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

Morning all.

Wow, you get eight hours of sleep and suddenly, things look a whole lot brighter!

Sol, recovery's the worst part. You look like death warmed over, and don't feel much better than that. But it was for the best, dear.

and for Sol!

I have just found a real, proper use for olives You can use them to play the part of eyes in a nasty children feel-horrible-things game for Halloween...



*off again to sit in sofa in front of the fireplace with Mrs SG V; sipping Irish Coffee and generally enjoying life :*


...

*note to self: light a fire in the fireplace first*

Sol.

I like olives.

Santra said: "I have just found a real, proper use for olives You can use them to play the part of eyes in a nasty children feel-horrible-things game for Halloween... "

Peeled grapes are also quite good...

SC

This reminds me of a documentary on self defence that I saw once - one of the tricks described was to squeeze out one of the attacker's eyes. It was suggested that you practise by pushing your thumb into a hard boiled (and peeled) egg...

Quite a conversation turn I started there...?!

Two Irish Coffees later, Nina Simone on the CD ...

I am getting too old to play with the kids all night...

I got *trashed* last night at the bar. I sort of feel like I have been chewed up and spit out today.

4 posts between my last post and this one. Talk about a slow day. G'night all.

Solnushka


I have been busy recently, very busy yesterday. My daughter turns 15 today and she has some frinds over here last night. Baking can be dangerous, I tell you. I burned 3 fingers in one go.

Ouch, Hati

*gives Hati cold stuff out of fridge to put on burnt fingers

How are you today, Sol? Things beginning to heal?

Has anyone heard from B4 - I'm very worried about him and his family.

Another quiet day chez Teuchter - just the usual boring domestic agenda - and a visit to the gym later, if my pecs and glutes will allow; they're still recovering from what I did to them at Friday's class.

It was another chilly night, turned the heating on for a while too.

I have been wondering about B4 too.

Sol, I hope you managed a good night's rest and are feeling less groggy today, although I reckon it takes a few days for the anaesthetic to work it's way out of your system. Don't be surprised if you still feel knocked sideways today.

It has been awhile since I saw B4 around here.

Had to turn on the heat this morning, it be a wee bit chilly.

*sits with Sol with the tub of icecream in the middle*

Okay I've got a good thing here that I think a lot of people might be able to help me with and/or appreciate.

My english homework is to define irony and to think of as many examples of it as I can.

Now, I've defined it as:

"Hidden understanding at opposition to the literal content, saying something of the complex understanding of the writer, rather than the obvious conflict of Pro-lifers killing people"

And I've got

Catch 22: the search for self-preservation implying sanity, next to the obvious insanity of being in the airforce and continuing to fly missions. And then I was thinking about Yossarian's argument that people are out to kill him, but I'm not sure if that's irony?

1984: Doublethink,
"the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth." (page 35, 176-177)

Romeo&Juliet: Romeo kills Juliet because she is already "dead". Juliet kills Romeo because she was "dead". He couldn't live without her but she wasn't dead. Juliet couldn't live without him but her "death" caused his. I think

HHGTTG: A giant supercomputer that has organic life as part of its operational matrix designed to find the ultimate question is invented by creatures that are experimented on by aspects of the experiment -- the mice are the experimentors, not the experimented.

Marvin was designed to have a cheerful and sunny disposition but he's the prototype and so has the least cheerful and sunny disposition imaginable.

That's what C and I came up with. My big problem is that whilst I can see all of these are ironic, I can't say what it is ABOUT them that actually IS ironic.

Kat

Irony is what the British use to stop them interacting honestly with their emotions. It's a form of sneering at people who do say what they think or feel and have actual enthusiasms. Not a fan of irony. When my culture shock is running a fever, it's the thing I like least about this benighted country.

*Widens eyes* Oh dear, I can tell I'm going to be fun to play with for a while... I'd be fine if only the swelling would go down. Goddam it. It's astonishing how long the anesthetic takes to wear off. It's been days, but I'm still falling alseep all the time and loosing concentration, although that may be because I've just read three of the Sandman graphic novels back to back and am suffering from sensory overload

*Is terribly grateful for hugs and confectionary and ice cream and tea and everything *

I know that there is this wonderful joke about irony in the "Tell us a joke" thread, but I can't search it up. I'll try to remember at w**k - I've got it archived

(Not to pull things down to joke level - apart from I do believe it tells something about what irony is)

Kat,

I think that the best example of irony in Catch-22 was actually how Yossarian always ends up flying his missions when extended. He is the model pilot till he gets close to meeting the requirements for rotation away from the front. I believe the irony is that the situation is partially of his own making. His failure to ever complete his tour. I may be way off here. Heller might have been thinking something completely different when he wrote the book.


On another note, I just picked up Thud!, a new City Watch book by PTerry. So far it is shaping up to be a good read.

d'Oh, I just recalled that Yoss was a bombadier, not a pilot. My bad, it's been a while since I read the book.

Hi everybody, it's a working day, since meeting. Got a conference call coming up and some photography commissioned afterwards, and I've just been doing flyers and web pages.

I just got back from the Flat Cap and Muffler Club's trip to Dublin. I may get around to writing a journal entry, but no doubt others will do so sooner.

Kat - I think you need to check your definition. Several of your examples are ironic situations, what the Collins dictionary calls 'incongruity between what is expected to be and what actually is'.

I'm not convinced about Doublethink being ironic. For all its twisty logic it does do exactly what it says on the tin. A better example from 1984 would be the ministries - The Ministry of Peace conducting war and so on.