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

Saturday was my wife's birthday party. First thing I did parkrun set-up, preparing for an extremely muddy and squelchy parkrun – not just surface mud this week, but real sinking through mud, though the springs up the hill haven't started yet. Our parkrun was also subject to VIP visitors from parkrun head office – of the 600+ parkruns in the UK, ours was one parkrun UK's Event Support Manager Jo Sinton-Hewitt chose to run at this week.

When I got home, washed the mud off my body – or possibly washing my body off the mud, whichever's lesser – and got changed, we started preparing for the party, which was being held at the Railway Institute's upper rooms. Before we left home I was dressed in smart trousers and the top t-shirt in the drawer, which happened to be the one showing the Doctors emerging from the and crossing Abbey Road. When my wife looked at me and said, 'What are you wearing?' which I thought was self-evident. She then told me it was a formal occasion and I had to wear a shirt. I only have two long-sleeved shirts, I've owned both for years. There's a green one that was my step-dad's but, when he outgrew it, he said 'This'll probably fit you, here you go' and a white one that I wear to interviews/funerals/weddings/christenings etc. So I put on the green shirt and was tying my red tie when my wife said, 'That clashes, take that tie off'. So I then started tying my blue tie when my wife said, 'That clashes, do you have any other ties?' The answer is, of course, yes – my old Red House school tie and my Sixth Form school tie. They both successfully do whatever it is that ties are supposed to do – make the wearer look like they're on the way to the gallows, from what I can work out – but apparently neither of those was appropriate and so I ended up wearing the white shirt and blue tie and my wife was finally happy.
The party was taking place from 6pm onwards and earlier that day we arrived, moved the tables around and I started inflating vast numbers of balloons by mouth.

Pounding at the Door
After a while my wife realised that she'd nothing to tie the balloons together and that we didn't have enough table cloths, so asked me to walk into the town centre to buy them. So I walked off to Poundland (, which technically looks more like it's former rival but c'est la vie) to purchase a pound's worth of string and some table cloths. Finding table cloths not decorated with or was quite a challenge and took a surprisingly long time, and I only had a quick pop into the secondhand resource centres. I soon headed back and was only across the road from the Institute when my wife phoned, saying she'd run out of blu-tac TM and could I go get some, so around I turned and headed back to . Earlier as I had left the shop I had seen that there was a self-service till that no-one was using, and I didn't know why. This time, to avoid the huge queue, I decided to risk it. Big mistake – the thing kept shouting in a loud, cheerful '' voice 'Unexpected item in the baggage area! Ho! Ho! Ho!' and 'Printing Receipt, HO! HO! HO!' So Blu-tac bought I returned to the Institute and this time made it into the room before my wife said that she'd left the scissors at home, so once again to I went to buy my second pair of scissors of the month. They didn't have any arts scissors, so kitchen scissors were purchased instead. I made sure that I, like everyone else in the shop, queued up to pay with the person behind the counter rather than risk the jollity of the self-service till.
I then returned to the Institute to discover that my wife had said that she'd accidentally left the knife at home – but fortunately she'd decided to phone a friend and asked her to bring hers with her. The DJ had arrived too and begun setting up the noise-making equipment.
Soon the catering lady arrived and put all the trays of food at the bottom of the stairs, which my son and I carried up with the last few also carried by my brother-in-law, with Sarah's parents, brother and eldest niece arriving in time to help us finish setting up, put out the food etc. Which involved an almost infinite number of sandwiches, but not a single one was honey, honey & apple rings, golden syrup, jam, spread or even peanut butter. Not even a proper & Branston pickle. There were & and some brencheese, but tomato just isn't Branston. And a vast amount of . Seriously, who eats egg? Fortunately there was real food in the form of sausage rolls and .

Anyway, people soon started arriving. With the exception of my son and my father-in-law, no-one was in a long-sleeved shirt and tie and I was soon overheating and uncomfortable as the 75 guests arrived. Many of the guests were children and I must also admit I probably only knew about half of 'em, not knowing my wife's work colleagues as well as various people I do know's partners and children. My wife did keep saying, 'Hello Matt, this is someone…' but I'm afraid I don't have the best memory of putting names to faces and remembering it, especially when I'm trying to concentrate on hearing what the people I'm talking to are saying. I don't know why DJs are obsessed with the idea of playing music loudly. The trouble with parties is that they are occasions on which you see lots of people who you are very fond of and you haven't seen for years and really want to catch up with, but neither of you can hear a word the other is saying because some bloke in the corner is trying to see if they can break the World Record for 'Loudest Playing of 'Come On Eileen' in an Interior Space Ever'. I know what 'Come On Eileen' sounds like – thanks to the wonders of modern technology I can hear 'Come On Eileen' whenever I want to, but what I can't do any time I want is chat to people face-to-face who live in far-flung parts of the country.

