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

At the moment I'm considering whether or not to continue to put pictures on as I suspect it may upset my father-in-law, but I'm still not entirely sure why. I don't see any harm in continuing my photo diary, and others have expressed interest in seeing the bathroom develop. Particularly the people whose houses I've visited to have showers during the week.
I know that he said that he has found some of the comments upsetting, but that is what the comments section is for. The BBC doesn't stop publishing news stories because people say silly things in the comments, no! You can guarantee a lot of the comments that will be made, for example whenever there is a news story along the lines of:

'£10 million will be invested in building random roundabouts on roads and £4.99 in constructing a cycle path that will benefit not only cyclists but also wheelchair users, parents with pushchairs, allow children a safe route to get from A-B away from roads and will benefit the elderly and others with mobility difficulties through being a perfectly flat surface devoid of trip hazards'
You can guarantee there'll be comments along the lines of, 'How dare £4.99 be wasted on cycle paths when there's a pot hole outside my house!'
Without random comments, how would Dave Gorman being able to find his Found Poems?!

Lulu always complains to me about the picture quality, but my old scanner does the best it can and as you can read what I've written and work out what I've drawn I don't think more is needed. In my case I can't see the benefit of having a better-quality image of what is, at the end of the day, drawings of outlines of figures with one eye, one arm, one hand and one leg. I don't feel that any details have been missed but instead that it has fairly honestly captured the level at which I can draw. (Well, except for Savage's teeth, but that's not important).

Still, hope you have great weekend - I've not got any plans so just a relaxing one.

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Ah, that potentially makes sense that your father in law was more upset by the comments than the pictures, and the poem was a comment (about a true story) with comments, but yes comment sections are more for 'found poems' than for worrying about especially when they are like ones in your apt example.

I saw the latest photos - shocking indeed especially considering they had the audacity to promise the whole bathroom would be finished by today (if not last week)... I guess it's too much to hope for that they have communicated their plans to you...

Yes, I'm not sure what exactly Lulu is looking for in images - yours look good to me Even some of my bird pictures weren't ideal for Lulu, but I'm hoping the book will be suitable now I've got the hang of resizing - not too big and not too small

'Rival Rockers' certainly helped to hone your rhyming skills Very funny about Took This, and how the top ten chart was mostly The Beatles Some poignant scenes, too, like the one where the other people didn't turn up twice, but Punk & Pete were called unreliable for being late once... I've started reading 'Space Trek' and laughed a lot at 'a not-too-bad fate' and 'Captain's Dog Stardate 0181 811 8181'

I have another bloom of jellyfish for preemies that I plan to deliver this weekend - I fear nobody else will turn up again, but the co-ordinator asked me to bring a bottle (a Klein bottle) A1134091 so we should have a good time I hope you all have as good a weekend as possible

You'll be surprised to hear that they have said it will be finished 'by next Friday'. I appear to be experiencing deja vu as that's what they have said every single week since this started. Oh well - at least the war will be over by Christmas...

They've turned our front garden into a dumping ground of all that they have removed from our bathroom, despite our having paid for them to remove it all. If that wasn't bad enough, passers by have started chucking their rubbish into our garden.

I'm glad you're enjoying reading the 'Space Trek' . I thought there were some good bits in that, so I'm glad to hear that you agree and have enjoyed it.

with your jellyfish - hopefully it will be a more successful delivery than before with others there too.

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Hmm, yes after the first couple of times you might believe 'next Friday', but now it seems they just say that to fob you off - deja vu indeed...

Shocking to see the photo of your front garden - if it looks like a skip, people treat it like a skip

I did have a good meetup - some more people turned up, so we had a good chat about the Klein Bottle, etc, admired each other's work and shared hints and tips

I also had time for some birdwatching - no new species again, but another spectacular thunderstorm - one clap of thunder was so loud, it made me *and* the birds jump

I made good progress with too - all pictures have now been sorted into themes, and I'm up to page 60

I hope you got to enjoy parkrun, and I hope the weather was OK

We didn't have anyone turn up from B&Q today, so no surprise... They had said that they were doing the walls and floor today and tomorrow, I guess not.

I e-mailed B&Q about our front garden, saying,
"I would like to write regarding the mess that has been left outside the front of our house.

