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

My local bookshop sends me a text message when books I've ordered arrive, but my phone had been out of order for a couple of days so I went up on Friday afternoon on the off chance. Yes! My Discworld 2012 calendar and, more importantly, the newly released Snuff, the 39th Discworld book, were there waiting for me.

I got a fair bit read that night, but avoided it the next morning till I was on the train. Sitting reading the latest Pratchett while travelling to a Tim Minchin gig. How much better does life get?

I didn't actually get that much read, since I'd met a deaf guy I vaguely know in the station, so I got a chance to practice my very poor ISL. So I was still reading as I waited for my friend to meet me. She saw the book and was seized with jealousy. We went, at her recommendation (she's the local), to Wagamama's. I've never been to a Japanese restaurant before. They were out of hot saki, so we had plum wine instead. It was delicious.

And then to Vicar Street. Tim kicked off with what I've always thought was the best introduction to his oeuvre: "Rock 'n' Roll Nerd". There was a fair bit of stand-up, some of it very pointed, and a couple of excellent new songs. And the encore was "White Wine in the Sun". I didn't cry. This time.

Leaving, for some reason I had "Confessions" stuck in my head, though he hadn't played it. I think he did play all my favourites, though. "Storm" was in there. So was "If I Didn't Have You" (the version with the "If I Was a Rich Man" bit), and "Lullaby". Tim Minchin is amazing.

The next day I took a train to Longford (finishing Snuff en route), where two people from Tullamore Toastmasters were competing in a public speaking competition. Our president came second in the humorous speech competition. Then I got a lift home, picked some apples before it got dark, turned on the computer to do some work on my blog, checked h2g2, and found it was open for Beta testing. So I'm here.

It's good to be home again.

TRiG.

As I live in the diaspora I've only recently discovered Tim Minchin. I find it hard to believe you didn't at white wine in the sun. You must have heard it hundreds of times to harden up like that.

Amazon sent me an e-mail to say I could pre-order Snuff, but the link didn't work. Well, it probably would have done, but our connection is very sl-o-o-o-w sometimes. Will wait for Christmas now ... I have a hunch...

We had a lovely weekend here in that it was a beautiful October weekend with the very nicest kind of September weather. The leaves have hardly started turning and October is well into its second half. I think the calendar is fast.

Since about 11 pm last night, I've had in my tummy. Now I know why. H2G2 is back! Home again and nothing seems to have changed. Yay!

I might cry next time. I am actually going to see Tim Minchin play two Saturdays in a row, next time at Galway Comedy Festival with a friend who doesn't know Tim Minchin at all.

TRiG.

Tim Minchin in Galway tonight! (Yes, I did think it was last week. Yes, I did actually get to Galway before realising my mistake. No, it wasn't a waste of a weekend: I had fun anyway. Yes, though, I am still kicking myself. But never mind that. Tim Minchin tonight!)

TRiG.

You're a true fanboy, aren't you? Have fun!

(I seem to recall you were veering towards Michael D. for the presidency, so you'll have liked the news this morning, too! He'll be a good one, I think. )

Have a great time. And a good cry!!!

I'm still hoping to get the Terry Pratchett for Christmas - or at least my son should get it and I can read it after him.

Now I shall do my civic duty as a citizen of the EU and go and find out what KB means....

I have no idea who or what Tim Minchin does - but since so many of my friends seem to be firm fans I may have to check.

I'm still working my way through Discworld in publication order so by the time I get to it Snuff will be available in paperback

I gave first preference to David Norris (who I didn't expect to win), and second to Michael D. I'm happy, yes. And Tim mentioned him in the show. When you're in trouble, go for a short academic poet.

He didn't end with White Wine in the Sun this time. He played Hallelujah in complete darkness. And got us all to sing along (interrupting himself at one point to say that it amuses him to get a room full of godless people to sing that song).

TRiG.

"When you're in trouble, go for a short academic poet."

What a wonderful quote!

I'd planned to go to the Galway show with a friend of mine who'd never heard of Tim Minchin, but who would, I'm sure, have enjoyed the humour. He is a fan of Duke Special . However, due to my date mess up, he couldn't come on the actual date, as he'd planned to be out of town visiting his parents.

So, instead, I arranged to go with another friend who lives in Galway. He's young, still in school, part of the "teenage market" to whom Tim's songs are not supposed to appeal. And he's a massive fan of Tim Minchin.

So I took the train to Galway, and met him and a friend of his in Eyre Square. They took me, truly, to a Japanese restaurant, where yet another friend of theirs joined us. The girls then left, and we killed a bit of time in the city centre before heading up to the hotel for the show. We spotted Tim in the bar before the show, but didn't get a chance to speak to him.

In the queue, I was quietly drooling over a boy in a green T-shirt who was just behind us with two girls. He was gorgeous. This is in no way relevant to anything else. I just wanted to mention it.

We got seats in the second row, on the left, which is where Tim would be sitting while playing the piano. The fake smoke was filling the stage and gradually spreading over the audience.

The show was pretty much exactly the same as in Vicar Street, but we had better seats. And I loved it. Again. The new songs "Cont" and "Sam's Mum" went down very well. And I'm not going to say anything about them. Go see a show yourself! Or wait till the current tour is over and they appear on YouTube.

