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

I like the way you expressed that, Lil (will a little more praise get me my backlog exemption pass, do you think? )

Have to - chores to do before going out for dinner in 30 mins...

Oh, sorry about that, Santra. I was sketching on it. *hands Santra a signed voucher with informal pencil portraits of other salonistas on the back*

Lil, might I have one as well?

Well, my gallbladder is history. My resident told me I had the biggest gallstone he'd ever seen...about the size of the tip of his thumb! I'm still really sore, and the Vicodan makes me a little spacy, but I'm good.

Anyway, I'm off to lay down again...sleep is a good thing!

And i dont need a backlog pass but like to stir, is cooking an art ,the chef that creates a cullinary masterpiece does he desrve to be called a artist or just an acomplished tradesman, most top chefs are sometimes just as obssesed withe the presentation of the food as in the use of fresh ingredients or from a particuler province,(snobishness or perfectionism) bringing me to my other side note.

suprised no ones brought up Oscar wildes Quips preface to dorian grey,
"When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless."
the rest can be found here http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/dorian/dorianpreface.html

I can attest to MR's spaciness. I spoke with her on the phone for ten minutes last night and in that span of time she told me three times she had chicken, broccoli and cottage cheese for dinner.

That is all well and good, but what did she have to eat?

[MTG banging head against the DMVPN configuration in from of me]

Delighted to see MR back and in one piece, albeit without the piece that was giving her gyp.

Last time I had major surgery, I had been in such pain before I went in, that the pain of the incision and bruising was as nothing and I lay there cheerfully refusing painkillers and insisting I felt fine and shrieking just a little bit when I tried to sit up and worrying the nurses quite a lot. Mostly, I think, because I wasn't spaced out but was excessively bored and talkative.

I've been buying birthday presents - walked over the hill and back (half hour each way) and then up and down and up and down the high street and while I feel pleased with myself from the knees up, my podial extremities are a little cross now.

MR, I'm glad you had the surgery. You'll feel so much better.

[GDZ]

Wishing you speedy healing, MR.

I'm actually feeling quite okay, other than just general soreness and a bit of the spacey feeling from the pain medication. I never realized how much you use your stomach muscles for things like sneezing and coughing...I sneezed a bit ago and it just hurt like hell.

Glad things are going well MR

I'm going to post twice, because one long post will just mean that my witty remarks will get missed, and they are so witty and incisive I would hate that to happen.

First gossip, and then Art.

Firstly Kerr, you were dead right about the trains. They were all on time, and I did pause to think that when they do arrive they are much better than cars.

And my Dad's car always ended up being delayed because it broke down.

I dragged myself to the station this morning feeling rather worse for wear and managed to grunt 'return, Bristol'. The lady at the station (who knows me) said 'haven't you got your rail card with you?'

After I spent five minutes fishing around in my wallet, she said that as she remembered selling me the railcard she would believe that I had one, now would I mind letting her serve the five people standing behind me.

We didn't make it to the STI clinic in the end. The girl who I went with assumed that it would be the same system as Birmingham, drop in testing, when in fact you needed to make an appointment.

So instead we spent a happy day in Bath. I took my friend into Oxfam (a chairity shop) for the first time, she was amazed because the found a skirt she really liked for four pounds. She spent the afternoon muttering 'wow a skirt for four pounds'. This is the sort of girl who is always very smartly dressed and glamerous, her father was the director of a very large well known company in the UK*. When I popped into a bookshop later in the afternoon she said 'Well I'm just going into the PDSA across the road, shall I meet you there?'

We even went around the Roman Baths, and they were amazing. Now I know that this is the obvious bit but: The water is bright green! And it Bubbles and steams. How cool is that!

*Admitedly her parents got divorced and she's always skint now, but that's mainly because she spends all her money on shoes.

Oh the joy of still being a student. Off to Bath to spend an entire day being whimsical.
I LIKE Bath. I love the Abbey.

