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

Don't you think that interest in Groundhog day is born of nostalgia for a time when people lived and worked in the countryside, where the weather and seasons matter much more than in cities?

Dmitri, you hit the nail on the head when you wrote "I don't live that far away from Gobbler's Knob, and there's no way a groundhog could see anything in all this snow."

Apparently that one day was repeated 37 times. Probably I know this because of a quiz in the Post.

I doubt that a groundhog would even be out and about. Why wake up when snow carpets the world and there's nothing to eat?

Okay, in order:

1. No, I don't think Groundhog Day has anything to do with nostalgia, at least, not here. As I said, in the US, it's been a local custom in the snowy Northeast for a century and a half. The weather people have been reporting it since the 1950s, at least, because it's the middle of the winter and people need a laugh in the middle of all this snow. (We bore easily after the first six snowfalls, which is where we are now, see next week's Post issue. )

Now, nostalgia MIGHT explain why people outside the US are talking about it. Otherwise, I'm puzzled as to why they'd care. Elektra said even the BBC was running pictures of the groundhog. Maybe so people in the UK will know what the heck a groundhog looks like? I can't believe there's no official prognosticating hedgehog in, say, Lewes or someplace...

2. Paul, groundhogs DO get out and about in early February. At least, the male ones do.

They are visiting their girlfriends. This is where baby groundhogs come from. I suspect they will keep going to their girlfriend's burrow even if they see their shadows. Because, as Jeff Goldblum says, 'Life finds a way.'

I didn't know that about groundhogs getting out in early February. I haven't see my neighbor's groundhog -- not that I've looked.

Makes sense. You aren't a girl groundhog.

Are you sure about that?