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

Entry: Shanklin Chine, Isle of Wight, UK - A87890647
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

A look at a tourist attraction currently celebrating its 200th birthday.

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What a superbly lovely Entry - I really enjoyed the atmospheric descriptions, and the visitors' comments too!

I need to read this Entry again later

Almost as if he was a local!

Good work one of your best yet

Indeed, bob

Right - my first readthrough enjoyed the scenery all in one go, and my second readthrough is going to look at things in more detail

In the Shanklin Chine section, what stream is it and where are the downs? Actually, you say it better in the next paragraph. Maybe reorganise the section a bit - eg take the first paragraph up to Footnote 1, then insert the sentence "The stream that runs..." Then delete the "Although the stream..." paragraph and continue with the Shanklin Manor paragraph etc.

I like the mention of the Grand Tour becoming a Hidden Corners tour - I did something of a Grand Tour in my youth, and now I'm enjoying the Hidden Corners

I like the Smuggling section, too - reminds me of Famous Five stories...

I take it Niton is a town on the Isle of Wight near Shanklin...

Seems a bit strange that the Fisherman's Cottage was originally built to house bathing machines... Was the plan for the steps being built in 1817 intended to be tourism? What's a hot bine bath? brine?

The entrance kiosk is at the top entrance of the Chine?

In the War! section what does it mean "the pier sectioned"?

Is there a link you can put on Pillbox? Is the Chine Inn the pub that was the Fisherman's Cottage?

"Yet the Chine soon prepared to go on the offensive." - Is this because the Chine was used as a conduit for the pipeline, that it itself was on the offensive rather than the people round it?

"40 Royal Marine Commando " - is this a unit of troops?

You could put a link on Mersey.

"pump battery located in the remains of a bombed hotel on Shanklin Esplanade, hidden in the ruins." - is this saying the same thing twice? Could you just say "hidden in the remains" and then delete "hidden in the ruins"?

"with the pumping mechanism still located in Brown's golf course" - I take it this means the pumping mechanism was located in the golf course and it is still there today.

In the "tidy up" paragraph, put a full stop after "its original place in the Chine". The pipe in the heritage centre plays a video?

"Shanklin Chine opened a small Coastal Display" - is this an organisation like Friends of the Chine that opened the display? Ah, yes, the Charitable Trust

I think you've got a link you can put on "Undercliff"

"Professor Robin McIbbbes " - I think there's 3 B's too many in there!

I can imagine the mosses and ferns in the cool atmosphere - superb

There is repetition of "birds, mammals and insects" so you could perhaps delete the first mention and then at the end mention the red squirrels, butterflies and types of birds as examples.

I want to know more about the lift! Who engineered it, was it Otis? Did the 1892 lift form the basis of the one that's there now?

Are there links you can put on Great Storm, Jane Austen, Keats, Charles Dickens?

"George Elliot" - George Eliot

Was there actually a "Shanklin Fountain" to drink from?

Footnote 4 could be tightened up a bit, I think (it's too long for the pop-up box). Maybe move the mention of "he planned the Dieppe Raid" to the main body of the Entry. You could put links on Queen Elizabeth II and India "Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900 - 1979), Queen Elizabeth II's cousin, rose from being a midshipman in the Royal Navy to Admiral of the Fleet and later commanded Combined Operations Command, based at Cowes Castle. His exploits as captain of HMS Kelly inspired the Oscar-winning war filmnbsp; In Which we Serve. After World War II he became the last Viceroy of India, and the last Governor of the Isle of Wight as well as the first Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight. In 1979 he was assassinated by the IRA."

Thanks for those comments, lots of changes have been made.

Niton's a village not too far from Shanklin, it is on the south Undercliff coast whereas Shanklin is on the southeast Sandown Bay coast and outside the Undercliff.
I've also tried to clarify the entrance to the Chine section and include more information about the brine baths and that 40 Royal Marine Commando was a battalion.
As for the question about there being a Shanklin Fountain, well that's a bit of poetic exaggeration. Spring water, yep, but calling it a fountain is certainly pushing it. But compared with what he wrote about Paul Revere (in truth three other people did the deeds the poem 'Paul Revere's Ride' attributes to him and he was later charged with cowardice by Longfellow's own grandfather) it's not that inaccurate. Despite its historical errors, you can't fault 'Paul Revere's Ride' as an inspiring work of American literature, which is what Longfellow was after, and we'll call the spring 'Shanklin's Fountain' too.

I've added a small footnote about the lift, but it isn't actually in or adjacent to the Chine so I don't want to write too much.

