The h2g2 Post 07.04.25

Created Jan 30, 2025 | Updated Last Week

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Posted: 7^th April 2025

This week's title is Oh, the Places We'll Go. This week's image shows a giant mechanical elephant with people riding on it, walking at the back of procession behind a colourful backhoe, which is following a striding statue of Anne of Brittainy, who herself is following a couple of piggyback toads, all headed across a strange landscape that morphs into the ground of Nantes Castle.

The original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy gave us a somewhat skewed idea of what constituted 'normal' in the universe. Even by the standards of that admittedly offbeat look at reality, Earth as it is right now in the 'real' world is absolutely not normal. We can all be excused for feeling 'a half-bubble off plumb', as a journalist friend of mine once described the way I am all the time.

As I sit down to write this, I've had to mute the sounds coming from Youtube, where I'm following the US Senate. Why am I doing this to myself, you ask? Because of Cory Booker. He's 20 hours into a filibuster. This is a US legislative grandstanding trick that involves holding onto the floor for as long as humanly possible. There are rules, and he seems to be going for the record. I recommend that you look up some of the things he's said. They are good things.

In other words, not everybody in my country has gone completely mad.

What about where you are? Are things sane and moving along swimmingly? I've given the planet a listen and you know what? I doubt it. Wherever you are, you may be suffering from what Slartibartfast called 'perfectly normal paranoia'. Nonetheless, we continue, like Senator Booker, to do our best to alert the rest of Planet Earth to the need to treasure our home and one another, and to behave in a way that is not evil and is even, perhaps, a little caring.

Senator Booker is right now denouncing the 'outrage machine' on social media. Amen. We're against the outrage machine: behold us, the snark machine. Okay, also, the have-I-got-photo-video-story-cartoon-joke-for-you machine. We think and talk, hopefully in that order. That's what we do.

What do we have for you this week? Flowers are on display: Willem has some you've never seen before. Also more toads and salamanders. The interest in amphibians continues unabated. We have stories: fiction by L Frank Baum and fact (which we wish was fiction) by our own Ben Moore. We have comics and cartoons and opinions. Best of all, we have Nantes.

Nantes is in France. Superfrenchie went there. Her photos and videos will amaze you: they have really, really cool museums there. Explore a castle. Learn how printing worked before pixels. Be astounded at the steampunk animals! Prepare to be wowed. Even Zaphod Beeblebrox would think Nantes was worth the trip. Now, don't say we never gave you anything.

So what if the world isn't normal? We never were. But if we're going to be abnormal, let's do it right: with verve and élan and panache, with humour and compassion and snark. I wish you a good week. Don't forget to tip your waitress and send.more.Stuff.

PS In case the news hasn't reached you, the senator now holds the record for longest speech in the US Senate. Cicero would have been impressed.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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Quote of the Week:
If a story falls in the woods and no journalist is there to fact-check it, can we really say it didn't happen?

Jacqueline Sweet, The Handbasket, 22.03.25