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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A661394

I know its short. I don't want this to turn into a 20000 word entry. However, it needs more than this. What should I add?

Hiya

I see you made it!

Yeah. Thanks for bearing with me while I figure out what places are appropriate for what. Thanks too for all of your help.

Strider

May I suggest an expansion along the lines of listing much loved Brit Icons such as Winston Churchill, Robin Hood, the Magna Carta, Shakespeare and the hyperinflated value non-Brits (Americans, Canadians, Aussies) often put on all things British.
Think of all those old Hollywood actors who had Brit accents, the notion that British was better somehow, the way PBS runs so many Brit programs because Americans 'can't do it as well', preconceptions about Jaguar and Rolls-Royce cars being 'better'. All that sort of thing.

And then a 'warning' against excess such as 'Beatlemania' a virilent form of 'Anglomania' which is also seen in the fans of Sherlocke Holmes, James Bond, Britney Spears...

Great start. Expand!

peace
~j~

Well, I'M an American and I think Helen Mirren sitting in a Morgan listening to Kate Bush is the very height of fantastic.

And I miss Benny Hill.

so there!

PBS runs so many Brit programs because Americans can't 'do it as cheaply!'

I think you should include the absurd and overwhelming willingness of Americans to spend thousands of dollars tracing their heritage back across the plains, through the eastern seaboard to Plymouth rock or Ellis Island and thence back across the pond to whatever little wretched crofter's cottage their ancestors were ousted from so the absentee landlord could field a few more sheep, and then get on a plane and visit the very pile of stones that remains, have their picture taken by it, buy a t-shirt from the nearest shop and detail the entire experience in breathless tones in the extended family newsletter they pump out each christmas.

My family, on my mother's mother's mother's side, have traced themselves back to the very first horse thief hung in Virginia.
Apparently after he had an opportunity to reproduce.

It can't be denied that their are some piles of stones in the UK which take a pretty mean photo!

When they don't get their pebble in front of the lens.

Spiff

Horse thieves are always very popular with the ladies.

~j~

now now, no need to brag about it.

Thank you all. Someday I'll actually get around to expanding my entry. Just because no changes immediately occur doesn't mean I don't appreciate your comments.

tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.......

I seem to remember having read somewhere that since the German Army didn't really exist until the 1860s (don't hold me to it), and many of the members of one British Royal family line or another were German, when the German General Staff got around to standardizing things, they used the British Army as a starting point since there were very few choices for centuries-old military organization role models.
Just a thought.

Hi TR

I don't think this can be right, though this is only an off-the-cuff reaction. The 'German' army that you refer to as being created in the mid 19th C was surely based primarily on the Prussian army, which had existed for rather longer. Frederick the Great and all that, and later Blucher? I'm a bit out of my depth here without refering to an authority.

Yes I believe the Georges, (1,2,and 3 etc) brought their Hanoverian (German) traditions and applied them to the British army, modified to some extent to accomodate the English Peerage and the traditional hierarchy of fidelity to the King. A real pyramid club.
The red coats of George 3, who fought the American revolutionaries, were the most regimented and disciplined army the world had seen since Rome. And like the Roman legions in the dark forests of Germany...
A few years later during the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the organisation of the military reached new heights of slaughter and foppery. Every body on the field could be easily identified by his colours, buckles and peacock feathers. Most of the important people rode white horses.
~jwf~

I will look into this a little further.
I'm trying to find that source.
The Prussians had had a small force with alomost no conscription.
The Hanover bunch were from a rather small duchy.
The innovations in the German army which led to the massive movements of wwi and wwii required the ability to cross a continent quickly.
It is said that the railway movements of the Barnum circus were studied quite closely by some in the General Staff when that circus went on a european tour.
See, there was no Germany, per se, before, I will look this up, 1849?
There was a bunch of little city/states and duchys and (what's that other thing?)

I know i'm probably beating a dead horse, but now I want to prove myself wrong.

Ignore previous postings. Am now taking short course in the vagaries of military fashionability.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'The Alternative Writing Workshop' to 'Peer Review Sin Bin'.

Thread moved because we're tidying up the review forums prior to fully automating the process, so any invalid threads or duplciates have been moved.

That's fine. I'm happy with this entry just as incomplete as it is, in exactly the state that it is.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review Sin Bin' to 'Anglophilia'.

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