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

I thoroghly enjoyed this entry, thanks for sharing it. I had a chuckle out of the statements of the old kings and queens and their effect on everyone in the country. Unfortunately in the USA it's diffucult to locate the nasty so-and-so who stuck you with taxes and even the presidents are stuck with all the wrong decisions made by their predecessors. Unfortunely these people are very conveniently above the law and even though they are resposible for mass murder on a horrible scale, get away with it.

Speaking as an Australian I agree. In Oz it is even harder as nobody can name the last 3 prime ministers let alone the first. It is good to live in the UK where they round up the old monarchs and put them in once place once they are dead.

Interesting the UK has two systems of law: parliamentry and civil law. The Queen is above parliamentry law but not above civil law. So there are some laws the monarchs can't get around easily.

This piece on the Abbey is beautifully expressed. I particularly appreciated the ending.

When hanging around these big institutions (some have been following this same single purpose for 1200-1600 years - that is a LOT of leadership hand-overs/new-brooms) it is easy to look at the stonework, listen to the choirs, gawk at the dead people.

The reason these places continue is because the people who live in them and run them (most of these places are residential) are highly educated, intelligent and mostly committed to what they do. However they can only make changes around the edges. Therefore it is at the edges that the real expression are to be found.

How do you find where the edges are? How do you talk about the edges?

Nobody pays £20 to go to the Abbey to look at the edges. That maybe why the edges are free of charge for those who want to live in them. The edges of something as central to the culture, authority and existance of the State as the Abbey arem quite frankly, not trivial to locate.

That's a really good point.