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

I know I'm copyrightbecause I've never been cloned

(I hope I never amtoo much competition then for me)

OK so here's the train story. Please don't tease me about Cynthia.If you laugh I will nervously peck you and offer you visions of chocolate butterflies. Talking of which, Mister DG, I hope the Mariposa is making the quantum leap to the new site. What is a quantum leap? There used to be a TV show called Quantum Leap. There was this guy ... I digress.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>erm. here's the story. I don't know what its called.

The other day, ten minutes into a train journey, I decided to write a short story. My estimated remaining journey time was three hours and forty two minutes.

I thought to myself. . I had more than enough time to plan and write my story, and also to buy coffee and cake from the buffet car.

I started to daydream. Fragments of the story began to appear in my head. I decided to write about a lady I once met in another daydream. She was named Cynthia. I love the name Cynthia. For some strange reason, in this story, she was a palmist. One day, whilst staring at the lines on the palm of her left hand, Cynthia would be transported to a mysterious and marvellous landscape. She would see meadows full of wild flowers and deserts of white sand. Most of the story would be descriptions of this extraordinary landscape. It would be more like a painting.

At one point I composed a sentence that made me laugh. It was something about a road that ran along the Life Line. Or maybe it was the Fate Line. Anyway, I decided that this particular detail would not make it to the page.

Despite such absurdities, things were going well.

And then, to my own surprise, I decided that Cynthia would have a very unnerving feeling that a secret was hidden somewhere in this landscape. Perhaps it was concealed in the ancient rocks. Perhaps it was buried in the white sand. I decided that she would become obsessed with this secret, and would plan a journey, in order to discover it. However, just at the point of departure, she would be shaken out of her reverie by the sound of the everyday world outside the window.

And then I realised that I had no idea how she would be able to return to this visionary world, or even what the secret was.

My story now seemed flawed and ridiculous. Instead of writing, I planned to go to the buffet car for some coffee and cake. The time ahead of me seemed like an eternity. I felt empty and dull, and a strange yearning overwhelmed me.

The train pulled into a station, and became suddenly crowded. A gentleman asked if the seat next to me was free, and settled down with sandwiches and a book.

Usually, when someone sits next to me with a book, I am seized by a terrible curiosity. I try to peer the cover, to see what they are reading. Today was no exception.

said the gentleman, recognising my curiosity and showing me the hardcover volume.

I replied.

The atmosphere was now full of expectation. My heavy mood began to lighten. Perhaps the gentleman would tell me that the book was a gift from his wife, and I would see the words inscribed beautifully in black ink on the front page.

Anything seemed possible.

I heard myself ask.

he said, with a curious smile.

We spoke no more. He started to read and eat his sandwiches. I began to write in my notebook.

I decided to print the Blake quote in capital letters at the top of my page. My journey had begun.



William Blake - Auguries of Innocence

alright I'm outta here .

I see it as a story within a storyexcellent

A28793064

some bafflers here CC

I agree with the Prof.

I have only to add what it blindingly obvious - the gentleman with the book and sandwiches was a Goth. And the book was a Purple Book...

Yay Goth hey Goth! Yay Prof hey Prof!

And by heaven Prof you have been prolific in your creative output. I think you folks are amazing. And also with Personal Spaces. You know, my Personal Space has consisted of one sentence for the past five years or so, because I never knew how to make if different, heheheh, (not very good at computers), but the Personal Spaces of people here are universes in themselves, with all graphics and everything - and how do you make them?? Incredible. I look forward to the noohootoo Personal Spaces, if you are taking them with you.

It's a bit like packing for a journey isn't it? heheh. Talking of which, I am about to do that for a few days. Although I won't have to pack. Not going anywhere. Just taking a holiday at home with the husband for a few days. Mooching around the flat, watching weird DVDs, and playing my glockenspiel. OK OK but I really do have a glockenspiel. I play a synth, see, but its all so electrical, and I thought how would I practice my scales if the world went weird and all the electrix disappeared. And also because that cool guy in Radiohead plays one.