I understand that the intention is to remove all the rubbish from the from when the bathroom is complete – and when the work was expected to take a week to ten days I was willing to put up with this, however I do not feel that it is acceptable to be left with this mess on my doorstep long term. Is this how you would like your house to look, or the first impression that you would wish to give to the world?

I am sure that you understand that it is putting a strain on our relationship with our neighbours. Passers by are also starting to leave their rubbish in our garden because of how it currently looks, leaving food wrappers, empty bottles and even in some cases bags of dog muck. While B&Q is not directly responsible for other people’s littering I do believe that it is a direct consequence of how the front of our house has been left.

Please can we have as much of the larger items to be removed as soon as possible so that our home no longer looks like a dumping ground. I do not mind things being temporarily left tidily but do not feel we should be left indefinitely in this state."

and got a response of 'thank you for bringing this to our attention' which I don't suppose means anything.

We managed to have a weekend free of thunderstorms - funny to hear that it made the birds jump while you were there!

On Saturday I started writing my next - not sure what the plot will be but hopefully one will turn up. I thought that as it was the 75th anniversary of the NHS I would draw a hospital page.

Yesterday afternoon I supervised the Go Ape trip that I had organised through Solent's Staff Scene society, which I'm a member of - it wasn't particularly popular, sadly, and I wasn't able to participate. Then when I got home I found out that a steam train was due in Eastleigh Station 20 minutes later. So I asked my family if they wanted to come along, and inexplicably my children had a Chinese Whispers experience and were convinced that when I asked if they wanted to see a steam engine, I was actually asking if they wanted to go to the shop to buy sweets.

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Shocking... At this stage, I can imagine you can hardly believe it will ever be finished... OK so you've got another toilet, so they didn't need to worry about that, but leaving you for more than 4 weeks without washing facilities is cruel... The situation with the front garden is the nasty icing on the horrible cake... Excellent e-mail, but sorry the response was another fobbing off... All I can do is wish you best of luck that positive progress happens soon

Sorry the Go Ape trip wasn't as expected, but glad you got great views of the steam train Superb photos

Glad your next book is off to a good start I'm up to Page 65 now - the jigsaw pieces have been slotting together nicely

I was about to write earlier that we hadn't had anyone here today either, when at 4:45pm we had a knock at the door and the contractor came in and quickly spray-painted the walls. He also put some things - but not all, and not even all the small, loose things - in a big bag at the front, so the garden looks slightly tidier. I'm still not convinced about the end of the week deadline, though.

On the way back from puppets tonight we had a deer in the road outside our house, which was a surprise.

Good to hear that your is slotting together well - soon it should be thick enough to have your name on the spine! I'm not entirely sure how big it has to be for that - my 'Space Trek' book was about 65 pages and wasn't thick enough, yet my books that are 100 pages are, so I'm not sure what the measurement is. Even before we start noticing that your 110-page 'Birdwatching' is a smaller font than my 100-page '...of Eve Eel' books.

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Wow, that was a late start, but glad at least something was done, and your message about the mess in the front did get through. Following from what one of your friends said on it sounds very possible that the installers are doing work for other people at the same time and leaving B&Q to get the complaints because B&Q aren't passing enough of the price to them... I hope there has been more progress today

That is a surprise what can be found in your road, from railway engines to deer!

The spine text on lulu books is a mystery indeed! I have finished putting the book together now and it has turned out to be 80 pages, so it will be an interesting experiment, being between 65 and 100 pages... 114 images made the cut in the end and it is a mixture of 4, 3, 2 and 1 per page

I finished reading Space Trek and enjoyed it - lots of good moments with puns etc (like stardate 07734, and when Birk said, 'Beam me back', and Lukewarm Skywater became a Jedi Knight, and the Prime Directive). Interesting to see the similarities and differences between the original drawings and the new ones. Your dog artwork has certainly improved - it was cute how the dog originally looked like a Cheirotherium, though The scribbles are really cute, too!

Yes, the contractors all have their own businesses, so B&Q is just one of their potential clients. And chances are their other clients, by paying them directly, are worth more to them in the long run. I definitely feel that when I complain to B&Q they give me promises that become requests to the head contractor which are interpreted as suggestions by the subcontractors…

Yes, our road is a very interesting place to be and you never know what'll turn up outside the door In fact I believe that a photo I took from the window is in next week's as part of the bundle I bombarded Dmitri with. They do at least seem to be being spread out.