The party's highlights was that my children decided to do a puppet show, which they'd written the script for, in honour of my wife's birthday. This went down really well and there were lots of laughs in all the right places, so I felt very proud. (I was hiding behind the curtain with them, having nicked the DJ's microphone and was helping to point it at my son or daughter depending on whose line it was as well as turning the page of the script and helping prompt if necessary).

There were also inflatable instruments and a photo booth, which my children really enjoyed while I didn't get a chance to participate, taking photos instead.

The party ended at 11pm and we were there until past midnight, sweeping and tidying up. There were a vast number of sandwiches left (surprisingly enough, no-one ever eats sandwiches) not to mention sausage rolls etc, and we had to take the caterer's trays home with us. My wife had also been given a fair number of presents too, which she was looking forward to opening in the morning. But after getting home we just dumped things down and collapsed.

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This is beautiful and worthy of James Thurber. It is also being stolen for a future Post issue.

Sounds like a good time was had. And I agree about DJs. They also tend to play the music they like rather than the people who hired them. My sister used to be chaperone at functions where she was a teacher. She told them, 'We're paying for this, and if we tell you we want to hear the Chicken Dance 42 times tonight, that's what you'll play.'

Flattery indeed! I should mention that had no restriction on purchasing whopping gurt scissors – no locks on the shelves requiring members of staff, and no ties preventing the kitchen scissors – designed to cut through flesh, after all – from being used there and then.

I wouldn't want to hear the Chicken Dance 42 times in a row, I'd much rather have a little bit of this and a little bit of that…

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I think she was exaggerating for effect...the students were used to that...

Ah! The joys of unrestricted resource acquisition!

Wow – that was good that you got to parkrun at the same time as the parkrun deputy! It sounds like washing your body off the mud was the easiest option

That is a strange saying “Blue and Green should never be seen” that people used to say to me when I wore a blue and green tartan shirt in my lumberjack-shirt phase, but I think they go well together

You certainly got your keep fit for that day, especially after having done parkrun as well!

“Seriously, who eats egg?” I do (and my manager at work does) – sorry we couldn't get there to partake! The only time I didn't like egg sandwich was when I was at school – it was fine in the morning, but by the time it got to 12noon it started to smell, and lunchtime wasn't until 1pm...

Yes, that is a shame that DJs can't play music at a volume where if people want it loud they can go closer to the speaker, and if they want to talk to people they haven't seen for ages, they can sit further away and hear each other well enough...

The puppet show sounds lovely indeed – well done everyone

That is a long day, to say the least, but it sounds like a good time was had by all

Next time I'm having a party involving sandwiches I'll invite you, then – but I hope your manager isn't offended if they're not invited too…

There was an amusing anecdote regarding the cake knife, as my wife's friend who the knife-carrying friend is in fact a Methodist minister. Now sadly there had been an incident reported to the police earlier in the week in which one teen had threatened another with a knife in the town centre, and in response the police applied for, and was given, Section 60 authorisation for enhanced stop and search powers . This was aimed at preventing a similar incident occurring and giving the message that carrying knives is unacceptable and won't be tolerated. The 24-hour period that the stop & search was in force for expired before our party.

It would have been funny if the only knife-related arrest was for Kate carrying a knife to our party. I could see the local paper's headlines now:
'Methodist Minister Arrested for Carrying a Whopping-Gurt Knife so Big it Gives the Gurkhas Machete-Envy'

I've not heard that 'Blue and Green should never be seen' phrase before, I'm afraid It sounds very odd as, except on very sunny days, the sea is a bluey-green and I for one love looking at it. I don't see any problem with a blue and green tartan lumberjack shirt myself. I might nick that phrase though for when I next draw a clothes-related thing.

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Thank you No, my manager won’t be offended as he gets plenty at Working Lunches . I selected egg sandwiches at the memorial meal for my dad today, but they were weird texture so I couldn’t eat them. I enjoyed the fish and chips though, and all our family and friends managed to get something, which was the main thing.

That would have been a funny headline

Yes, very true that the sea is bluey green and the sky is blue and grass is green so it is strange that people find such clothes a problem - nick away