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

This is number 55X of the Conversations of Lil.

Lil's atelier has been functioning very smoothly without Lil because the salonistas are such a great bunch of people. They have taken on the job of launching new threads as the need arises: first Caerwynn, then Amy the Ant, and, most recently, Marv the Grate. It worked so well that Lil plans to carry on inviting them to launch threads in future.

New members: Pinniped (who mostly lurks, he says). And the late James Arthur Bottomley-Webjello III, although it's not certain the atelier would have admitted such a pretentious snob, had he survived the tragic explosion (see below).

Carmel wants to be on the list of salonistas and rightly desrves to be there, but has so far not turned in the requisite thumbnail bio. Uncle Heavy showed up again after such a long absence that he almost qualifies as new, although we may not see a lot of him as he's gone down to Oxford. Lil kept in touch, sort of, via rat. She would drop visiting cards which were then picked up and brought to the atelier; the rat would eavesdrop for a while, then report back. Gw7en also reappeared after some time away. And on top of everything else, Luna made an appearance.

Birthdays and Anniversaries (known): Marv the Grate and Witty Moniker, Frodo Baggins. Pinniped had a golden wedding anniversary, and Gw7en a 3rd anniversary of HooToohood, as did Lil and Garius Lupus.

FG caught up with most of the rest of us and read the Dark Materials Trilogy.

Holidays: Caerwynn and family took off for two weeks of leaf-peeping and touring in the northeastern United States, and Munchkin spent a week under pith helmet, showing off paisley waistcoats to crocodiles along the Nile.

The most recent thread was launched near the beginning of September, and inevitably everyone's thoughts turned to the anniversary of 9/11 and current events. Although the atelier comprises a rather wide range of opinion when it comes to the topic of armed reprisals, you will not find a lot of sympathy in the salon for the international policy of the current US president's administration. But we did have some fun trying to guess what Cheney's "secure undisclosed location" might actually be.

Banned Books Week also occurred during this thread. Relatively new salonista Hypatia is a librarian and launched quite a discussion on the matter of censorship in schools.

Marv also got everyone talking about books that are made into movies and whether the latter are ever as good as the former. Probably the most controversy arose around Frank Herbert's "Dune."

Some headsticker songs were referenced, to everyone's detriment -- the Hokey-Pokey, A Groovy Kind of Love, Harper Valley PTA...

And then news of the kidnapping ordeal brightened, as it became clear that Lil had in fact been rescued, but news came up of a bomb in the atelier, a bomb designed to go off when Lil returned. Amy alerted the salonsitas, who duly began searching, and Lil eventually set up temporary quarters in a guest cottage out on the grounds, in company with Amy, from whence she could stay in constant touch via monitor, and where she, Sporky and Amy enjoyed some painting sessions. Candi also came down to the cottage to visit.

Meanwhile conversation continued. Titania created a way to monitor what time zone various researchers are in (see U203563), and everyone continued to share news of themselves and their families, as we always do.

Eddication!

One theme that salonistas kept coming back to finally exploded into what is probably the main theme of the 54Xth conversation: education. School board politics in the US (Montana Redhead's tribulations), then the scandal of poormarking and inconsistent curriculum standards for AS levels (Professor Tonks was hit personally by this, as was Caerwynn's son). Many salonistas are somewhere in their education systems, from being parents of school-age children to attending to degree courses, with Professor Tonks probably most deeply involved as he approaches the job of university application.

Garius Lupus got the ball rolling into a more general discussion of educational systems, teaching methodologies and home schooling, as he and his wife are home-schooling their daughter Natalie.

MR likes to do woodwork and asked Lil if she could perhaps set up a workshop somewhere on the grounds. Recalling that there is lots of unused space on the second floor, Lil invited MR and anyone else who is so inclined to open a workshop. Candi is likely to create a music studio, Hypatia will work on illuminated manuscripts, and there will be lots of gallery space... and a hot tub is likely to be installed in the old gallery. A number of salonistas favor outdoor hot-tubbing, but the logistics have yet to be worked out. Watch this thread for details.

As Marv led us in a game of cryptography, the discussion turned to questions of international morality, assassination, anomia and scrimshaw; FG had to be reminded that whales don't have tusks.

And then the bomb finally arrived, late, courtesy of Webjello Express -- what one might expect from webjello! Most salonistas immediately twigged that the package addressed to Lil was indeed explosive. The cardboard replica standin of d'Elephant was about to disarm the package when he was himself disarmed by houseguest Bottomley-Webjello. The webjello aristocrat had not got very far into the Magic Forest with the package when there was a large explosion... And not long after that, members of the rescue posse began to return.

We are expecting, in this thread, to see Lil return and for Munchkin and Caerwynn to post photos of their respective holidays. We might even see pictures of the home restoration chez Tonks, and Sporky might deign to become a Community Artist, like Amy and Lil.

Now read on.....

Credits!!

