle of writing a paper about him. So a friend of mine calls (a cute one) and we were talking away (ok fine not cute but somehow irrationally attractive) and I said 'gotta run, I've got to write a paper on joyce.' howing off his vast knowledge, he said 'yay dead irish poets!' and I said 'yeah, gotta love 'em. too bad joyce was a NOVELIST' oh ho ho *laughs at her own joke, runs off*

*Dignifiedly accepts, even though she has already left to do homework.*

But I will return when time permits to the ball.

Well, I wonder, actually, hmm. Ulysses is called a novel because it's allegedly prose and there are lots of words making lots of pages... but he's not a novelist like, say, Henry James.

I like Henry James, but I'm a Virgo, and detail thrills me.

Won't you have a seat, Io?

That quiditech salad sounds scrumptious, but I must ask: what are pineapple straws? I've never seen these wonders.

I don't know ~how~ Matina did it. Perhaps if you or I had hands that could be replaced with exotic cutting, slicing and extruding devices, we too could do interesting things with fruits and vegetables...

*enters and sits*

*politely asks harold for a quidditch salad - she's ravenous, and it's just about time for her Very Late Evening meal*

lil, the place looks INCREDIBLE! my favorite part is the squids...

*Through the doorway and into the hall trots an impeccably sleek badger, of smallish size, but full-grown. The badger carries in her mouth two intricately wrought crowns, both of silver set with opal and emerald. She places the more delicate of the two at the foot of Hermione's throne, the more baroque at the foot of Sirius Black's.

She then retires to a small velvet ottoman at the edge of the hall. The badger unobtrusively catches Harold's eye, and demurely grooms her whiskers before settling down with the bowl of mead he brings her. She thanks the butlerbot with a nod of her silvery head and waits for the festivities to begin.*

*a small dragon hops into the banquet hall; two small, poorly giftwrapped packages under her arm. She hops to between the thrones and, uncertain who to speak to first, sort of speaks sideways to the guests of honor*

Rar-rar, I am a dread Norwegian Ridgeback, I'm really quite fearsom, really I am. Oh, yes, I'm ever so very fearsom, Rar, rar.

Happy Birthday!

*enters in suitably decrepit gollum style. intends to annoy people by going ssss at every available opportunity*

*In a flutter of emarald green robes [look, see, I did my homework] a tall [ok I made that up] stern woman with black hair innabun and square black glasses sweeps into the hall, looks around very approvingly and nods, briskly, once.*

Splendid, absolutely splendid. Presents later, I'm afraid. I've been up all night with a tricky transfomigateration, and I'm just going to sink into one of those armchairs...

*neatly and precisely, she becomes a small tabby cat, pads over to the nearest chair, jumps up, turns round three times and politely and carefully goes to sleep, paws tucked in*

[ps Was my birthday too.... Who said that?]

[Munchkin/Bombadil]*Hops and a skips in, does a couple of twirls and flings himself into a seat*
Oh Tom Bombadillo has turned up here
And now he'll be for something like beer

This could get difficult

Makes a grand sweeping entrance, tries not to trip over the grey cloak.

"No, I'm supposed to keep the staff, part of the costume"
*tsk overbearing security guards *

Harold, I'll have the firey wings, a goblet of mead and a flagon of ale thank you.

/* The assembled guests barely notice (used to such things as they are) when the aged tree trunk that had been standing near the entrance to the Atelier walks in, carrying two giant casks that he places at each end of the room, near each throne. He then strides, not quite bending his knees, towards the center of the banquet hall where he lies down on the floor */

The finest Entwash for the enjoyment of your guests. And if you look outside, there is another gift I hope you will enjoy.

/* Outside, the size of the forest appears to have tripled, and the trees seem to be singing a lively, enchanting song. It is the Entish version of "Happy Birthday" and Entish being a very old, syllabic language, the song will clearly last all night */

*Enters, sits, takes a gulp of phlog, and tosses some Prolonged Absence Gum into his mouth*


Gotta dissappear for school, sorry.

*Mrs. Weasley arrives and approaches Hermione's throne. She places a heavy knit sweater in Lil's favorite color and a large box of fudge next to the throne, all wrapped in a satin ribbon.

She heads over to Sirius' throne and deposits a similar package, except that this sweater is in Garius' favorite color.*

The gallery looks fabulous. I'm partial to the squid, too. Champagne, please, Harold.

*Notices the demure badger on the pillow, realizes where she knows her from and s as she sips her .*

What is this phlog? Should I be scared?

*Hermione has made just one concession to festivity in her dress, in the form of a gardenia in her hair. Otherwise she is properly dressed in robes with her wand tucked up her sleeve and her homework in a satchel. Given the size of the textbooks, the satchel is under a minor first-year spell, and it floats along behind Hermione, obediently*

*She goes to her chair and gasps with delight* Oh! What a lovely crown! *adjusting her gardenia, she dons the crown*

Harold, I'll have the Quidditch salad too, please. I hope you all don't mind, but in the spirit of the school, we're serving straightforward sorts of food here today. If there's anything complicated, it's probably the spices and secret ingredients that the bot used in cooking the dishes.

*hopes You-Know-Who tries the phlog and gets messed up in some way*