At the interval, we got chatting to the boy behind us, who was part of a group which included a friend of the friend I was with (is that complicated?). He pointed out that a girl sitting near us had spent most of her time mortally offended. We also remarked on the couple in front of us who had spent the entire time snogging. And I spotted green T-shirt guy two rows back.

After the interval, when Tim sang "If You Really Loved Me", I noticed that snogging girl was singing along with it to her boyfriend, so presumably they hadn't come just for somewhere to kiss.

The show finished with "Dark side", and then we called him back for the encore. In Vicar Street, he'd played "White Wine in the Sun". This time, he asked whether we wanted to hear that or "Hallelujah". The call came back for a song about people who need to piss. (Some people had left just before the interval: small bladders.) Tim obliged, making up a quick song off the top of his head. (He managed to rhyme /urethra/ with /beneath her/, which impressed me.) And then he had all the lights turned off and, in the dark, sang Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", the only song he sang which wasn't his own work. I, personally, would have preferred "White Wine in the Sun", and perhaps would have cried this time, but I must say his voice suits "Hallelujah" and if that's what he felt like singing I won't begrudge him it.



Then we went back to the house and sat up all night. My friend was catching an early bus, ferry, and train to London to see a concert over there, and had decided it was simplest to stay up all night and to sleep while travelling. So we chatted, and mucked around on the computer (mainly Cracked.com), and watched "Dogma", which I've never seen before, and "Holy Flying Circus", a documentary/dramatisation/comedy about the controversy over Monty Python's "Life of Brian". ("Dogma" was fun and clever, and featured a droolworthy Matt Damon, more of whose films I must see.)

In the morning, his mother dropped him off to the bus and I got into his bed for a couple of hours, then got up and had a very long chat with his mum (whom I had met at the first Irish Discworld Convention in 2009) about literature, politics, and ethics. She told me about an essay she'd written for her university course about love potions in Shakespearean plays. I mentioned Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling of Tristan and Iseult.

A strand of Iseult's hair blows across the sea from Ireland to Cornwall, and King Mark decides he will marry this woman with such beautiful hair F2082070?thread=7462392&skip=40#pi50. So he sends his nephew Tristan over to Ireland to find her and bring her back to Cornwall.

Iseult is found, and willingly goes back with Tristan to marry his uncle. But she's going to marry a man she's never met. What might go wrong? So someone (I forget who) supplies her with a love potion which, when she and Mark drink it together, will guarantee their love. Unfortunately, a mistake is made, and she and Tristan drink the potion together before they reach Cornwall. And so the tragedy is set in motion. She marries King Mark as promised, but she loves his nephew.

The tale of Tristan and Iseult got bound up with the Arthurian legends: Tristan ends in Arthur's court. It's origins, though, are probably far older. Rosemary Sutcliff, in her retelling, leaves out the love potion. She felt that it was added in the medieval "courtly love" period. The heroes of the tale are an adulterous couple, and that goes against the morality of the period. The love potion provides an excuse, and allows sympathy for the protagonists as their lives spin out of control.

The other great Celtic love stories (Sutcliff mentions specifically "Dierdre of the Sorrows" and "Diarmuid and Grainne") contain no love potion, even though adultery is a central plot device to all of them.

I last read that story probably in my mid-teens. I must dig it out again. I've forgotten much.



Then I went into town and tried to find a wizard costume. The Irish Discworld Convention has crept up on me: it's next weekend . The costume shop was, of course, full of Hallowe'en people. I didn't find anything suitable for Ponder Stibbons. Ah well, I'll work something out.

TRiG.

I forgot to mention the train. After giving up on the costume shop, I wandered down to the train station to check my trains home. It was 17.15. That's what my phone said, and that's what the station clock said, so my phone must have updated itself. Cool. I didn't know my phone did that. The last train to Tullamore was at 18.05, so I had time to eat. So I dodged through Eyre Square, full of people, and found a restaurant with only one waitress running up and down stairs to deliver the dishes to a very large group. It took her almost fifteen minutes to finish that and come for my order. She then told me that what I wanted would not arrive before I had to leave for my train, and recommended another dish, which did, indeed, arrive quickly.

I had time to eat, time to get to the station, time to be told that the station clock hadn't been reset yet and I still had an hour. So I went for a wander. I watched the pipe band walking down the street with Michael D in the bus behind them. I went for a short stroll after he went past, and then came back to the square, where he was in full speechifying mode. He's a good speaker, I'll give him that, and in Galway he had a home crowd. I've heard him speak before, from the steps of the city museum, to Galway Gay Pride back in August, and I met him briefly afterward. He'll be a good president, I think. This crowd seemed to think so, anyway. When the crowds were dispersing, I made my way back into the station, where my train was boarding.



I got to bed early that night.

TRiG.

You live in an enchanted world, Trig.

Ponder Stibbons is a great choice of costume, but surely there'll be loads of them there. Still, you have to pick someone you vaguely resemble, I suppose (which would limit me to Dame Sybil or one of the cooks in the UU kitchens). If you travel in costume, I hope no one asks you if you're supposed to be Harry Potter. Have fun!

The thing is, I suppose, that I am Ponder Stibbons. It's not that I look like him (though, not too far off, I suppose), it's that I think like him.

I'll not travel in costume. I'll travel in my "Normal People Scare Me" T-shirt.

TRiG.

Actually, I didn't see any other Ponders. There's always a few wizards, but Rincewind and Ridcully seem more popular, or simple generic wizard.

TRiG.