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

Great article, Dmitri.

I learned that there was a "southern diaspora." Except for the African-Americans who fled the South for Chicago, Detroit, etc.* (from 1916 to 1970), I didn't realize that it was a more general phenomenon. Okay, I *should* have realized it, but I didn't.

The bit about showing how a character relates to "home" is great, but wouldn't it be hard to do that in a very short story? Just curious.



*They brought jazz with them as they went, enabling that musical form to become a national rather than regional form.

Glad you liked it, Paul. Yes, the white Southern diaspora isn't as much a subject of study, but it was a real phenomenon. Of course, they didn't use the word 'diaspora'. They usually referred to themselves as 'displaced Southerners'.

A story may not be very explicit about where its characters are at home, but it will show. Is your New York City detective a native, born and bred? Or is he secretly wanting to get back to the countryside?

Did you ever watch 'NYPD Blue'? Sipowicz is a real New Yorker. Once, his partner, played by Jimmy Smits, drives him out into the country to release his homing pigeons. Sipowicz about goes nuts in open territory.

That's a real phenomenon, too, and it goes both ways. My country relatives are very nervous in cities. Me, I'm happy either place. Different things to do and look at.

"Be careful out there" is what I remember from "NYPD Blue." Or maybe it's "Hill Street blues," except Smits was in "L.A. law rather than H.S.B. And Stanley Tucci comes i there somewhere, but now I can't track which series he was in.

I'm getitng confused.....

I'm pretty sure 'Be careful out there' was 'Hill Street Blues'.

" Be careful out there" is from every police parade/briefing ever held I think. TV just made it a thing.

Anyway Happy Christmas whether you're at home or away, and be careful out there folks xx

Of course, Stanley Tucci is in so many things it's hard to tell. He was Paul Child in "Julia and Julie," he trod the boards with Cher in "Burlesque," He worked with Captain America, he was in the Hunger Games franchise, he went up against Meryl Streep in "Devil wears Prada," he sank to the depths of his career in "The Core," he was in "Thirtysomething" back when he actually *was* in his thirties, and he was Muerte in "Undercover Blues" (sounds sinister!). Other cop shows he waso n included "Miami Vice," "Equal justice" and "Kojack."

His six degrees of separation score relating to Bill Murray is 1 ("Quick change."

Now, you really needed to know all that, didn't you?