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

It's always easier to come up with Liff meanings for place names you don't actually know, so I'd appreciate it if one of you could come up with some for the witheringly dull towns/villages within my life is lived;

Ansty
Ardingly
Balcombe
Bolney
Cuckfield
Hassocks
Haywards Heath


Feel free to offer up some for us to define!

Nice one.

Oooh - I'll claim these. It's been a while since I did any definitions. I have a sneaking suspicion that Balcombe was in the original Liff, wasn't it?

OK, here's a selection from my part of the country for people to tackle:

Barrow-on-Humber
Gunness
Hardingham
Messingham
Rickell
Winteringham
Wressle

I reckon they should have some potential

B

OK, Master B, this is the first time I've really tried this, so forgive me if they're not very good;


Barrow-on-Humber: The ability of women to spend inordinate amounts of time making trivial decisions at the front of a very long queue of people in a shop, such as counting out the right change, whether to get cashback etc, when they've had the last 5 minutes standing in the queue themselves to think about it.

Gunness: A female gangster

Hardingham: The collective noun for idiot groups of lads all of whom have exactly the same shaven haircut, crappy two-tone shirt and sickly designer drink and stare at you as if they all want to kill you for no reason whatsoever on a Friday night. A herd of buffaloe, a gaggle of geese, a hardingham of yobs.

Messingham: Sex that is so clumsily unsatisfying that the only purpose it serves is to give you making the bed as another chore to do in the morning

Rickell: The little stumbly move performed by a walkingstick wielding old lady in front of you as she makes to cross the road that makes you jump forward to stop her falling over, and ensures her an escort for the rest of her journey.

Winteringham: The act of a mother swaddling her child in so many unnecessary layers of jackets, scarves, and extra trousers that they are completely incapable of any movement and can be knocked over by the cat.

Wressle: This already has a meaning, but in this specific spelling refers to struggling with large baggy clothes, electrical cables etc which only serves to tangle them more and more the more frustrated you get.

Looking forward to your definitions!

OK, for your approval:

Ansty (adj.) - Descriptive of a computer mouse icon pointer that refuses to move no matter how much you gyrate the mouse.

Ardingly (adv.) - In the manner of one having to tell the same funny story for the fifth time because people keep joining in the conversation halfway through and missing the first bit.

Balcombe (n.) - An irritatingly smug piece of football trickery that 15 year old boys spend hours rehearsing in the back garden.

Bolney (n.) - A song created by one's father during one's infancy, which consists of a large variety of made-up words in addition to said father's sporting and cinematic heroes.

Cuckfield (n.) - The memory loss affecting cockerels which means they cannot crow just once in the mornings.

Hassocks (n. plural) - The red marks created on one's knees by one's elbows while reading on the toilet.

Haywards Heath (n.) - An irrational hatred of Picalilli.

I will of course accept any additions/improvements.

B

- enjoyed 'Winteringham'

I'm not sure about the first two - we've already got a cashback joke ('Heighingham', I think it is). Gunness: I was secretly hoping for a Guinness joke...I'll certainly put the other ones in.

B

Absolute quality, thankyou.
I actually wrote a crappy Guinness reference but changed it at the last minute.
How about...

Barrow-On-Humber (n.): The rural equvalent of the generic Liverpool car-on-bricks phenomenon

or

Barrow-On-Humber (v.): The act of requesting a friend to lend you their copy of a new video/cd/etc with no intention of ever giving it back.

Oooh - I like the latter. That's definitely going in.

B

Excellent! I've really contributed!
I feel part of a community again-I haven't had this feeling since they "accidentally" left me behind on our mental home's day out at the zoo...

And how is life in the monkey cage?

B

Groo-oo-oo-oovy.



If any powers are reading.....BRING ON MORE MONKEY SMILEYS! ONE PANDA IS NOT ENOUGH!

'Snot even a monkey, really.

TPTB tend to steer clear of threads involving me, as they tend to get nasty shocks as a result.

B

Course it snot, it's a bear, what am I Bebelling on about?
Ah, rare Asian bear, eats shoots and leaves, I remember now. The insensitive so-and-so.
In that case, we DEFINITELY should have monkey smileys!!!
How do you make some of your text bold?

Course it snot, it's a bear, what am I Bebelling on about?
Ah, rare Asian bear, eats shoots and leaves, I remember now. The insensitive so-and-so.
In that case, we DEFINITELY should have monkey smileys!!!
How do you make some of your text bold?

It's not a bear, either. Pandas are more closely related to raccoons. They only look like bears because of convergent evolution. Isn't your life COMPLETE now that you know that?

Why do people call them panda bears, then?
This is all very disheartening. What if everything I've based my life on is just a lie?
It reminds me of the time my brother tried to convince me Santa Claus wasn't real. HAHAHAHAHAHA! What an idiot.

People tend to call 'em bears because they LOOK like bears. But they ain't.

What, like the way I say I'm going to work cos it LOOKS like an office and it LOOKS like people work there, but I don't actually do anything? Or not like that at all?

No, more like a hoverfly can look like a bee, but isn't. They look the same, but arrived at the same appearance from slightly different evolutionary paths that diverged at a point in the past before they attained their current form.

[David Attenborough voice]: ...and it happened MILLIONS of years ago.

David Attenborough, I know him. He's the funny little beardy fella out of Jurassic Park, innit?