Have you heard anything about Douglas Adams' '42'? I've not heard much but sounds intriguing – should be out in hardback by the end of the year, so presumably will in paperback next.

I'm really glad you enjoyed 'Space Trek' – I thought there was some good stuff in there. How did your copy come out? There were a few pages where I thought it was too close to the margin (especially 'The Trouble with Scribbles') and I know there are some spelling errors (such as a 'where' for 'were').
I still struggle drawing animals – and if possible default to the reliable HMV - I can draw them. But the beauty of the Scribbles is that they're so easy to draw and yet look so cute and cuddly. So you could tell where the new 'Space Trek' started then? I hope you thought it a better ending than 'everyone onboard the Gigantica died' and that the elements of being a greatest hits didn't completely overwhelm the plot (I admit I did shove C-3PO, the Doctor and Buck Rogers in there a bit gratuitously while Starbug was there for no apparent reason, but hopefully less obtrusively.

I'll look forward to the paintings book - not that I've had a chance to read Miscellany yet, sorry (although admittedly much of it I have read here )

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Yes, that chain of events sounds very likely... Yet another Friday deadline looks to be missed, as there's still pretty much everything else left to do, although the walls are looking good at last. Shocking about the flooring...

Glad your bundle of photos is being spread out in

I did hear something about the Douglas Adams 42 - there was a preview advert on Twitter for Towel Day. Intriguing indeed.

No worries with Miscellany - it is more of a book to dip into than read from start to finish, I think, plus you have read about 80% of it already, yes

Interesting experience with my book on Lulu this evening - even though the Word file is 250MB and the PDF is 20MB, I still got the error message saying some of the images are less than 200dpi However, the cover creation was much easier than for the Birdwatching book, and there is text on the spine I'm not sure how well it will all turn out, but it certainly looks good to me on screen

Yes, I did find a handful of pages in Space Trek that needed careful handling to see the images closest to the spine, but not impossible. The original ending is spookily topical, but yes it would have been disappointing compared with the Greatest Hits reunion I appreciated the Buck Rogers and Twiki cameo, and noticed Starbug, too Plus the very excellent "I can't make this coffee frothy. In space no-one can. Here - use cream"

I don't think that Lulu will ever be happy with any form of picture quality - but I'll look forward to seeing it.

Ah, did you enjoy watching 'Buck Rogers' when you were young too? I wasn't sure if he was a bit on the nose but as a robot Twiki definitely had a dirty mind.

I had an unexpected and unusual call from my dad yesterday.
During the Second World War my dad's cousin Charles was a tail gunner on a Lancaster bomber (ED603) which in 1943 when on a pathfinder mission was shot down off the coast of the Netherlands with the loss of all onboard. Four of the crew's bodies were washed ashore and 3 remained onboard, including Charles. The plane was apparently found a few years ago and they have decided to recover the aircraft in September and invite the crew's relatives to a ceremony when they do so. And we’re among his closest living relatives and very tempted to go.
The aircraft's being recovered in what was the Zuiderzee, now the IJsselmeer, off the Netherlands. They seem to have known the aircraft was there underwater for a few years but only now seem to be doing something about raising it. As it wouldn't have taken them long to find us following a basic search for our unusual surname and 'Isle of Wight', I suspect that they applied for government funding to raise the aircraft a few years ago and it has suddenly been granted. There aren't many Lancasters left in the world - just over a dozen I think? - and only two flying.

In other news I'm only doing a half day today - I was supposed to walk to Winchester with some old friends but with the way it is chucking it down I suspect they'll instead chose to walk to the pub....

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Yes, it's beginning to look like the 200dpi error message is a permanent fixture with Lulu... In theory the book should look better than the Birdwatching book, as the images were higher resolution to start with, but I'll believe it when I see it...

