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

Entry: The Lightning Seeds - A691995
Author: Mark Moxon - U13

Perfect pop music, with added football! Just what the Guide needs...

Great... super ... smashing .... marvellous......

I thought I saw a typo (a "quite" / "quiet" confusion), but I can't find it now....

Otto.

A very long entry!

Style, grammar and spelling almost perfect! Maybe you should consider a career in editing.

"essential purpose" -- this should be "essential purchase"
"slated for release in September" -- can you use a word other than "slated"? Its alternative meaning might cause confusion.

Zak Starky -- should that be Starkey?

Thanks Otto - found it and fixed it.

Also thanks Gnomon - all those changes made, and as for the length, it's got a nice split in the middle, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Size is everything...

Hi Mark. I personally don't think it needs splitting. It makes sense all together. Good entry, good style, bloody awful band.
But does this really come across as neutral? I know you're new around here, so perhaps you should go and look at the guide-lines for an edited entry.

I think enthusiasm is probably more important than neutrality in keeping the spirit of the Guide alive!

Bloody awful band? Shame on you - they're critically revered, commercially succesful, and haven't sold out to get that far. That's got to be worth something. And they're not Hear'Say, either...

Interesting point, though - you're unlikely to get Guide Entries on bands that authors hate, in the same way you're unlikely to get books of band biographies written by those who can't stand the music. I don't have a problem with that, unless an entry blatantly disregards basic facts (eg an entry on how wonderful India is without mentioning its poverty would be untenable, but that's a different kind of thing).

Bloody awful band, I don't know, bleedin' punters, what do they know, mutter, mutter, mutter...

Mark! This is your second huge entry this month! When you fall over unconscious one day, I'll be right there saying I told you so!

I don't think this one necessarily *needs* to be split up. However, some readers get discouraged by entries this long, and I'd hate to be the sub for it...

Well, it's easy to split if people think it needs splitting. I find this sort of length is about right for the level of detail I include, but they're always easy to split into two logical sections (band and albums).

Up to the editors, really.

I don't think you should split this up. What I think is that you shouldn't have provided quite so much detail in the first place! I think the chances of somebody reading this would be greater if the article was a little bit more general, and not "Everything you never wanted to know about the Lightning Seeds".

But given that the detail is there, it is better to have it all in the one place.

I'm suppost to be an editor. How l achieved such status l'm not quite sure. But l plan to do the best to the post I can do. I though the subject was well researched. Lots of background. so it look good to me. In hopes my approval does'nt kill the entry.

I totally disagree with you, Gnomon! But that's my prerogative...

Great work, Mark! I like The Lightning Seeds. I enjoyed your Del Amitri and Grant Lee Buffalo pieces too. I share your obvious fondness for rock music featuring songs, words, tunes and old-fashioned things like that - but then I am less than a month away from the magic age of 42...

Just two nitpicks, conveniently both occuring fairly near the start of the Entry: I don't think there's any such word as 'celebrationary', and my dictionary agrees. There is such a word as 'celebratory', though! And it's Siouxsie and the Banshees, not Siouxie. I'm a superannuated punk, so I know about these things.

Thanks Ormy - good corrections, those, and I've put 'em in. I must get a dictionary for home...

Glad you liked the others too. The groan that went round the office when I announced I'd be writing an entry on Del Amitri will haunt me forever... some people are such heathens.

I'm just polishing off another one on Aussie band Powderfinger, which I'll put into PR tomorrow, hopefully. One of the great things about writing music entries like this is you have to listen to the back catalogue again; brings back wonderful memories. Next week, I think I'll tackle The Chameleons; now they were a *great* band.

Meanwhile I've just got hold of Grant Lee Phillips' solo album. Sounds good so far - thanks goodness for the internet, it makes tracking down import-only albums so much easier. Still too darned expensive, though...

Mark, you're going to have to stop calling yourself a travel writer if you keep doing such brilliant pieces on bands I've never heard of.

Ah well, my private email sig is 'Mark Moxon, Traveller and Writer', which incorporates travel writing but doesn't preclude waffling for England about all sorts of other things.

Besides, music is an integral part of travelling. The number of sunrises I've seen with Pink Floyd going through my head is staggering...

Congratulations Mark!

Your entry has been picked for inclusion in the Edited Guide! Pretty soon your work will be on the front page, and your life will never be the same! You can find more information about what will happen to your entry now at... Oh forget it.

Congrats.

Cheers, Strider!