He wasn't mentioned in the formal thread launch, but I would like to make a special introduction here for a researcher named Red Dog. Lil had never met him before she was kidnapped, but as soon as he heard of her plight through mutual friends Garius and Affi, Red Dog immediately set to work to prolong the agony, I mean, enhance the whole adventure. I fervently hope that this international traveller and Man of Mystery will be able to find time in his RL schedule to become a part of the atelier from now on. Ladies and gentleman, many of the voices and characters you met on your quest were Red Dog.

Special mention must also be made of Yar Kramer, inventor of Dylan Cobb's Continuity Bleach and tireless adventurer of a thousand (seems like) clone identities and alter egos. He donated two of them, X and Zero, to the quest; bizarre though they are, they blended in (in a manner of speaking) and contributed a great deal to the success of the adventure.

Red Dog has created a set of end-of-film credits for the adventure which you absolutely ~have~ to see. They can be found at http://www-scf.usc.edu/~delangis/ , which is sea's home page at USC. The link to the credits is the first thing on the page. The credits are a powerpoint presentation and people will either need powerpoint, or a powerpoint viewer. Sea has a link to where you can download a powerpoint viewer.

You'll have to use the "slideshow" function in powerpoint to view it properly. This can be run from the menu bar or by pressing the little screen icon at the bottom left side of the powerpoint window.

*Lil throws open the french door and rushes in ecstatically, then freezes in place for several seconds*

Nope. No explosion. The bomb threat is gone. And I'm home! I'm home! I'm so glad to see you all!

*then she notices a row of small round patches of hastily sanded plaster on the wall, over-painted in a color that doesn't quite match the wallpaper. She looks up and sees a skylight whose original stained glass has been repaired with perspex ... and other repairs to house and furnishings all around* Oh dear. Oh dear. What happened?

Yippee! I am FINALLY the first! Aren't I?

Yes indeed. Somehow, that surprises me....

Wait a minute...I know that site. I think Red Dog knows someone, someone very well known to all of us....

alright, out with it sea!

I am happy to announce that I, too, just finished the His Dark Materials trilogy. Didn't like the ending. I wanted something different to happen, but have decided that my daemon would have to be either a chesapeake bay retriever or a small species of monkey.

I fear that the trials and tribulations of the salonistas that stayed to hold down the fort involved some shenanigans by teh webjello gang. I hope that I can help clean up.

Drat!! I thought I had it Red...

Were it not for my lapdog and it's modem being so slow...

Well I don't know what I did wrong, but the whatsit seems to have dissappeared. I think it all downloaded but I don't have the foggiest where it's gone now. I shall have a rummage in my computer's nether regions a bit later, praps.

[]

[Munchkin]
Gaa! Photographs, really must get them done. Sadly a lot of the hieroglyph ones didn't come out, what with the light inside temples not being that great. Now off to see these credits.

Sadly enough I didn't have a good camera with me when I visited Egypt - and the option to have them developped on disc didn't exist at the time... (10 years ago)

Did you buy any papyrus, Munchkin? *thinking of trying to take a photo of her Nefertiti one - not old, modern artist, but beautiful nevertheless*

Missed the mug again!

My car has gone in for its MOT (i.e annual road worthiness certificate) and a full service, I'm dreading the phone ringing as in its 11 years of dutiful, loyal and nippy service it has never failed an MOT or broken down (yet).

I loved Red Dog's credits and discovered that I already have PowerPoint installed. Is there no end to the mysteries of my hard disk?

We have blind drive warning signs here too, Hypatia, but not Blind Person ones, I think it would be seen as discriminatory. You may occasinally see ones for Schools for the Blind/Deaf if a crossing is provided for one.

I shall attempt to assess the photos in the next couple of days, but the decorator is coming next week, so will probaly spend most to the time holed up here in the study, so that will give me an excuse to play with PhotoShop.

Yep, got one of the ceiling at Dendera, its the full Egyptian Zodiac and is very busy. ... Or maybe mine is the one of Nuut, Goddess of the Sky and Toc bought the Zodiac, I can't remember now. Must get it framed before I forget entirely.

Munchkin, looking forward to showing off his photos

[Amy] - waits for 4.4 MB to squeeze themselves down a partially blocked pipe.

Oh yes, an I thought the credits were great. I never knew I had such fine facial hair.

Yay! The Black Beauty has passed her MOT! But the rear brake discs, which the brothers at the Garage have been advising are worn since 1996, have finally gone. So that will be a little pricey, but nice to know the brakes will stop even sooner, the car will be doing headstands .

No2 son also reckons that with the purchase of a Haynes manual and a new electric motor from H*lfords (which will possibly work once we have exchanged it 3 times ), he can get my motorised aerial working again. If the Bros at the Garage did it, the labour would come to more than the car's value.

In spite of the wind and rain, it's turning out to be a brighter day than expected

I had better book the Antmobile in for repairs

I'm here. Reading a bit of backlog, inbetween w*rk.
*gets a from Matina, and sits down in one of the big chairs in the corner.*

The Posse credits are great! And where on earth did they manage to find those pictures?

/* Goes off to look for missed backlog, as he doesn't know what anyone is talking about */