Don't laugh, but I even went out to choose a book for my holiday. heheh. Ended up with Michio kaku's Parallel Worlds. Uh oh. heheh. I just read a paragraph from it and found myself going all molecular and vibrational, and heading out through a strange gateway somewhere in hyperspace or not hyperspace I don't know where it was, but tell you what, I'll take my glockenspiel. hahaha

And a hotline to h2g2. And a copy of The Post.



Incidentally, somewhere in the train story I think I wrote the word expectation instead of anticipation. I'm still not great at reading back on anything I wrote , bit like old photos, was that really me???, but the word expectation has been ruined for me, because it became something I could never live up to or succeed in, like Geography A level, haha, but the word anticipation has mystery and hope and magic.

OK. See you on the other side. Or soon.

Yours, in anticipation,

H

Anticipating good things.

Wishing you much fun in your galactic cruise from the flat.

And thanks for the book suggestion.

if you are taking them with you. THEY'D better let us

I have this confusing image of you, cactuscafe.

You are sitting in your home, playing the glockenspiel. Then you set out on this mysterious journey, which involves a gentleman reading Blake on a train and a palmist called Cynthia, whose life line is a garden, or a desert, or both.

I'm not sure about Dmitri's theory about Goths. I'd rather think there are plenty of decent ordinary folk out there. Or is that too boring?

MVP, it's not a theory of mine about Goths, it's just a conceit to describe my personal experience. It's what I call it when things happen that are too good to be true, too much like tipping the wink that there's an author lurking around somewhere - whether it's being rescued from London lost-ness on a cold March evening by a bowler-hatted Englishman wearing pinstriped trousers and carrying a furled umbrella, or turning a corner in Cluj-Napoca and encountering a wagon drawn by four side-by-side horses full of Roma in full costume...or getting helpful directions from a child in the Blue Ridge Mountains who has the nerve to be both standing with one bare foot on the other AND chewing on a corner of her delightfully stringy blonde hair...

Leave me to my personal angels, and call them 'ordinary people' if you wish to debunk me. I find un-boring kindness so extraordinary I perhaps overpraise it. But for me, anything of the sort that happens suddenly changes my perception of reality.

CC knows what I'm talking about, I suspect. I think I already mentioned Wim Wenders' 'Wings of Desire', a film which would probably be more popular if more of it were in English.

In that film and thd sequel, Peter Falk (the late, the great, we'll miss him) and Mikhail Gorbachev are depicted as 'angels who left their first estate' - not fallen. Jumped. Profound film. Says lovely deep things about reality.

Note: EVERY WORD OF THIS VIDEO CLIP IS IN ENGLISH!!!! (Ignore the signs. You'll miss a political comment, but ignore the signs.) Isn't this just a wonderful way to talk about perception? Falk's speech is a poem. Hear it as a poem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qo3F-0keq8

Some day, y'all will finish the story about the pizza and the glockenspiel (I love the glockenspiel, can we play duets, Helen? I have a pentatonic lyre to accompany you with), and I'll propose a challenge involving imaginary angels.

Perhaps I've just missed things.

I remember coming round a corner in Brighton and meeting a (or, rather, some people walking in a dragon costume.) But then, Brighton during the Festival is like that.

Once when my family were having dinner in a restaurant in Stirling, the party of people at a nearby table, who were wearing Highland dress, proceeded to sing a beautiful song in Gaelic. (They explained that they had been taking part in a folk-singing competition).

How delightful.

We were in a pension, our first day in Munich (where we lived for a year). Middle of Oktoberfest, no less.

Four Scotsmen wearing kilts and football jerseys came down to breakfast. They put a bottle of Scotch on the breakfast table.

thought I would just quickly slink in here for my medicine. how could I resist? tee hee. Went via Prof's Arthur thread. and I decided that h2g2 is the laughter medicine, amongst all the other things it is. (was going to chip in and say hullo on the Arthur thread but went all shy and coy ahhh blush blush, although that is probably one of the most hilarious threads I ever read.)

Who said . Prof did. . funny that, Prof. I just had a spoke fixed on my bike, because Lo! my bicycle spoke and told me it felt peculiar.

ah, Brighton Festival. We were there this year, mvp. It was incredible. Laurie Anderson in the Dome. ah love. . I think we walked past you. Was it you playing the sitar in the Pavilion Gardens? . I gave you fifty pence. . And you asked me if I knew anything about anything, and I said . Next year I will meet you for coffee, I know I will. hypnotise hypnotise.

