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

Oh yesterday a dream came true. I looked up a word (we permit ourselves this licence) and there it was: breaming. Cleaning e.g. the bottom of a boat, by burning off the accumulated gunk.

The M was in place, between two triplers. I scored triple-triple twelve, 108, plus 50 for using all seven tiles: 158.

Our choir's concert has its second performance this Saturday, in St Joseph's Church Glasthule. A wonderfully resonant place to sing, unlike St Werburgh's where the first concert took place. What a disappointment! There's an organ there that Handel played on while he was over for the Messiah. Nice barrel-vaulted ceiling, spectacular pulpit (pinched from Dublin Castle, round the corner); but dead as a duvet to sing in.

I had my last singing lesson yesterday and gave my teacher a bottle of Bollinger in gratitude. I've learnt a lot, but I won't pursue it. Plenty of viol practice to do; and other bits of RL.

And here's a hum:

Here lies a wight whose bark and bite
Said he was no-one's poodle;
A polymath, a polyglot,
Apollo Wally Doodle

158!!! That's about what I score in a whole game! Congrats !

The moral of the story is, never leave an M between two triple word scores. My wife plays a very tight game of Scrabble, never leaving any spare letters that can be used. Well done!

158! Wouldn't it have been more suitable to score 42?

Most impressive

Well done - if I understood what you mean!

No wonder I seldom get high scoring words on Countdown - yet I manage the figures. Strange.

Lucky teacher with the Bollinger.

Singing in a duvet - lovely expression - but so sad for the lovely church.

Have a good day

also ran1

The worst place I ever sang was the Library of the Royal Dublin Society. All the walls are lined with duvets! No, actually they are lined with books, which is just as bad. Each person in the choir felt as if they were the only person singing. In addition, the audience treated us like specimens under a microscope. There wasn't any warmth there.

Changing my mind. It can't have been the books, because I've sung in Marsh's Library, (for Mary Robinson, the President of Ireland, no less!) and it sounded quite good. It must have been the dead bodies of the dead audience that absorbed the sound.

Hi Gnomon,

Was in a lunch-time concert? If it was, it's surprising that you felt like a specimen under a microscope. Those audiences are notorious for knitting! Maybe that's why the acoustic was woolly...

Cheers,

C

Yes but Marsh's is teeny and intimate. I love the smell of decaying leather book-bindings. I wonder was I in the same concert? I played there three years ago for its tercentenary, but I know I'd played there before.

Here's a question, open to everyone; fingers on buzzers please.

In Marsh's Library the original books are on their original shelves as Archbishop Marsh placed them in 1701. Three-volume works appear in the order 3-2-1, left to right.

Why?

He was left-handed?

They stacked them from the right first because they were building on in that direction? (Visions of Grommit laying the railway lines as the train whizzes along spring to mind)

Something to do with the position of the windows?

No no and no. Keep thinking. He did it for a perfectly good reason.

Would it be so that the last page of Volume 1 was beside the first page of Volume 2? If so, why would he want that?

Recumbentman, you didn't play the time I sang in Marsh's library. It was just four of singing unaccompanied. The President opened an exhibition on Music in Marsh's, and four of us sang three Madrigals taken from the books in the library. She did mention you in her speech, though!

I read on the site that there are lots of works in Hebrew and Arabic. Could that be it?

Gnomon's on the track! All we need now is the explanation.

It is all surmise on my part, but I am convinced (not being in a position to ask Nrcissus Marsh himself) that it is right.

If you take down all three books at once and plonk them on the desk, they are now in order. Did anyone ever set out to read vols 1-3 in a sitting? Not important. The continuity of the text is maintained.

I was prompted to this conclusion by the question "If a bookworm eats from volume one, page one to volume three page 300 of a three-volume work with 300 pages in each volume, on their shelf, how many pages has he chewed through, disregarding bindings endpapers prefaces and so on?" In the normal stacking of today, the answer is not 900 but 302.

Being a woman I would never have thought of that. Some books are too big for a woman's hands, and three at once is unthinkable.

While delving in the Library's website even further, I found the story of Archbishop Marsh's neice who eloped with a vicar. Lovely story - it is said that she left a letter in one of the books for him and he haunts the library, still searching for it.

That's Narcissus Marsh, apologies, and if you think his parents did him no favours in naming him, consider his unfortunate brothers Epaphroditus and Onesiphorus.

Yes TC it's a lovely place and is blessed wih a wonderful librarian Muriel McCarthy who has written two excellent books on the library. The first public library to open in these islands; for the free use of all graduates and gentlemen, on condition that they behave themselves and give place and pay due respect to their betters.

When you come to Dublin put it on your list of places to visit.

Will do, if I ever get there.

Fascinating discussion on the acoustics - and Mary Robinson - and duvets, and dead people - and kntting. I have enjoyed them all, and hopefully RM is happy now that he has managed to escape from RD hiself!!

also Ran1