Buck Rogers was a classic Saturday tv programme that I enjoyed, yes indeed - my favourite kind of cheesy

I learned a new phrase - I know 'on the nose' as being 'exact', but I see 'on the nose' also means offensive or unpleasant. I thought Twiki did fit in with the Captain Kirk/Yeoman Randy subplot, and I appreciated the clever linking of Disney's Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo and Twiki's Bidi-Bidi-Bidi

Wow, that is fascinating family history Excellent that you have been informed of the developments, and I can imagine it is tempting for you both to go to the ceremony

I hope you enjoyed a walk of some kind without getting too wet Definitely mixed weather - I managed not to get wet today, even though there was a brief thunderstorm this morning. Useful to have my coat in the supermarket, anyway, as it is cold in there although I was a bit warm in the charity shops (some nice things, eg the full box set of Keeping Up Appearances (annoyingly spread across three shelves out of my reach so I couldn't bring them together) but I didn't buy anything).

Yep, they don't make programmes like 'Buck Rogers' any more - even if it was made as a replacement for the original 'Battlestar Galactica', which was considered too expensive, and sadly cancelled when Buck Rogers actor Gil Gerard was considered too demanding.

Were you familiar with the Star Trek character of Yeoman Janice Rand? One of the first characters cast for the series and intended to be Kirk's love interest, halfway through the first series Gene Rodenberry was told by the executives that to keep costs down he would have to lose a main member of the cast - either 'the alien with ears' or Rand - and in the end Rand was chosen as it was felt that without her, Kirk would have more scope to have a different romantic interest each week.

You're right about the mixed weather - on Friday a couple of friends I've known since schooldays came over as we'd hoped to walk to Winchester, but the weather really was dreadful so we didn't. Yesterday I went to St Albans for parkrun - the running club offered a trip to Jersey Farm parkrun, one of only 4 in the UK to begin with J. (Jersey - which for a long time was the only one, Jersey Farm in St Albans, Jubilee near Durham and Newcastle's Jesmond Dene). So I only have two letters left V - with Valentine and Victoria Docks both in London - and Z, which involves either the Netherlands, Poland, Germany or South Africa.

I never knew there was a city called Sneek...

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Yes, a shame that programmes don't continue for various reasons, but helps them to become classics in a way.

I certainly do remember Yeoman Rand - I did enjoy her appearances, but Star Trek would have been a completely different show if Spock had been sacrificed instead of her, indeed.

Glad you and your friends avoided getting soaked, and glad you got to do some parkrun tourism I never knew there was a city called Sneek, either - good name

I had a good day yesterday - watched the tennis and also did some family history My mum's cousin got in touch to ask about her grandfather (the cousin's great uncle) and we found some confusion as there were two people with similar names born in the same year in the same place and we had the baptism of one and the burial of the other Also I knew that another great uncle had been in prison, but I learned yesterday that the prison was Parkhurst.

It's very rare for a show to finish at a time of its choosing, and it is frustrating if all the loose threads are left forever untied and questions remain unanswered. I do often wish that the companies who commissioned the shows would allow an additional 2 episodes to be made once they've cancelled in order to tie things up if applicable.

Glad you had a good weekend, complete with .

The city of Sneek is where the plan for the commemorative event is due to take place, so we're looking into the logistics of going there and staying. It looks like some of the events are planned to use an expensive hotel's facilities so it makes sense to stay there, which in a way is a shame as I think I'd naturally try for somewhere cheaper. It is round the corner from a parkrun too – but with an expensive hotel I don't think I could justify staying until Saturday sadly.

I've discovered that annoyingly work has disabled the translate function on browsers, so I can't go to websites and click 'translate this page', which is annoying when all the websites about what has been happening about this in the Netherlands are in Dutch!

Funny about family connections – and not easy when children are often named after their parents and often have the same names. So you're not the first in your family to come to the Isle of Wight, but hopefully you had better accommodation

My evening was dominated by B&Q (again). The electrician didn't come - I phoned and he said he's decided to come on Wednesday instead. And the cistern issue that I thought I'd sorted at lunchtime and not having the right type of cistern turned into B&Q saying that we didn't have one at all as they didn't think we'd need one when we ordered the toilet from them, and for us to get a working loo I would need to pay them £47 by the end of the day. Unfortunately the bathroom manager couldn't accept payments over the phone, their project system isn't linked up online so I wouldn't be able to pay for it but would have to phone their helpline. Which I did, and was on hold for 43 minutes before speaking to someone who said that they couldn't accept any payment from me because the project was under Sarah's name (and Sarah was at an end of year celebratory meal with her workmates), but despite it being against B&Q policy to accept payment from anyone other than Sarah on the phone, if I went to the branch and 'paid at any till' I could pay there with the receipt I'd been e-mailed and had on my phone - which had a barcode that could be scanned.

