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

heh heh heh
Styx is a demon rat

*scampering into kitchen*

*Puts down a plate of something for Styx to eat. Best not to look too closely to see what it might be.*

B

sniff sniff

Feh!

I want some pork pie

old buddy back in town! *jumps on counter and doing demonic snooping dance*

*Waits to see what demonic snooping happens after the dance.*

*returns from the Kitchen with a Calling Card from [Z] who's PC is poorly*

He'll be online tomorrow from the University though.

Ben

[{Courtesy}]
*prepping for a Super Bowl party*

I like the feeling of belonging that comes from living in a small town. But there is absolutely no privacy. You can't get away with much.

People drop by without calling - call about things that should wait until I'm at work, etc. But it's wonderful to have a support system.

Speaking of the village idiot (not the smellfungus)- he has decided not to run for reelection to the city council. And his seat is being taken (no opposition) by someone the smellfungus is terribly jealous of and therefore hates. Maybe I'll get some relief.

Tell you what folks...and styx will appreciate this...I was shocked at the amount of adultery about. The partner turnover rate would please any manager of any trade you would care to name.

[LTP] i did not find the sentence or sentance was bizzarely punctuated or any of letters standing funny

{[caer]}

I grew up in a very small village, my parents moved there when we were a few months old, but the fact that we were twins, and that Mum eventually got a job in the local shop helped no end Still we moved when I was 12. Since then I never really settled much.

I have just had to list all my addresses since I was 14 for a job application. Interesting to do, but it works out to 18! (I’m only 31)

Ben, My Gran tells of the shock when she ended up with my Granddad (his village was all of five miles away) and she still says “well, there were a queer lot from ****field”

[mr]

Ach, they felt like that about each other in the two villages my father was clergyman of, Toc, and they were two and a half miles apart!

a hick called Ben

Ben, I forgot that you were a clergyman's daughter. You didn't turn out much like the book then

Do the small villages still have their own schools? In my area the smaller towns have about all lost their schools and have merged into consolidated districts in larger towns. When the schools closed down a lot of the feeling of community went with them.

*Z pops in, having emperically treated the PC with a re install of internet explorer*

It's time I got my Linux box online I think. At the moment the problem is that the softwear modem isn't recognised by the system (Suse 8.5) and I know I need to purchase a hardwear one. But how do I find whether a hardwear modem is compatable with Linux?

Hypatia, yes some small villiages do still have their own schools, though of course some are being shut down. They are campaigning strongly to keep them open though.

My kid goes to school with others from 20mls away. All the kids are bussed in. Scattered rural communities. You find these at the extremeties of the UK.

Hypatia, yes losing the village school, much like losing the village shop or pub, can be a death nail for small rural communities. In many ways I was blessed by being raised in West Somerset [population: 20,000 - area: about the same as North London] as the County Council had a policy of keeping village Primary schools open even when they only had as few as a dozen kids enrolled.

The upshot of this was lots of children aged up to about 9 years old who had attended a school where there was strong sense of community, and and indeed a sense of history. One of my most treasured possessions is two school photographs, one of me and one of my Grandfather. Both aged about 7, both taken from exactly the same spot in our old school playground some 60 years apart.

It was only at aged 10 that we congregated into the middle schools where kids had to be bussed in, that the process of knocking us all into indentikit little drones started.

They have been closing down the schools for 30 years, Hypatia. Mind you, as the housing gets more expensive, the demographics change, and so there are fewer children in the villages anyway. Hell, *I* can't afford a cottage in one of the local villages, and I am ludicrously well paid for what I do. (When I can get work, that is).

Ben