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

[Lady C]

Just waded through 123 pieces of back log. Phew! I'm pooped.

Unlike Hyp, I love the invasiveness of honeysuckle. If I had her back yard, I would plant it every four feet along the chain link fence. Hall's Honeysuckle is a good variety, but the old fashioned white and cream has the best fragrance.

Going to see Spiderman 3 with J tonight. Kids are out with grandpa seeing it now.

Don't waste your money, GDZ. Emo Spidey just isn't right.

I think it's interesting how things like 'minority' languages in places like Estonia survive, despite everything. Would you say that it has persisted in the face of Estonian subjection because of its ability to express a national identity despite a lack of political independance?

Can't tell accents any more. Don't hear them. Unless you have one of the ones I'm particularly fond of. I don't think your accent in English is like the Slavs, Hati. You'll be pleased to hear. But that's as much as I noticed. It's not a very strong accent though. I mean, your English pron is very good.

I am British. My family come from all over the British Isles (except Scotland), including the Channel Islands, so the fact that my parents were settled in the South of England when I was born doesn't make me feel English more than British. So there.

Then I'm middle middle class and from S_____. Whose football club are opening Wembly today. I can't imagine why. Go Borough!

And |I meant to ask, when KerrAvon resurfaced a while back, how her neighbour thing was going. How's the neighbour thing going Kerr?

Mmm. I've been wondering about Kerr's neighbour thing too - and sending them vibes for what they did to Kerr.

While there were issues with the movie MR, I rather liked it.

I'd agree with that. I didn't think it was as strong as the first two, but I thought the Sandman stuff was rather good and it certainly wasn't terrible. I could handle 'emo Spidey' (first time I've ever used that 'word') much more easily than 'Messianic Superman', which made me want to throw things at the screen during an otherwise rather good film.

[p]

Neighbours? Oh, one's in nick, two aren't, and I'm still living at my parents.

A couple of Asian mates of mine may wich to buy the house, so things are moving slowly along.

I got confused by Lil's algorithm for parcel pricing (I think a < or > was the wrong way round and I wasn't quite sure what ROUND(x/194) meant (it looks like the price jumps by nearly 200 times as soon as a certain volume is reached)), so I tried looking it up. I didn't find it, but anyone who thinks the new Royal Mail system is confusing should look at this: http://postcalc.usps.gov/mailpiecedimensions.asp

I'm not sure which I use most out of British and English, though I wish people who write forms would use either one or the other instead of leaving me dithering. Online forms can be a pain when I scroll through hundreds of countries to find there's no UK, then again to find there's no England, and one more time to discover I'm under "British".

Sol reckons Eastern Europeans often give a bad impression through not naturally smiling as much as the English. I guess that's why we have quite a few Polish bus drivers - if they go around scowling all day they should fit in perfectly with their indigenous colleagues.

Oh, I scored Angelic by the way. I'm curious about how some things are graded. Presumably "Jesus freak" scored me some goodie points, but which countries does the quiz dub evil? And does consumption of porcine products make me less evil than if they were bovine?

In Italy, no one says 'please' and 'thank you' when ordering in cafes and restaurants. It is understood that you are being polite by going in and telling the waiter/ barista what you want in a calm voice. So my rather English habit of saying 'please' got me quite a lot of very odd looks as it was almost insulting - was I being sarcastic? Was I implying that I didn't trust them to serve me unless I begged?

So Italian friends in British coffee shops just say 'one coffee and a fruit juice' and the person at the counter LOOKS at them, and they look back, bewildered, and they get served with tuts and huffs and wonder why the British are so very horrible to foreigners.

There, that was almost relevant to the smiling or not discussion.

The habit of not smiling much possibly good one, as when Hati smiles it's wonderful. We Brits must look quite mad, running about grinning like stoners all day long. But we're British. We Must Butter Our Neighbour, by pleasing and thanking and girning like nits. Then we're allowed to ignore shouty people on public transport.

*sigh*

I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry.

Neighbours, yes... Estonians traditionally eat their neighbours for breakfast.

I thought that was the Russians?

Actually, when I'm in shops in Russia I have much the same problem as you, Ag as I can't stop myself using English intonation and adding please and thank you a lot (they don't say it either). With the result that everyone finds me terribly amusing for the first couple of times, but after six months me going the equivalent of me going:

'OH! could you POSSibly, if it's NOT TOO MUCH TROUble, give me one of your UTTERly FANtastic LOAVes of bread, that would be ABSOLUtely FAbulous, THANK YOU EVER SO EVER SO MUCH!'

it does get a bit old.

[lil] post office boots etc

I think the Venetians are used to automatically having 'please' and 'thankyou' added to requests-I didn't get any funny looks when ordering my morning coffee, although even the neighbourhood cafe owner swapped to English.

I found doing university forms for my MA application worst of all-where was I listed??

I'm English, a Fair Maid of Kent if I'm feeling under attack for being Southern, *glares at G*, but I'm 1/8 Ulster. The Chaplaincy cleaner is Polish, but he told me the other day he's also 1/4 Croatian.

I'm looking forward to travelling somewhere exotic. Mind you judging by the rather insular time of hte black country a job in Wolverhampton would be more exotic some people are objecting to our new hospital because it would be too far away. The proposed site of the new hospital is 5 miles from the exisiting one. Sorry but, not that far away.

I mean - so I can take part in the cultural differences discussions around here.

Perhaps the intensity of feeling about this latest Spiderman movie is a gender thing...every woman I know who's seen it thinks less highly of it then men seem to.