So I had to cycle to B&Q, I went to the till with a person on who said I needed to go to the trade point counter, who directed me to the bathroom project counter, who directed me to the click & collect counter and then eventually I was able to pay at the till next to the click and collect counter - which was next to the till I'd started at. But they said that as I'd paid that, the bathroom installers would be able to fit our toilet this morning.

No-one's turned up here yet today.

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Yeah, tricky - on the one hand leaving things to the imagination can spark all sorts of fan fiction, but sometimes it would be better to have a proper finale, especially when there are a lot of loose ends that have deliberately been set up for a sequel and the sequel doesn't happen...

I had a look at Sneek on Booking.com (my boss who retired's favourite site) and see that the parkrun is in a rather expensive area of the city, which is a pity... That is annoying that you can't just use the browser to translate the page for you... A strange thing to prevent

" So you're not the first in your family to come to the Isle of Wight, but hopefully you had better accommodation " - Yes indeed!

Sorry the saga of the bathroom continues... Glad you don't have an empty room any more, at least, but it is shocking that the bathroom manager doesn't seem to know what a bathroom is... Why order you a toilet without a cistern as well as the tiles that are not suitable for use in a bathroom...? Also ridiculously officious that they couldn't accept your payment over the phone but they could in person even though it was the exact same money for the exact same bill and then gave you the run around in store... Again cutting it fine that nobody had arrived by 11am, so I guess it was too much to hope that they did fit the cistern in the morning as promised, but I hope they did manage to arrive at some point today

My favourite television series of the 1990s was 'Babylon 5', which was virtually all written by one man who'd plotted a 5-year story arc. Anyway, he was told just as he was starting to write the 4th series that it wouldn't be renewed for a fifth, so he crammed everything that he'd planned to happen in series 5 into series 4, which made it an incredible, fast-paced and action-packed series which got great reviews and good viewing figures, so Warner Bros said he could have a fifth series after all, despite the original story idea already being used in series 4. The fifth series is definitely weaker than four, but to be honest I don't think anything could have topped series four. In the end the final episode that had been filmed for series 4 was held over to be the final episode of series 5, so retains the series 4 cast. Though Warner Bros are apparently making an anime film (apparently Warner Bros do actually still make things, rather than just cancel successful series and claim the tax back on films they've made...?) with the surviving members of the original cast, as well as the rumours of a remake...

I thought that autotranslate was a strange thing to block - especially considering we're a university that's supposed to be promoting internationalisation and have students from all around the world , so translation is surely a good thing? It isn't as if it was to stop students from passing off work written in a different language as their own work by translating it (would that bypass the Turnitin plagiarism software?) as students aren't issued staff laptops.

B&Q have a Douglas Adams approach to deadlines - we'd been told on Friday it would be done by today but still no-one has been here at all this week, and not yesterday in the end. Once again B&Q promised that someone would, but again verbal assurances from B&Q aren't worth the paper they're written on. It is nice that they've assembled the sink and shower tray, but until they're plumbed in - which presumably they'll do after they've done the floor - all they really are is nice to look at but a reminder of what we don't have and can't use.

All we had in the end yesterday was the following e-mail from B&Q :
'Hello I hope you are well, apologies i forgot to setup a password for the cistern order if you had a password, you would have been able to talk about the order so my apologies for forgetting to do that, as for Charles and the eletrician i had a quick chat with Charles and he told me he would call you guys later when he is off site and he will fill you guys in on what the plan is going to be. please let me know if he doesn't get back to you this evening let me know and I'll ask him to give you a call when I'm next in. If you need any help or require any additional information you can contact me via the phone or email down below' [sic]

While my first thought was not the best grammar, with repetition of 'apologies' and 'you guys' and lack of capitalisation - and is it a bad sign that he misspelt 'electrician'? Also I know we were discussing a toilet cistern, but that doesn't mean I want to e-mail him 'down below'. That's rather a below-the-belt phrase...

