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

Those are really interesting links, Seth. I'm struck by how important the village is as a community. That's all but completely gone in large parts of the US, where people hardly know their neighbors and often move to different cities or states several times in their lives. I've been living in the same city for roughly 20 years and I don't feel like part of village. Our loss of the extended community probably has as much to do with our views on marriage as anything else does.

That would make sense, but in my experience living in a commune, where hardly anyone managed to stay married for more than 10 years, we still had a really stronge community. Every one knew each other, and each others past - and who was sleeping with who.

Even on council estates in the town where I grew up, where very few people got married, and even then it was after the children were born and usually ended in divorce. There was a very stronge sense of community a lot people helped each other out. And you knew all your neighbours, which ones to avoid, which ones were selling drugs, and which cars were stolen.

I think the loose of a community is really a middle class phenomium - they tend to move away from our families and the areas where we grew up for university and jobs. But working class people tend not to move away and are often closer to their famlies it seems. In my experience single parents were far more close on their extended family than two married parents.

I despair when people say "even on council estates"

Z...where did you grow up? In the Mersey Tunnel or what?

What d'yer mean buster...you looken fer trouble or what?

Nothing wrong with local authority housing Z. Your not a closet snob from the bought semis are you mate...no. Don't believe that.

When I married, it was for love. I quickly discovered, however, that love will not hold it together. It takes a level of commitment that my X apparently was not ready to give.

[MTG disinfecting computers]

Yes Garius Lupus...if you want to make comment about me buster..why not do it where I might read it. A touch of cowardice...?

At least there was that, GDZ. I got married because I was a certain age, and he asked me, and I thought that was what I was supposed to do. And then, when everyone was there and I was about to go in front of them, my dad turnded to me and said, "you don't have to go through with this, you know."

Damn, I think that was the best thing he ever said to me, and I didn't listen.

No regrets, no regrets. I got my daughter out of the deal, and that's worth everything.

Would like to meet your dad MR. My sort of guy!

[T&R]

[Hyp]

[z]

[BB]

Seth, I agree with d'E and Z, that the sense of community is lacking in much of the so-called civilised world, now. I'm lucky to have recaptured that by moving to such a small town. There was a town meeting last night to discuss adding a section to the ordinance concerning our "cultural landscape", like mainly the beautiful hills on the north and south sides of the narrow Bonito Valley.

The hills are owned mainly by two ranching families and also by the BLM, who had a rep at the meeting. Those families were there last night in part, bunches of brothers and sisters, and many other townspeople also attended.

I looked around and realised that I knew them all. I knew the general characteristics and attitudes (and history) of families X and Y, and I knew the prejudices and personalities of the others, who liked whom or avoided whom...

But we were all united about protecting the hills and the very fragile ecology that lives on them, so we were discussing whether to forbid any roads being cut into the hills at a grade exceeding 20%. I think that's what we'll do, but some intense talking took place as the ranchers considered their land values and building options.

Anyway, I came home feeling reassured that society could still work at village level even here.

slipped and poted with no text...

I have killed the trojan on my machine. But it does remind me of something I do not like.

My first reaction to seeing that my machine had been compromised was that I wished that there was a law allowing for the pblic stoning of viri writers. This is the sort of thinking that causes bad laws however. The knee jerk reaction that we get as a society that tells us to sue someone or to create a law is why we have so many bad laws on teh books. As a whole, most lawsuits are frivolous and should be thrown out, but we have set teh precedent that we can sue over anything with out much in the way of legal blocades to hinder the process. We now enjoy stupid commercials from ambulance chasing jerks who tell us that we too can become noveau riche jet setters just so long as we slip in a McDonalds as we spill their hot (how dare they make it hot) coffe whilst getting fat on their quarter pounders w/ cheese.


I still would like public stoning for viri writers as well as the M$ system that makes for terribly insecure software.

*walks in with a pile of "Socialist Worker" and some informative phamphlets about revolutions, and why they're marvellous things, and why we should have one on Thursday week..*

Well you could say that writing viruses is the symptom of a disaffected youth and a byproduct of capitalism making them feel that society is nothing of value and can be destoryed.

It's difficult to say what class you are, when your mother once called the man at the job centre a "common little man" after he suggested that it was time she got a job now she'd been signing on for 12 years.

Lil, how long have you been there? And were you welcomed right off the bat?

Something I've always wondered is whether or not English villages are as unwelcoming to new residents as they are often portrayed in books and films.

[T&R]

*curls up on the sofa with a pamphlet and *

[G7]

TEG, (The Ex Girlfriend, who's now one of my best friends), grew up in a very small English village the sort that you think doesn't exist, she knows everyone there.

I asked her this the last time I went there. There is a lot of hostility towards people who buy second homes in the country, partly because it's making the price of homes so expensive that young people can't afford to live there.

But if people move their permanently, send their children to a local school, and effort to get involved they'll be welcomed into the community, as long as they don't try to take over. Oh and as long as they are working nearby, and not commuting to London.

I spoke to a girl from the Isle of Mull, when I was in a hostel in Paris, and she thought that they were welcoming to newcombers as long as they were making an effort to live on the island permanently.

Weekenders, just push the price of property up and cause local schools to close down, so is it any wonder they seem to get shunned.
Acutally in a commune - we were very very hostile towards people who weren't one of us. And if someone got excluded from the cult then they would instantly be thrown.