The h2g2 Post 22.01.24

Created Dec 11, 2023 | Updated Jan 21, 2024

A crest bearing the legend The H2G2 Post

Posted: 22^nd January 2024

This week's title is Cat Nap. Clockwise from upper left: Mural with an animal, possibly a large cat, from Teotihuacan, Mexico, an imaginatively painted ceramic cat in a window in Scotland that is either cute or horrifying depending on your point of view, a black cat glimpsed through vertical blinds and silhouetted along with the afternoon sun, a happy-looking mouse surrounded by birdseed (it got into the bird food supply), fog over water in Scotland, an English robin in a bare tree, an orange cat looking out a Pennsylvania window at birds perched in snowy bushes, a brown tabby cat sitting on a grey sofa, and brightly-coloured papier-mache hummingbirds in a Dia de los Muertos display.

If you, like Your Editor, currently reside in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere of this planet (which is Sol 3, if you're tuning in from elsewhere), then you have probably been complaining about the cold and snow for a couple of weeks now. I know I have been. It's the kind of weather where we drip faucets at night and the dog doesn't want to go out. It's the time of the year when, no matter how pretty that white stuff looks, I get grumpy because it takes me twice as long to get dressed. I hate 'layering'. It's the time of year when the holidays are over and spring seems impossibly far away and all I want to do is. . .

Take a cat nap. So that's where the title comes from.

Also: it comes from all the cats. Everybody sent cats. Cats in windows. An almost-cat from Southeast Asia. Cats being cute, cats taking naps, cats in ceramic and fur and our imaginations. Enjoy the kitties. No ailurophobes read this, anyway.

Speaking of phobias: the time has come to address the elephant in the writers' room. No, not that elephant: she's a permanent resident and gets along with the cats. The one where readers want to know, but are afraid to ask: just how much emotional damage am I likely to suffer from reading this year's novellas?

Friends, we hear you. This planet is full of hazards, from pandemics to sneaky bollards. There is no need to run unnecessary risks. This week's novellas will carry appropriate content warnings. Let's face it: some of you like puns and/or violence. Others may have medical conditions. Heed the labels.

In addition to kitties and fiction, we've got a guided tour for you. Angel LiaDan went to Mexico for last fall's Dia de los Muertos (day of the dead), and we've got some fascinating photos to show you. See? You can travel, and you don't even have to go out into the cold or get near any germ-infested tourists.

There's the usual folk horror/humour by Bluebottle, the usual unusual cinema review by Awix, plus jokes and a quiz and a review of an ancient Hitchcock movie by me. In other words, if you're bored, it's your own fault. So pour yourself a cup of whatever-it-is you drink, settle back, and dig in.

Have a better week out there. If it's snowing, be careful where you step. More madness next week. Kthxbai.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

Cover for The Building, DG's new book, available from Lulu.

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Quotes of the Week.
There is no such thing as one, large, all-encompassing truth. In reality there is an infinite number of small, specific truths.

Steve Allen
Satellites interfere with the flight paths of angels.

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