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That is a mixed blessing that the merger of series 5 into 4 made it even better than it could have been, so the 5th series was commissioned after all - a big plus that it is possible to rewatch and enjoy 4 again even though the new series 5 was comparatively weaker That is interesting that Warner Bros are planning to release something rather than cancel, but I guess you'll believe it when you see it

That's a good question about Turnitin and whether it would be able to spot translations of plagiarism... I don't deal with it these days, but when I did it was very interesting how a low score was potentially more suspicious than a high score! Doesn't explain why a staff laptop shouldn't be able to translate, though, indeed... I would have thought that would be useful for internationalisation, too...

Ah, I didn't realise the basin was decorative only at this stage It would have been nice if they admitted something like, 'It will take 60 hours of work and it will be done at a rate of 2 hours a week' but I'm sure they know what the consequences of that would be, so they promise 'next week, next week, next week' instead...

The e-mail is but on the other hand, might be helpful that you can e-mail him down below and the pressure might help, even though it is 'below the belt'... I hope it wasn't a bad sign that he misspelt 'electrician', and I hope some progress happened today

I read some more of 'After That Pope!' this evening - impressive 3d elements Funny and apt at the opticians. Educational about the Bible, too - I found interesting articles about when Romans covered their heads for pre-Christian worship and about when the Pope dons and doffs the Zucchetto I like that John Deacon was invited to the Deacon Workshop A funny thing is that some pages have stripes on them, as if the local printing company printer was running out of ink - eg on page 54, the Pope says, 'I'd like to buy the ring in the window' and the E of 'like' and the N of 'in' are blue rather than black! Not too noticeable, though, as it only affects a few letters, and not things like the police people's trousers I hope they change the cartridge before attempting my book, though, just in case The ring in the window reminded me of 'the doggy in the window', and I see that featured in a later panel

Perhaps someone at Warner Bros Discovery said 'Did you know we're a media company? Perhaps we should try to do some meeding?'
Or maybe they're testing the water, thinking 'we have an IP in 'Babylon 5' – which could be popular, but would be expensive. Let’s make something cheap, see how popular it is and whether there's a large fanbase there, and if it is successful we can spend more money on it, and if it isn't, we've not lost too much.'

Part of the problem was that when it was known that Babylon 5 wasn't going to be renewed for a fifth series, the actors naturally started to look for other jobs and Claudia Christian signed a contract to work in London. Then series 5 was commissioned, Claudia asked if she could appear in some episodes to be able to juggle both Babylon 5 and her new job the other side of the world but was told she had to be in all episodes or none, and she ended up with none. So a plot arc that would have made sense for her character was given to another.

The good news is that the electrician came round. He actually seems to be a very professional, highly motivated worker that we've been impressed with, but there's little he can do until the plumbing is all sorted. Still, we now have a cylindrical tunnel in the wall above where the shower isn't where the extractor fan is going to be, and we have the ability to turn the light on and off again.

I'd like to reassure you with 'After the Pope!' that the stripes aren't Lulu's fault. Since we moved house, my scanner's been slightly off and when I've scanned things it has resulted in narrow discoloured lines. These were very pronounced immediately after we moved but have been gradually fading. On earlier pages I used combinations of desaturation on text or colour correction or the burning tool (depending on what was discoloured) to try and hide the worst instances of it, but not everything. So every panel I've drawn since we moved house has about 3 narrow vertical bands which are discoloured, which is disappointing but hopefully doesn't interrupt or spoil the story too much.
I still blame them for the blues turning grey, though.

Glad you're still enjoying it though.

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"Perhaps we should try to do some meeding?'" - Yes indeed! Good point that Babylon 5 is a good way for them to 'test the water'

That is good news that the electrician arrived and did as much as possible Disappointing that you're still waiting for the plumbing to be sorted before the electrics can be finished, though - tomorrow's deadline is likely to go whooshing past indeed, but I hope you get some progress

Ah That is strange about the scanner creating the lines. Glad the problem is settling down. Doesn't detract from the story indeed, but good to know it isn't another problem with Lulu colours to add to the ones we've encountered with blues Some of the text looks similar to the cover of one of my Miscellany books, so I like it

I finished the book, and thought the Pope Joan ending was very clever Quite a bit in common with Charlotte Bronte's 'The Professor'. Also educational about the Vatican Observatory - I found a good article about that in the Sky at Night magazine I'm not sure why the Bishop of Leicester in particular appears in the story, but his face is brilliant! Impressive background detail that rewards repeat reading, too - I just realised there is a mirror in one of the rooms of Graceless Manor