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I knew who wrote this even before I loaded the thread. One day I will write an entry on the Isle of Wight just to fool you all

GB

Thanks for making changes <BB< - you've added some excellent details and footnote 4 is spot on

Sorry I wasn't very clear with some of my points - I've read through again...

You've still got repetition about the stream, so I don't think the last sentence in the second paragraph of the Shanklin Chine section is needed.

Nice link on Brown's Golf Pavilion, but this one will be even better http://www.brownsfamilygolf.com/attorneys.html

"with the pumping mechanism still located in Brown's golf pavilion" - I think you need to just delete "still" from there.

lumiére - should it be lumi&egrave;re?

I like how you've tightened up the flora and fauna paragraph, but "creating the perfect natural habitat for a wide variety of insects, butterflies, birds and mammals including the red squirrel" just needs tweaking again - butterflies are insects, so you could say "a wide variety of insects, birds and mammals including butterflies, *a bird of your choice*, and the red squirrel.

Ah, that's interesting about the 'Shanklin Fountain' being mostly in Longfellow's imagination A town on the Wirral has a drinking fountain with a poetic inscription to mark the centre of the town and I wondered if the Shanklin Fountain was similar...

I'm just interested in the lift myself, but you don't need to put anything else in the Entry - is there anything more about it in the book you read?

The spring now has a tap but it isn't very obvious unless you know where to look, and it just looks like an ordinary tap.

I've tweaked the birds and mammals section again to highlight the red squirrel's mascot role. I can't really write *bird* and red squirrel as that would put whatever bird I chose on an equal footing with a red squirrel. Local shops don't sell a wide range of random bird merchandise, but they do sell fluffy red squirrels, red squirrel-shaped biscuits, postcards &c.

I've read a large number of books, but none of the ones devoted to Shanklin Chine covered the lift in any great detail, I'm afraid. Tell you what, I'll write an entry about it in what is almost certainly going to be my shortest-ever entry.

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Ah, I didn't know the red squirrel is so well known on the Island, so that paragraph is very clear now

I see you've started the lift Entry already Thank you - I look forward to seeing how that develops

Why not have a quick look at this map showing Red Squirrel populations in the UK?:
http://www.redsquirrels.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UK_distribution_mapb.jpg

But yes, I've started writing the Shanklin Lift entry – and am beginning to suspect that actually cliff lifts aren't actually very common after all. There's loads of funicular railways they call 'cliff lifts', but I guess most seaside resort cliffs aren't vertical.

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Wow - that map is very educational... I've been to the teeny weeny red blob just north of Liverpool, which was excellent, but as I live in the massive grey blob I didn't think about where else red squirrels might be... No wonder the red squirrel is celebrated on the Island

Educational about the cliff lift, too - I've been on a funicular railway, but certainly hadn't seen a proper vertical lift to a beach before, so I'm well impressed I look forward to reading what you find out about it

Bluebottle, I'm reading through this atm (and enjoying it), and have got to the bit about the brine bath which is still extant, though not at the Fisherman's Cottage. Where is this now, and is it still open to the public - and heated?

Good point

On carrying on reading this, apart from a couple of commas which I would have placed between clauses, the only thing I can see is that there appears to be an unnecessary line break after this under the heading "Surrounding area" - 3rd paragraph:

A spot possessing such natural beauties, with its invigorating climate and peculiar advantages for sea bathing, was not

Lovely job.

Thanks for the read-through and those comments!

The bath still does exist, but you wouldn't want to take a dip in it. It is still in the Chine but no longer used for bathing, so I've updated that bit.

I've also tweaked the phantom line break in 'Surrounding Area'. There are two versions of h2g2, Ripley which uses the older skins, and Pliny, which is newer but sometimes does strange things. I only use Ripley but sometimes things don't show the same between the skins. So in GuideML in Ripley, you won't see a break if you've not coded one in, but Pliny often puts in line breaks where there aren't any in Ripley.

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Yes, my favourite skin is Brunel, and similar odd things happen with that one. I read through the entry on the default, which I'm assuming is Pliny.

OK, Scouts - this one is ready for recommendation.

Incidentally, if anyone likes paintings by artists such as Turner and Rowlandson etc, they've a fine exhibition at Southampton City Gallery at the moment called 'Capturing the Castle' - it is an exhibit of paintings of castles, including Carisbrooke and Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. They even have Discworld-inspired art by Paul Kidby, of the Tower of Art and Lancre Castle.

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Bluebottle!