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

very kind, but I think I'll stick to tonight

A wee snifter wouldn't go amiss, Lady C. Thanks.

Anybody ever noticed an exam question that they thought they'd answered, but which they'd only half answered, but then not had time to rectify things because the exam ended?

Miker - Perhaps it was just me, but every student house I was in seemed to have one excessively tidy person who would rush about clearing things up making the rest of us feel guilty. In fact one year when the tidy person moved out someone else took over the position.

very true, now you come to mention it.

That's what I'm missing about my student house.

I have an idea, and it may be a crazy one. I could give away free lodgings in my spare room in exchange for doing all my housework?

I currenlty don't have a lodger because I could never have the audancity to charge for living in this pit....

Bingo!

you would need clear written ground rules though with agreement on what both parties would and would not do.

> And one of them...*sigh*...loves to discuss her physical health with anyone who meets her eye.

FG - She's got her very own organ recital, huh? If it were me, I'd fake a sudden attack of deafness.

Mikerhike - I don't want to encourage her! And I don't think she'd understand, anyway. She seems to be very much inside her own head.

> I could give away free lodgings in my spare room in exchange for doing all my housework?

Z, this sounds like a recipe for disaster, or maybe a premise for a really bad sitcom. I think anybody that's willing to take that deal might not be a very good housekeeper.

[GDZ]

Two pairs of boots. A pair for the barn and paddock, and a pair to wear out for social occasion. That may not be wealth to you, but in Lincoln it's haute couture.

*Joins the group on the terrace, gets a drink from Lady C, and relaxes into a chaise to look at the stars*

*moves her arm so that everyone can see the inscription on her apron - Cleanliness is Next to Impossible*

Good night all.

Bouncing up to my neighbours, mikerhike? In cold blood? No. There probably was a moment when we first moved in, but I forgot I was in it for the long haul and just plodded past, eyes front as usual. That was a year ago. I can't just start mugging cheerfully at them now. Well, I could but I'm a coward...

The thing about me an housework - and my house isn't that tidy really even though it is really small (small flat = fewer places to clean, incidently) - is that I get a bit obsessive about it mainly because my parents didn't. And they are horders. And my Dad has a thing about bits of paper and not throwing them out (but not putting them away either). And they do seem to have a lot of furniture. The net result of which is my holy grail is a well ordered and essentially empty house. In short: I'm rebelling.

Ben, a belated congrats on your assignment! As for the italics brandishing rules at you, Don't let the turkeys get you down! (yes, I know they're not turkeys, but all this Politically Correct suppression stuff has GOT to stop sometime!...)

<>

Kelli, it's a loss of appetite due to seeing everything I eat as The Enemy. After the heart attack, it's been very hard to enjoy anything I eat anymore. I suppose it will ease in time, but now it's just so hard to want to eat anything, when I feel so punk all the time.

BUT on a cheerier note, that garden is so cool, Kelli! I love the idea of the weeping cherry; they're so graceful. And Hyp is right, white flowers against the brick will be lovely. Depending on the light and time of day, they'll just glow.

SC

SC

*frops in and sweeps up the extra SC*

'ning.

Now here I am, having been coached good a proper as to how to sell my 'products' (knowledge, journalistic ideas), and with no time to think or develope same. My stories get outdated before I have a chance to push them.

A luxus-problem really. I have this website to make during the next 1½ months, and I have in the last two days agreed to write two stories for a union magazine which is one of my usual employers/costumers. One of them is a summer story. I shall follow a rockband of mentally handicapped to a big festival the band is playing at - with other professional musicians and handicap bands. I'm quite looking forward to that. It's been a while since I was 'on the road'.

This band in particular, the first in Denmark to play on stage without pedagogues, has developed so much that the members write their own lyrics and music, organise the practicing on their own, play concerts in Japan, Russia, Hungary etc., and is going to teach music at a workshop in Germany next year. The guitarist is employed as a music teacher for other mentally handicapped.

Now to begin ringing to 'wring the arms of' (get appointments with) sources for the other article before they go to meetings or start working. There are only three workdays for most people next week, as many tend to take the Friday after Ascension Day off.

Mor ning,

Sounds like an interesting assignment following the band.

miker - sorry was what a Renault Clio, the old memory isn't what is was, don't you know.

Ben, I understand the frustration but a coping strategy is to look upon the robotic antics of the mods as the small price we have to pay to support our hootoo habit. Wrap the problem up and put it in a drawer at the very back of your brain. If you don't forget it, take it out, unwrap it, worry a bit and then put it away again. It gets smaller every time it is exposd to daylight.

Z, have you seriously thought of a cleaner. Say 3 hours a week @ £6 an hour. For that you could probably get youe place cleaned and tidied and your ironing done.

e lad exposed isn't what it used to be.

Cleaners here charge £10 an hour. Z, how about just getting in a cleaning firm once a month for a day? Might at least be worth finding out how much they charge.

Actually Z that *does* work - we did it in our old house. Our next door neighbour's eldest (17) wanted to move out, but had no money. So she became a free live-in house keeper. She did all the cleaning, tidying and washing (but not the cooking) in return for her lodgings.

[p]

Morning everyone. Lady C, can I have that now?

I think the rent-for-cleaning thing could work really well Z, with the right person. "Free Lodgings offered - obsessive compulsives only need apply"/

>> Ben, that's what I was wondering. Because you seem to be a target

Oh. Do you think I've got a stalker? *waves to stalker* Um. Stalker. Nice stalker. Would you sort my rubbish when you go through it, and clean my windows while you are hanging around outside? Oh, and water the garden in the dry weather? Thanks.

Lots more to comment on - disabled rock bands sound really interesting for a start. But at work, and should be working.

B