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

Hi tr, would you object to our adding this entry of yours to the Underguide?

We know it's marked not for review but it seemed easier to ask you after going through all the UG's stages of selection than asking if you minded it being nominated.

I'll post the QA comment on its selection since I think he speaks for quite a few of us on h2g2, and it's good to have the opportunity whatever you decide.

It was the QA's Gem of the Month.

QA comment: "tonsil revenge and his remarkable Escape Pod Dreams series in the Post are h2g2 institutions, of course. It’s surprising that he’s never been Mined before, although part of his reason is that he doesn’t put his work into the AWW. Why this particular piece was Mined in preference to literally hundreds of alternatives is also a mystery.
The piece itself is typical, and not as random as it first appears. I used to think that tr’s writings were pure and sustained examples of Dadaism. Now I discern the core of real ideas and observations in them, and have come to read them as commentary rather than surrealism. I doubt he’d be able to keep it up unless the form somehow reflects a habitual thought process.
I’m not even going to try to criticise. Writing like this is beyond constructs. I know I couldn’t mimic it, let alone match it. Consider it inspired, perhaps literally so.
Everybody should read tr, and enough of him to wonder at the scope, though certainly not all of it! Let’s all welcome him to the UG."

That's the QA's thoughts. Welcoming your writing in the Underguide depends on your choice, of course. I hope we can though. As to why this particular piece was picked, I can answer that - it came up on a random search, as so often your entries do, and was easily among the best of what the search delivered. It wasn't an attempt to choose the best of your writing here.

Here's to more of you entries . And let us know about the UGing of this one?
Cheers, UGeds

Apologies for ing, I can see you're not here much just now. We would like to use this entry though. Any chance?

UgEds

Not a problem.
I spent many a month embarrassing authors by inserting their entries into AGG/GAG a few years back.

Thanks, folks!

"The piece itself is typical, and not as random as it first appears. I used to think that tr’s writings were pure and sustained examples of Dadaism. Now I discern the core of real ideas and observations in them, and have come to read them as commentary rather than surrealism. I doubt he’d be able to keep it up unless the form somehow reflects a habitual thought process.
I’m not even going to try to criticise. Writing like this is beyond constructs. I know I couldn’t mimic it, let alone match it. Consider it inspired, perhaps literally so."

The main influences are the short writings of Woody Allen and the recordings I have of The Goon Shows.

This apparently was an early Escape Pod Dreams episode, after I ran out of old radio scripts. The reference to IPR is a dead giveaway. IPR stands for Irritating Public Radio. The gag with the early EPDs was that it was a programming block for an Amurrican public radio station. That's why the current EPDs still have the format of four "shows" with the times listed.

Here we go then - the official UG version. Ta da!

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