Of course that clip from Wings of Desire has done me in. RIP Peter Falk. Forever angel in my heart. I think about these things all the time. I think about angel moments. All the different types of angel moment. One day, not far from now, I might go on about it for a very long time.

you running away? haha. OK I won't. My next writing project is called

Oh it's all so confusing. . All this writing. . . The train story woke me in the night and demanded a rewrite. I've got Gabe hallucinating in the pizza cafe, I've got my lovely Cynthia, whoever she may be, and then there's my mysterious chap who reads Blake on trains, and they all want my attention, but I decided just this minute to send them all away on a coach tour together. . . They need a holiday. I need a holiday. . That's a great idea. I shall go get the tickets. I wonder where I'll send them. .

sweetheart, you are most welcome within my threadsmy role in life is to bring smiles
and I am a far richer man, knowing what I do works

doesn't mean to say that I have to understand myself though

You need to listen when bicycles speak and say they feel peculiar.

A few weeks ago, I was cycling the mile or so into the town centre. The front wheel was making a grating sound, which I thought might be the brakes rubbing. Then the wheel stopped going round, I went over the handlebars, and landed on the road on my nose, which bled.

People stopped their cars, came over, sat me on the pavement, called an ambulance, and gave me tissues to press on my nose. By the time the ambulance arrived, my nose had stopped bleeding, so the ambulance men checked me over and gave me a lift home.

But my husband blamed himself. He said the wheel rim had buckled, and that I ought to have had new wheels.

So the morals of this story are, firstly: look after your bike, and secondly: ordinary people can be really nice.

We're glad you're okay, MVP.

The moral of all bicycle stories involving me is very simple: DO NOT let me on one of the diabolical things.

So far I have:

Run my mother into a tree with a tandem.
Fallen off and broken a couple of teeth.
Almost landed in the Rhine.
Caused a gaggle of Dutchmen to laugh at Elektra for riding a tandem by herself while I walked alongside.

I to, am glad your ok MVP


"Almost landed in the Rhine" WOW! America to Germany, that's some bloody take-off stunt ramp

. So Mister DG and the bicycle are not a match made in heaven. heheh. I think you've been spared, in fact. heheh. We've been cycling for years. We still do our shopping by bike, , but sometimes, when you are schlepping through the rain, soaked, freezing, yet sweaty at the same time, with panniers full of potatoes, pushing the bike uphill, you wonder who invented the things, and why.

Who did invent the bike? Must find out.

I saw a guy on a Penny Farthing the other day. Part of a theatre show. And the Unicycle is popular. You can get them in bike shops. I don't know if I could balance on a Unicycle.

Elektra, keep DG away from Unicycles. .

We've got folding bikes. They're amazing. You can put them on trains and in the car. Total geeks we are. heheh.

Oh heavens, mvp, I am glad you are OK.

That is really scary when that happens. I once had a bad spill on a very busy main road.I always remember that time. A definite angel moment. . As you say, people are so amazing. I believe in human kindness. Call me old fashioned, but I think it's inherent in our nature. A reflex.

I used to cycle in London in the 70s. Pedalling around Hyde Park Corner is if it were a country lane. heheh. And then I didn't even wear a helmet or a high-visibility vest.

We lost a young work colleague to a bike accident. A truck came too close. Awful. Really awful.

Puts you off, and yet we persist with our potato run. And it does make you feel healthy. Mind you, it's only a mile into town. Couldn't do the long distance. Or the Tour de France. .

We get our bikes serviced every few months or so, to make sure they are safe. The local bike shop does it. I would recommend this to anyone, I really would.

And there ends the bike posting. .

OK off to read the bumper Summer Special edition of The Post, and then back to a quiet life. Ah, so quiet, since I sent all my story characters off on a coach to a fictional seaside resort somewhere south of absurdity, never to be seen again. heheh. . In my dreams. I wish.

PS Just send a kiss to angel-Prof. The medicine of smiles. I love it.