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

I wasn't really grown up until I reached about 33. People shouldn't be forced to have birthdays - particularly those considered to be significant. However, everyone deserves a special day each year. This is Kat's day and she's most cetainly entitled to and and .

Happy non-birthday Kat! Socks with all four of your Hootoo badges carefully knitted in miniature on the heels, I think, to go with a special pair of 'clever clogs' (TM).

I'm going to be thirty next month. Most of me is firmly convinced I am just about coming up for 24, and the rest still thinks it's six, which adds up to thirty, so I suppose I'm on track really...

Grand Designs - we taped it on Wednsday and went to the cinema instead, so S watched it last night. Cinema - we went to see 'Valiant'. It was a little disappointing. When you've got John Cleese, Ricky Gervaise, Rik Mayall, Jim Broadbent, Tim Curry, Hugh Laurie adn Ewan McGregor in the cast, you expect very much indeed I am afraid, but the script was... well, the story was excellent and the idea was cute as biscuits but whoever wrote the dialogue should be tarred feathered and forced to read every single work by every single dramatist ever four times each. There was a noticeable 'join' or 'clunk' when Ricky Gervaise or John Cleese started improvising or had to stop improvising and go back to leaden script talk. Ewan McGregor's character (ostensibly the lead) had as much personality as a breeze-block. He's far better to look at then to hear if the script isn't up to much.

Pfft. Bad films are one thing, but good ideas and great casts wasted is utterly irritating.

Must stop complaining and go make coffee.

*what Amy said*

Happy non-Birthday, Kat!

(I am cr@p at birthdays - I really amn't that interested in mine these days, apart from the ones with zeros, and that means I keep on forgetting other peoples'.

When I was eight, I remember listening to the Today Programme on Radio 4, when they announced the date and thinking "They don't know it's my birthday" - I think that put it into perspective, and that is a lot of perspective for an 8 year old to deal with.)

Ben

Just heard from one of my cousins re the wedding. Did I tell you all we had a slight accident with numbers? We have over-invited by an entire table's worth of people (it is complicated) so are really struggling with fitting everyone in. And now it turns out that my cousin has just had another baby, as has her sister. Her other sister already has 5 kids. Out of the entire wedding there will be 14 kids, 10 of them from these three cousins! Arrrgh!

*hyperventilates*

k

We had no kids at our wedding... it was bliss...

My brother is having two kids as bridesmaid and I as the only adult bridesmaid have to look after them for the day. They are only 4.

Went to my lecture this morning to discover I had an exam. Argh! Luckily it was multiple choice and I got 48%!

Have to go to more lectures now and I have a cig on the way.

happy birthday Kat.

On the subject of burfdaze: I don't really make a big deal out of it anymore... I may have a couple of friends round and pressies are always nice, but it seems kinda pointless to let everyone in the world know. I didn't even tell anyone at w**k this year.

Mrs. D can be so cute when she's tired. When I was getting ready for bed last night after showering she announced that her ankle felt like it had toothache.

I don't mind (in fact quite like) kids at weddings, I just wish my cousins weren't producing so many of them, particularly after we set our guest list! *boggles* They are only small but they take up the space of an adult on the table plan

We are now looking at having to hire some sort of entertainer and/or childminder in order that we can move all the kids out into a separate room, freeing up space in the main room (and stopping them getting bored and being a pain). It will all work out in the end, but I might ask the venue to put some bromide in the meals of that particular group...

Just as long as none of them produce *during* the meal...

We had, errm, let me count, three babies, one toddler and two under-thirteens at our wedding. Luckily they all behaved beautifully, or, more to the point, their parents behaved beautifully and luckily there was enough room for prams and pushchairs at one end of the room. We didn't have a seating plan but all the parents congregated down that end and because we were so lucky with the weather they could take anyone fractious out into the garden for a while. Would you be able to have a 'baby table' near the door, so parents can take the small fry off easily if they need lulling to sleep or a run around?

I'm also surprised a babe in arms takes up the space of an adult. Our babes-in-arms did just that - be in Mum and Dad's arms, or laps, or aunts', uncles' and grandparents' laps. Write the fertile brigade a note saying there's no real room for high-chairs and buggies in the dining room, so can they do what every parent ever did for ten thousand years and HOLD the babies? Even the toddler sat on laps for lunch and was fine and didn't even get food all over her parents.

<>

J & L (bestest friends of the Dreadfuls) weren't going to have a seating plan at their wedding, instead they were going to name each table after a place in Lord of the Rings and just let people sit where they'd be most comfortable.

L's mum - on the morning of the wedding - drew up a seating plan, didn't bother with the table names and put us, along with J & L's other good friends right in the corner away from the top table... J was livid.

[Teuchter}

*dons knitted socks and looks smug*

I do feel rather more excited about my birthday now, with all you people being nice about it. It's easier to be grouchy or pretend it's nothing when nobody knows.

Wedding seating plan...I remember one wedding I had to sit opposite this complete lecherous oddball when I was 12 and he kept...legging me is the only way I can describe it...stroking his leg against mine.
The bigger the wedding the more difficult it is to make everyone happy with seating arrangements. So IF I ever get married (so when I get myself sorted, and find a new girlfriend, and stay with her long enough to want to get married, and have changed laws on marriage) I think perhaps just really close friends for the actual marriage and then a big informal party for everyone...of course it's easy for me to say that NOW!

Passing through: waves

Watches PWM swim past.

Hippy Bathday Kat!

*waves at PWM*

*carries a tiny little across to Kat* It's an ant harp; we don't often give them away. You play it with your antennae. Well, you'll have to improvise.

[MTG]

*reads Swedish newspaper*

How come some people have an irresistable urge to burn books? And these happened to be ancient and irreplaceable…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4443565.stm

Swedish archeologists who were documenting a part of Pompeii have found another city below it! The city we've known about was buried when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, but this one was apparently buried in an eruption that took place around 3500 and 3000 BC!



One of the Swedish icecream companies has been accused of racist advertising – they've had this… this… ice lolly(?) called Nogger for years and years. Nogger because it has a core of nougat surrounded by vanilla icecream covered with a thin layer of nougat…

Anyway – they've now decided to make a variety of it with a core of salty liquorice and ditto layer – and they decided to call it Nogger Black. The Centre against Racisme decided to report them to the Discrimination Ombudsman – according to them the name Nogger together with the word black associates to (with?) the word N****r or Negro.

What a load of bull, quite frankly! The company said that no one else has critized the ads, not even among any of their own employees (there are several different nationalities among them). The Centre against Racisme spokesperson then replied 'but how many nationalities was there among those that decided about this advertising campaign?' Oh for heaven's sake… haven't the Centre got anything more important to focus on?



Happy birthday Kat!

Tillykke med fødselsdagen, Kat [=happy birthday, Kat]

>Most of me is firmly convinced I am just about coming up for 24, and the rest still thinks it's six, which adds up to thirty, so I suppose I'm on track really...

It's kinda also why I still claim to be 28 and some months - mostly I just feel that way. Which is also why I'm looking very much forward to go and spent a weekend outdoors with the scouts in about 4 hours time I don't know about the others - but I do intend to sleep outdoors and have packed accordingly

>Just as long as none of them produce *during* the meal...

I don't see anything between Jersey Gummo's toes, and he is still limping this morning. I'll call the vet and see what he suggests. It's definitely something about the pad of his paws though, so either he stepped on something or Zeppo stepped on his foot.

Happy non-birthday Kat.