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

Given that the hole is going to be quite extensive (as opposed to deep), should I dig down as far as required and then widen the hole, or keep digging and deepening the whole area of the projected hole? I can see that the first method could involve throwing more dirt up to a greater height because a lot will fall into the hole. On the other hand, digging sideways seemes to me to be easier than digging down. Maybe a judicious combination of these techniques is the optimal strategy. Any thoughts? ?8¬)>

I suppose i don't know the song referred to in the previous post. But then I don't know all songs ever written. Though probably I should.
On the other hand with regards to having a more specific instructional bit in the article, I think I might just consider it. Based on personal experience, I find it best to dig deep then widen. The only difficulty in taken this approach is that often times you might end up with a hole that is rather bowl shaped. This isnt so bad if you are trying to locate an buried item, such as a sewer line. Instead of digging a large hole and you can save time and energy using this technique.

But after you have dug your hole; what then? My unspent annual leave was put to good use over the recent Christmas (2002) break in pursuit of a hole: well it was more of a trench really but we will not split hairs dear reader.

The problem was (and is) that on taking out the necessary and requisite quantities of earth I decided, save for the addition of one barely significant pipe, to put back into the hole that which came out and yet I failed miserably to achieve this objective.

Now, my dear reader, it rained quite a bit over the duration and even allowing for this additional bulk of water trapped in my displaced soil I would have hoped that it would have seeped out of my piece of the London clay-beds; and that I should by now be in a position to repatriate the obnoxious pile of earth once and for all.

Sigh!

I suppose we are dealing with some branch of physics that is closely allied to Domestic Science; i.e., that by beating and kneading carefully composed substances they can be encouraged to 'prove' and 'rise' thus prohibiting a packaging re-entry.

Dear reader, When it comes to holes beware: the mud-Genie may well leap unexpectedly out the hole and claim asylum!