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

Caer, I think your ALT key might be stuck, or maybe CTRL. Give 'em a wiggle and see what happens.
Notes (both from a Big Country and from a Small Island) are very good, but he is totally wrong about Glasgow, I tell you
And Phillip Pullman's books as films? Hmm, I expect them to be watered down far too much. Far too controversial as they stand.
Oh, and I get to go on holiday by not spending money on anything else. You should see the state of my sock drawer.

I used to travel a lot. I really miss it now .

What is Tom Stoppard doing now? I would try to see ANYTHING that man writes. And I would also go to hear Bill Bryson. I have a signed copy of one of his books, I think it's the one about his hitchhiking tour of Europe.

And as for converting His Dark Materials to a movie -- or a trilogy, I should think -- I agree with Munchkin. You'll never get it past the Vatican. Way too much Dust all over that story.

I gave the cats a new experience today, but I'm not sure whether they appreciated it. After I took them from the vet's office and got in the car, I opened the cage. The drive back involves 2 miles of dirt road; Becky is primarily a large animal vet so they have offices and barns WAY off the main road. After the dirt road one drives through Capitan, then 15 miles on to Lincoln.

Vinnie wouldn't even come out of the cage for the first mile. Limbo came out and looked out all the windows, meowing the entire time. Vinnie came out, looked at the stuff flying by the window, gave one quavering yowl and hunkered down on the floor of the front passenger street.

When Limbo clambered up onto the dashboard and threatened to walk in front of me I had to sweep her onto the passenger seat: it would not have gone down well with the sheriff's car behind me! After that they both squatted quietly, close together, at the entrance to their travelling cage.

Having climbed out disbelievingly when we got home, they are now tugboating silently in various parts of the house. Possibly they are feeling the effects of their rabies shots, but I also think I have violated their understanding of time and space. Do any of you have cats that enjoy travelling?

And I wonder if they could understand that cars go all sorts of places and not just to the vet and back...

personal glossary: "tugboating" is when a cat lies on its stomach with its front paws curled inward under its breast. A visual metaphor.

Any city that produced Charles Rennie Mackintosh can't be all bad!

There is too much traffic in my area to chance letting Clicquot out of the carrier. I'm afraid he will try to climb around my feet and get tangled in the pedals.

We call that tugboating pose "chinese kitty" because they look so formally posed when they do that.

Lil, I have a friend who used to drag his cat everywhere with him. That was the only one that I know of that traveled well.

A woman tourist came into the Tunstall store this September with a big orange tabby wearing a seeing-eye-type harness and walking on a leash. The cat was perfectly comfortable and interested in its surroundings. It pulled a little bit to get to some interesting looking things but didn't quarrel with the restraint, just flopped down and waited to see where Owner would take it next.

Perhaps they need to be acclimatized to this when they are kittens.

Bagheera does NOT like riding in cars at all. I have scars from the first time I took him to the vet...Alice, the cat before Bagheera, would just lay in my lap, but he was trying to get out the window, over my head -- just hated it.

He does, on the other hand, like taking walks. If I let him, he will follow me to the store and back, meowing all the while, telling me about what he sees.

The last time I drove anywhere with Lucy, I didn't have a cat carrier and she spent the whole time sitting on the floor by the gas and brake pedals. Now I have a vet that makes house calls and everyone's happy.

Munch, you're brilliant! Gave both keys a good waggle and all is back to normal

I have never had s that like to travel, all have meowed for Britain in their cages. The roads are too congested here to let them loose in the car.

An acquaintance of my mother's had a very valuable Siamese which was only allowed out in a harness and lead. When this woman went on holiday, she asked Mum to go in and feed the cat and take her for a walk twice a day. Mum said she felt extremely walking the . Actually it was the other way round because the would only go where it wanted to go and wouldn't be led anywhere.

My twin boys loved going for walks and also liked car journeys. They were much happier out of their carrier and would take a great interest for the first 30 minutes or so of each journey before finding a warm spot. Unfortunately the little one tended to define this as the space beneath the brake pedal so a certain amount of negotiation was required. The big one would stretch along the width of the windscreen to lie on both vents at the same time.

I once set out in a bad snow storm to travel from my parents' home back to Birmingham. Big cat was very concerned and stood on my lap with his paws on the steering wheel, peering forward and sort of "chattering" constantly. After about 10 miles the snow was getting worse, the turned around and gave me "a look". I knew exactly what he meant, did a U-turn and went home.

Later, when I was living with my parents for a while, they took to going for walks with the dog. The dog was a very overweight Cairn terrier and I think they just went along to laugh at him. He'd try to sort them out but they could walk faster than he could run. From time to time they'd roll over on the ground and wave their legs in the air as if in hysterics.

