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

Has an elephant ever refused a prawn cracker?

I forget.

Mr WU 1, if approached by an enamoured young lady, would you woo too?

Oh dear, I'm afraid SPINY's doing an impression of an elephant by stuffing chopsticks up his nose has frightened poor WU I back down the hole muttering summat about crazy Occidentals. Ha-ha, pay no notice. I've known the guy since 7th century Egypt (he was flogging souvenir towels with the teachings of Allah to passing camel herders and I was doing a turn as a dromidary). He's alright once you get to know him, but very ..uhm sensitive ..about animals. His karma is such he usually comes back human almost every time but there were a couple of incarnations as a sheep in Scotland that he can't seem to get off his mind. Says he's not against animal husbandry but he hates having to do the wifey bits. He was always good to me when I was an elephant.

I remember being a camel-herder, and, is this a trick, buying a tea towel, purporting to be the teachings of Allah, but in fact it turned out to be a recipe for elephant soup. And one of my dromedaries ran off into the desert chased by a very young porcupine. It couldn't have been.??? No, the coincidence is too great! Surely not.

A camel speaks....

"Did someone put the porcupine up to it?", that is the thorny question, whether tis spikier in the hind to suffer the quills and arrows of outrageous f****** or take alms, but only if the porcupines shave first.

I think I'd better go and lie down again.

Ouch! That makes the option of poisoned prawn crackers seem almost attractive!

Mr Beevil! I thought you'd deserted these parts.

Good to see you again.

Heard about the next Scottish meet yet?

Good to see you all too (tho I doubt if the feeling's mutual ) I've missed this, but I couldn't find a planet with a 27 hour day to move to.

Yeah, the meet-up is what brought me back ahead of schedule. I was worried about missing out on some non-alcoholic refreshment when I got the email from EV.

Now take those chopsticks out of your nose, they did away with conscription years ago.

There's no point searching - if they had a 27 hour day, work would just be 11 hours.

Look forward to seeing you in July then. And I'm not removing the chopsticks - it's my ruse to convince them that I'm mentally disturbed and not fit for active service. That and the pearls.

*sits bottles of Chateaneuf du Pape, Buckie, El D and Lannie in front of Spiny, and then puts some plaster of Paris on the pearls*

There you go, "casting pearls by four wines".

Active service where? Are you our version of a Jap soldier emerging from the jungles of Scotland? Read my lips Spiny....

THE BOERS HAVE SURRENDERED

*ducks and runs on his Turbozimmer*

LOL

Did it really take you 35 minutes to come up with that? Oh well, at least you can name four wines, more than I could. I wish this bloody rationing would end so we could get something better than Spam and dried egg for tea. Wine we can only dream of. Do you know some of the kids in our street have never seen a banana?

And now I must climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.

*puts ARP helmet on and goes upstairs, pausing only to check the blackout curtain in the bedroom*

No not quite 35 minutes, I seem to have a little backlog to catch up on so I spent the first 30 seconds reading that.

Don't mention bananas! You know they bring on one of my little turns. I bet you someone is going to write a silly song about "Yellow crescent-shaped fruit", just to drive me over the edge now. Yes, I'm sure of it. Gazing into my crystal ball I can see images of a CD (whatever that is)...yes it's a CD entitled "Songs That Won the War". Now if these songs are awful enough to destroy the morale of the Nazi war machine, surely we should destroy these weapons of mass despair before they're sung, for the sake of future generations? I'll start...*lynches George Formby from his lamp post and does something unmentionable with his ukelele*

ARP helmet? Blackout curtains? There are some things that are just unforgiveable Spiny. Look me in the eye and tell me it wasn't you who discovered those two missing episodes of Dad's Army. Ha! the Beeb are screwed next season, they'll have to put on the Saturday night 5-8pm crap a bit later to inflict it on us footie folks in the pub.

Err Spiny, is it just me or does the ARP helmet closely resemble a reproduction Victorian chamberpot? Hmm, and those blackout curtains bear more than a passing resemblance to satin sheets.

Egads, have some mercy man. My first night back and now I've got visions of a figure wearing pearls and a chamberpot, with a chopstick up each nostril, stroking black satin sheets.

I think I need a pint or fifty of Pheroneous's fantastic "I'll still water it down" 1% alcohol Wartime brew to help me drown out these visions.

You in that bar there! Put that bleedin' light out! Old 'Itler can see it all the way from Berlin!

So it was the Air raid warden who stopped the conversation!!!

aka

Its the silly helmets. No-one quite knows what to make of them. I think you will find, aka, that our participants have all decamped to the front lawn to investigate Lil's rather battered possessions, unless they are in the snug, grumbling. Threads don't die at the BOFInn. They just prefer limbo to activity!

Chamberpots?

Peculiar planters for perennial plants?

Boats for bunnies?

wot??!

Oh, i will find, but only if i seek.
HA!

aka

Inverted hanging baskets? Nice rust effect. Poor Drainage!