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

Oh yes... liquid diet north o' the border... with maybe the odd haggis that I've trapped and killed myself.

*thinks*

Actually I'm rather partial to a bit of 80/'...

Well it takes all sorts and far be it from me to critcise an appalling pallet

Well, I'm off now... see you all in two weeks!

Had to study the haggis hunting - wonder if Mr D favours this method:

http://www.electricscotland.com/haggis/haggis1.html

or the one that involves scaring the haggi so that they try to turn around and as a result roll down the hill and so can be caught in a sack?

Why is it that we can have teenagers like Affy, sea, MikeA, ChrisTonks etc who fit perfectly into the Atelier, and then we get this other type. LOL Okki jus wondrn.

h2g2 is a world of extremes, I guess. I've met and chatted some 13-year-olds here that were as clever, witty and with sound opinions as I have 50+ year olds. And also folks of both age extremes that weren't worth a "howdy-do". Fortunately, there is that great mass of variety in-between to keep it all interesting and entertaining.

Greetings, btw, from a rather wet Edmonton, Alberta area.

Wow, thought we had a couple more Oetzis on our hands.

Greetings from a dry part of a very wet looking UK. I think we managed to bore the children away.

Actually, I am quite enjoying a novelty by being in Alberta this week and the next. Spring arrived with all the returning birds, opening of tree leaves, the fragrance of lilac which I always assoicate Spring with, ... in my home zone of Ontario about a month and a half ago. Three weeks ago, I spent 10 or so days in Nova Scotia, where the same thing was just happening. And now, it is arriving in Alberta. THREE fresh spring-time emergences in one year is quite a delight.

I spent some time working in Nova Scotia a few years back. Strange place but lovely people.

Strange? May I ask in what way? I have lived and worked in a number of provinces, and found each novel and unique in their own ways. Mind, I expect our travels about a bit of the UK and Ireland to seem 'strange' as well ...

Well I was working in Trenton, I think, and staying in New Glasgow at the Highland motel. The nearest shoping mall was the Aberdeen Mall so the Scottish connections were very strong.

The liquor laws were just weird. Bottles had to be purchased from the NS Liquor Commission building which was a concrete bunker on an industrial estate. At the end of the evening if you wanted to take your drink to your room the barmaid had to carry it up for you, by law.

I commented on one of the waitress's accents asking her which part of Louisiana she came from. Apparently the local accent stems from a tribe of American Indians that migrated from Southern USA to NS.

Overall there was a very conservative almost oppressive Calvinistic aire about the place. As I said the people were very friendly but I think if I lived there I it would drive me nuts.

Well, that was a strange few LEDs...

I want to sleep for at least a week. So very, very tired for little reason.

Oh, and in terms of Library of Doom springwatch, the third brood of moorchicks turns out to consist of five little balls of fluff. We only saw two for a couple of days, but they have now turned into five. I just hope the summer school legions don't scare/squash them.

Nick, seeing three springs is indeed special. Canada is on my places to visit list. I have visited our neighbors to the south many times, but never have gone in the other direction for some reason. It is so huge I don't know where to start. Not the Calgary Stampede. Rodeos and I are not friends.

Do you suppose out visitors are even teens? They don't seem quite that mature to me. We have some great teens on h2g2. Fortunately I don't run into the other variety very often.

It is not raining in WC this morning. Rain is in the forecast again, but I am hoping it passes us by this time.

Ah, I see ... So not as much strange as that many things were distinctly different from what you are familiar with.

ALL across Canada, liquor, liqueur and beer products are sold under specific license. That way, the various levels of government are assured of getting their slice of the fiscal pie. I can't answer for the hotel's rules about alchohol delivery to a room. Again, it may be a local by-law, to perhaps ensure you weren't conveying a load of stuff to some group of under-age kids. Anything is possible there. And as for accents, this country is loaded with them. Each county has a distinct flavour, and basically they are all derivatives of folks that have settled where-ever they are, from where-ever in the world they came. My village was settled by Prussians in the mid 1850s, so the common accents yet found are Germanic. That interesting fluidic lingo of the Cajuns of the southern US actually began in a couple of our provinces, when the English gave the people three choices: pledge allegiance to us, die, or get out.

As for where to begin to see our country? I have no suggestions either. Perhaps when I can afford to retire, I may set aside a couple of months and rent a camper of some sort. And just take my time driving from Newfoundland (where my daughter and grand-kids are) to Vancouver Island, where I have a brother and a sister now living. Seeing what I can, where I can, at my own pace.

~W~

If she is truthful, Louise is 13:

F132065?thread=4289423&skip=0&show=20

Good thing the two of them have a short attention span! If they come back, let's all claim to be over 60 years old.

Oh, and good news on the passport, d'E. Go FedEx!

I had looked forward to visiting Canada for some time and I must admit I was a tad dissapointed. I know it's not fair to judge such a massive country on a few visits to one region, namely a bit of the Maritimes, but it's all I have to go on.

My notions were of a roughy toughy, RCMP, lumberjack type of nation. I perceived a sensitive, politically correct and very factional country. Nobody seemed to identify themselves as Canadian but as Quebecois, Hindu, Scottish really but that was three generations back.

I was there when the first Gulf War was kicking off and the Canada was beating itself up over it; the rights and wrongs and the risk to our boys. I don't think the Canadian contigent was particularly large but the protest was.

My abiding memory was of not heeding the morning radio warnings to stay off the roads because freezing rain was forecast. Wow, sometimes it doesn't pay to be a smart ar$e.

>>Somebody tell Sporky to call off the invasion.

What do you mean, call it off? I've just got back from Portsmouth

Those are two LEDs of my life that I'll never get back...