They liked going for "walks" in the local fields sitting on my brother's shoulders. It eventually came to light that the children in the village were being warned about the "cat man". We humans rolled about in hysterics at that one.

Some of my best walks ever were with those two cats. We once found a spring with a collection of freshwater horseshoe crabs in it that I wouldn't have seen without the cats - they actually came and "told" me they'd found something interesting! Much over three miles and little cat would have to be carried though.

Both cats were run over in separate accidents . They were both miles from home at the time.

No offense, Amy, but I hate stories that end with a dead kitty.

[chuckles to himself recalling these episodes]

Many years ago, when I was assigned to a Communications unit in Germany, I had a cat named Onyx. She was short-haired and black, except for a tiny white patch on her breast. One day we were gonna go for a little jaunt around Schoenecken, the village where we lived, and I wanted to take her along to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. I devised a sort of body harness and attached a leash. I carried Onyx out the door and into the parking area, then set her down to go on the walk. Nothin' doin'. She didn't want to budge, so I was physically having to pull her along. It ended up that I had to take her back inside, where she felt safe and secure. But I'll never forget "that day I took the cat for a drag."

Just last year, when we lived in St Charles, MO, we owned another black panther-looking tom whom we'd named Bagheera. He was a great cat, lots of fun, and did lots of things with me. Surprising, since my initial reaction to him and the other female tabby my wife and daughters brought in one day was a resounding, "No pets in this house, especially not cats!" Anyway, we started chumming around together to the point I began to feel we could do anything as pals. One day I decided to bring him into the shower with me and get both of us cleaned off, as it was time for his periodic sink bath anyway. Has anyone else ever tried something like this? Bad mistake! Oh, sure, he was fine with me in the shower stall, checking out the little compartment he'd seen me enter so many times. Then I turned the water on.

Split personality doesn't begin to describe his reaction. Maniacal mood swing? Yeah, that would be about right. He scrabbled against the door, the wall, and then--you guessed it--my legs. He found adequate purchase in the fleshy parts of my calf and thighs and managed to make it as high as my my hip before I let out an agonized bellow of pain. I was too stunned to do the right thing: turn the shower off. No, I grabbed him in order to calm him down; he grabbed me with his claws on the wrist and bicep in order to ask what the I THOUGHT I was doing. The shower poured down, drenching us more and he clambered up on my shoulders, digging into my neck so he wouldn't fall into the pool of water at my feet.

I staggered against the wall, grabbed the translucent shower door and flung it open, and tumbled out onto the little carpet in front of the cubicle. He got down, snuffed as much water off himself as possible, then gave me a look that could mortally wound. I got a towel and dried him as much as I could, but he wouldn't have any amount of apology after that. Our male bonding had ended at that point.

Moral = Cats and water do NOT mix. Ever. Let them take their little 'baths' themselves.

thinkB4youdo (now, I can laugh, not then)

[{Courtesy}]

Of a Courtesy, dear lady, lurk not so much and regail us with sundry snippets of your life and livelihood.

B4itsamutepoint

[BB]
The Lurker in chief
Drops off his card, just to let all know he is still about but not posting much.

Couldn't help noticing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2549557.stm
Which should amuse some around here

Have just got back from wasting 40 minutes of my life trying to get a live representative from CapitalOne, failing completely. Felt like smashing my phone but realised that a new handset would set me back 80 dollars and thought better of it.

MY manx cat Peanut loves cars. It is a bit dangerous pulling into the driveway because of this- he runs to the driveway whenever he hears a car pull up and has more often than not put himself in a very risky position of being run over as he is out of eyesight.

s are so , but I would hate Zeppo to think that we didn't appreciate him and his phone eating talents

The most able thing about my Mum having to take this Siamese for a walk was that it was in Berlin which has to be the capital for lovers. Many a local citizen went past sniggering up their sleeves at the mad Brits. To think that we were partly responsible for defending the 'free' part of the city if push came to shove must have given them some cause for concern

Just been watching Billy Elliot again. I'm sure I would have been the Darcy Bussell of my generation if my mother hadn't been asked to take me away from ballet classes! I was a disruptive influence allegedly, they had let me dance the can-can just once to get it out my system my life could have taken a different course..........

Courtesy, I have found the phrase: Je suis desol

Keyboard is doing its own thing again!

That phrase should have read: Je suis desole, je parle Francais terrible. Follow it with a smile, shrug your shoulders and with any luck the world is your oyster (or Lobster as Arthur Daley used to say)