Watching the general 'Waiting For Pope to Die' coverage in morbid fascination. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, even when an utterly lapsed half-Jewish atheistic one. I mean, heck, I lit candles for my Grandmother when she died. To whom or why I thought I was lighting them, I don't know. It's sort of ingrained.

It is the Easter holidays! and we only get a week of, it's not although I can do this on a regular basis. And I didn't get to go to the Abbey *sulks*.

Right. Post Two, this one is about Art (with a capital A).

I agree with Lil, whereas I do think that knowing about Art gives you a greater appreciation for it. I do get frustrated with people who think that because they don't know about art they can't appeciate it at all.

Especially when you are in a gallery and you see people looking at the labels before the paintings! These tend to be the people who will ignore everything in an art gallery apart from the famous stuff. And the famous paintings are always ruined by people. How am I supposed to know if I like the Mona Lisa when everytime I look at it I'm in the middle of a horde of people.

And what is it with only looking at the famous stuff, some of the other things are really excellent. When I went to the Lourve with my brothers we almost forgot to see the Mona Lisa, because we got so distracted with Other Things.

And don't even get me started on Italian Art Galleries, they let tour guides talk to there group *In The Art Gallery*!

For crying out loud!!!! You try to look at a painting and there's a German Man shouting loudly. Do I go to a classical music concernt and start projecting a commentry onto the stage for my friends?



I grew up steeped in Art and smelling of turpentine, (which I think still smells nice and reminds me of home).

I thought I'd just share with you my repsonses to a particular painting in the National Gallery through my various visits.

The Painting concerned is John Constables 'The Haywain' (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/largeImage?workNumber=NG1207&collectionPublisherSection=work)

Aged 3 'Why is that cart in the water?'

Aged 7 (when I had started to think how lovely the country side was, I had read 'LarkRise to Candleford' and 'The Children of Cherrytree farm, and I wanted nothing more than to go back to the 1950s and live in the countryside'):

'What a lovely imagine, it reminds me of those lovely times in the past, I wish things were still like that, do they sell post cards of it'

Aged 12 (when I had started to paint for myself)

'Isn't that sky wonderful, and look he's used blobs of white paint to indicate light, that's very skilled, sort of like Turner did in that painting of the train in the other room, only better because you can still see what the picture's of'

(The Turner in the other room is http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=ng538 'Rain, Steam, and Speed' (Turner put the comma's in those places.) Ooh I've forgotten to close a bracket)


Aged 17/18, (When I had started to read about art history and Knew Things about art, and had become a Socialist).

Christ I hate Constable. He's only marginally better than Thomas Kincade, and that's saying something. It's the typical twee Victoriana isn't it? Making out that everything was wonderful in the countryside when in reality they were on the verge of starving to death and being kicked out by the landlord. (I had also read some Thomas Hardy as well).

Aged 23 (when I had just been to the pub). Actually why is that cart in the water?

I think you make a good point, Z. I also think that there's a certain amount of viceral response to art that's actually quite called for. Whether you know something about art or not, sometimes there are responses that come from the gut, rather than from some intellectual place.

Z excellent. Laughed out loud.

And just to spoil all the mystery, the cart is in the water because the metal axles would get too hot with all the friction, and start to expand slightly, which would make the wheels stick and run a risk of the wood being shattered by the opposed forces of friction at the hub and momentum at the rim. So they'd stop and leave the cart in a stream for half an hour or so to cool off.

Sorry. I know endless bits off stuff. World's most useful pub-quiz team-member, world's most annoying conversationalist.

Ooh really!



That actually puts the painting in a whole new light, as it now portrays something that actually happened, rather that something looking twee.

I still detest the painting.

What it doesn't answer is why Constable spends so much time painting 'carts in the water'

I do keep meaning to do paintings of the modern country side in that twee style, but including for sale signs, cars, satilitte dishes etc..

Ag, you and I need to be on the same pub quiz team. I have the (fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your point of view) ability to remember all sorts of useless bits of trivia.