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

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*there is a soft banging from inside the empty chocolate ice cream bin of the Taylor machine. A small voice with a soft lisp calls out.*

Hello? Oh, dear me, hello?! Has everyone left? Is there anyone out there who can help me? I do hate to be a bother, really I do, but it's just that it is rather cold in here. Yes, quite very cold, really. It wouldn't be too much trouble for you to rescue me, really it wouldn't, and I'd be ever so grateful. Hello?

[has had enough of the white stuff, so he heads inside for some more hot cocoa]

Matina? More cocoa, please? In my favorite B. Kliban cup? Thank you, dear bot.

[nestles into a cozy wingback chair, then starts, hearing a noise from the Taylor ice cream machine]

What the...???

[approaches the machine cautiously, then lifts the lid carefully to peer inside]

CB, what are You DOIN' in there???

[uses an ice cream scoop with a long handle to fish CB out]

I'd offer to lick you clean, but this is a family channel, after all.

B4igetintrouble

Well, bowling today was sort of a joke. I got 20 pins over my average then 20 pins under my average then my average. Tonight was an average night.

Coccoa. That is an excellent idea, B4.

I am cross. Some dizzy woman in our office has been giving me the run around about my new visa for the last month, and yesterday took the pip. Plus I'm told I won't get p[assport back till 17th, and that's not a very comfortable thought when I'm supposed to be flying home a few days later. In fact, I am in a big

Sol, you want I should come over there and kick her butt?


Okay, so I've been watching the Sopranos a bit too much. I wanted to see what the hype was, so I rented the first season. I don't get it. It's violent, says terrible things about those of Italian heritage, and all the characters seem like cartoon characters of what the Mafia is supposed to be about.

Six Feet Under is much better.

*Happily ignorant of Mafia-TV*

Could you make me a cup of hot chicken-broth, Matina? It's a bit chilly today.
We're having trouble with the TV-reception, so I'm happily ignorant to all tube-activity. Unless it's on DVD.

*Comes back into the Salon to warm up again and rummages around in an interdimensional pocket. Holds up a broght yellow gadget with mini whisl on the end, about the size of a phone handset*

I use my solar powered hand held frother for hot mixing. I bought it some time ago, but friends always admire it when I'm frothing the milk.

If you are prepared to go in person and pay extra for the priviledge, the passport offices here will do them whilst you wait. Normally it is a 6 weeks service, but my last one came back in 3. For once I was actually quite pleased with the photograph, although I did hog the booth until it displayed one I liked, there were mutterings from outside of 'for God's sake get on with it'.

Hello sea, nice to see you back

*emerges from the Workshop where she has been for hours*

I really must get a new passport. My old one was stolen last year . But as I don't even leave Leeds these days it's not a priority .

*goes into Lil's Studio to fetch more supplies*

[Munchkin, he of multiple passports ]
Went up to Nodnol last might to attend a talk by Bill Bryson on his latest trip to Kenya. It was in the Westminster Centre Hall, incidently where the Free French were founded, Gandhi spoke and the UN held its first ever meetings. Sadly the sound guy was up on the balcony so everyone up there had a great time. Sadly those on the floor were lucky if they heard more than fifty percent of what he said. Which is a shame as I have the feeling it was quite interesting. I did buy a copy of Mother Tongue though and giggled all the way home on the train.

My passport is with the police: my new shiny one was issued by the embassy with the minimum of fuss, though a huge fee. I have to be regiseterd at a particular residence. They do like to keep a track on us immigrants. The cuffuffle was over the document issued by husband consenting to allow me to live in his flat. Mind, the British make me issue an latter kindly inviting my husband to visit me in Britain. It's just stupid bits of paper with stupid beurocratic regulations on which your need to have and which you spend hige amount of efforts getting exactly right but which are then totally ignored by all parties. Or at least, judging by the fact that in spite of endless wrangling and many amended pieces of paper later, I have yet another version of my name on the new visa. I think they are having a competition for the weirdest transliteration of my name. I really hate all this. Rant over.

[spk]

[LIL]
taking the cats to the vet this morning for annual shots

I've been meaning to ask this for a while.

How in the blazes do all you folks afford to take such far-ranging trips across the world? I can't see hitchhiking across Europe on $20 a day, or even several hundred, with a family of four. Do y'all just save up for a year, or are you independently wealthy?

When I did my tour of duty in Germany and in Iceland, I noted that the Europeans absolutely seemed to 'live for' their holiday away from home. Granted, they have access to a wide range of different cultures within closer proximity than most other areas of the world.

B4iusethe$elsewhere

Personally, I hate travelling. Can't you tell?

I love travelling Now that the sons are adults, its only the two of us that we have to shell out for.

Since Cassie lay all over my keyboard earlier something has happened to it, if I press 'e' I get the 'my computer' screen; 'r' opens the 'browse' screen and 'f' brings up 'search'. I am now logged on to the mail server so that I can least type things, but it's so slowwwww.

I meant to add that this is interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/2538003.stm

I would love to be able to hear Bill Bryson speak--even with a 50% loss! If you want a giggle-riffic read, Munchkin, try his "A Walk in the Woods" or "Notes from a Small Island". Nearly every goofy fact I know about the UK comes from that book!

*surfaces from underneath a mound of yellow legal pad sheets*

Hi! Just wanted to say that I would love to see Pullman's books as movies, and sea! how are you? and ...oh, bother, I don't remember anything else. Well, back to the paper!

*dives back into the mound*

It'll be interesting to see what Tom Stoppard does with the Hollywood scrit that's for sure. I was quite cross I couldn't go and see his epic play cycle that got put on in London a while back.