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

Pheroneous, I wrote this as an antidote to the Medical team's somewhat inpenetrable opus. Mine is more "user-friendly".

The yarn talks about trends in asthma treatment and looks at its rise as a scourge in the many industrialised western countries. These things are not covered in the other guide entries about asthma and, as such, IMHO, this yarn deserves to be a stand-alone entry, albeit with links to the others.

Thanks for your comments.

Loony, I think I said something about this back when the medical team's textbook appeared on the front page. I like your article because it is far more approachable and friendly. There's room for both articles in the Guide, linked to each other of course. Speaking as a mild asthmatic myself, I bought and read avidly several books on the subject when I was first diagnosed and would have appreciated the lighter tone in your article back then, particularly the titles of those artworks, 'head with knotted neck' sounds exactly like I feel right now.
*wanders off to locate inhaler*

Loonytunes --

Well, I still have the most of the same problems with the entry that I did back when I commented on it in March (comments attached to the entry). I think it tries to do too many things, and some of the scientific information presented is unbalanced to the point of being misleading.

However, that's not to say that I think it's an inherently bad entry or that it would never belong in the Edited Guide -- it's just not something I would recommend as it stands.

If you're interested in either a) combining this entry with the original asthma Edited Guide entry or b) working on a university project regarding asthma, I would be glad to work on it with you if you'd like.


Mikey

Sam - or was it Ashley - a month or so ago, recommended mine should be combined with Petas opus. In light of this outcome, I guess this thread should be moved to the article.

You may like to do the combining?

If you want to combine articles, there's Jimi's Update Headquarters at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A496451

It sometimes takes a while to make the update, but it also takes a while from picked to front page.

If your update will be used in the entry, you'll be in the researcher list of the entry (and it'll be in your page as one of your edited guide entries).


Dancer

One aspect of asthma that is worth mentioning is that although it is a chronic condition, it can become much less severe over time, especially in the case of children born with asthma. I suffered badly from it as a child, but haven't had a serious attack in over 20 years. I still carry an inhaler, but rarely need to use it.

I also used have a terrible time every summer due to hay fever, i.e. an allergy to pollen. The rule about rural life being beneficial to asthma sufferers obviously wouldn't apply to anyone with that allergy. As a child, I used to start coughing and suffering from streaming eyes whenever I ventured into a rural area or a flower garden, but now I can stop and smell the s like anyone else. Perhaps one's system can somehow learn to cope with something that was once a problematic allergic trigger over time. Or maybe I'm living proof of Proust's doctor's theory about alcohol being good for asthma.

One bit of bad news: I followed the link to the Asthma Information Centre, and saw a message saying that the site has closed down. Pity - those artworks certainly sounded interesting. But obviously, you'll need to remove the link and the text that refers to the site.

Thanks Ormondroyd.

Dancer, allegedly Mickey at some stage is going to combine my intentionally internationally-sourced yarn with Peta's Pom-centric effort.

Yup, Mikey (no "c") is going to do so. It's on her ongoing mental list of "things to get done at h2g2". It ranks around 4th at the moment, so should probably actually happen within the next 2 months.


Mikey

Does that mean if we don't take the c out of mickey it can seem as if we are taking the micky out of Mikey

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'Update Headquarters'.

Hi folks,

This thread has been moved to the Update HQ for recombination with another, older entry.