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

I don't want to get all materialistic or anything, but what's the favourite thing you own? At the moment I *love* my umbrella. It's one of those ones with an automatic pop-up button. The mechanism is smooth, I never have to wrestle with it or shake it out first. And it pops back down again when I've finished with it.

Best thing ever Easily pleased, me

Anna

The nicest thing I have is my clarinet. It is made from Grenadilla, a type of African black wood, and has silver plated keys. It produces a lovely velvety tone.

My roommate has an umbrella like that with a button to make it go up but he kept using it to whack people when we went out the other week.

I like my rock

Your rock? What sort of rock is it? Why do you like it so much?



Anna

It's an un-identifiable rock (current thinking is that its from an ore complex)

It's got a red iron-y lump in it and a grey lump in it, its also got a plane of quartz, a vein of quartz crystals and some clusters of eeny weeny quartz crystals that look really cool (and when I was 7 made up a crystal cave for fairies )

It's a rock that you can look at for hours and never see everything.

Oh and it's heavy and angular and not particularly pretty looking (more fascinating than pretty) and it's the only thing in my office that is mine

It sounds lovely. As does Gnomon's clarinet

I am consistently proud to be the owner of a copy of the original Pixies' 'Purple Tape' demo, sent to me by 4AD records, after I visited them for a college art project. The cassette in question has since been brought out as a CD, but it's nowhere near as good as having the actual thing from source - with a message from Kieren, one of 4AD's staffers, saying

'Miraculously the Purple Tape has shown up. Please don't copy this for anyone'.

Continuing on the music theme, I have an original vinyl of the Smashing Pumpkins Lull EP...it was the last piece of music I could afford to splash out on before I decided to go all hermit-like on the world. It's extremely rare, being from 1991, and it's cover has purple and yellow and red blobs of pain on a greay background. The songs on it are some of the best of the bands early career, and precisely the reason why they should never have split up 2 years ago.

Not as old as the Pixies, but special to me anyhow...

My most precious material object, that belongs to me is a piece if art. of an an imaganary place, with a moon in a deep blue sky looking through a window.

Lightman

My favourite thing is the first camera I bought. I now have over thirty ranging in age from the 1890s to the 1960s. The first one was a Kodak *bullet* camera made of bakelite that I bought when I was 15. I'm still the proudest of it for some reason, even though it's not the rarest (a large format Kodak copy made in Wales called a *Balda*).

A large and heavy solid brass mortar and pestle, owned by my great-grandmother and possibly inherited even by her. Not beautiful to look at, far too big and heavy to be of any practical use now, scuffed and dented over many years of bashing, and of dubious monetary value, to me it speaks volumes.

Also some woodworking tools owned and used by my paternal grandfather, who was a fine cabinet-maker. His square in particular is still used by me, and seems to be as true as ever it was.

Bels

4 dragone that my wife has brought me. My fav has to be a big heavy black candle holder which looks like a stone column with two dragons wraped around it.

My deceased fathers baby plate. Its a reminder of the circle of life,death,rebirth.

My battered zippo lighter.
It saves me from a continuing quest for fire.
It fits snugly in my trous pocket and it lights every time.
In fact, right now seems like a good time...

Ahhhhhh....!

-jwf-

My first day in Hong Kong, I went ashore in an absolute monsoon. It was still warm, so my friends didn't care, but I didn't want to be soaked and mildewing all day, so I insisted on shopping for an umbrella first. It annoyed them, but they humored me.

We were actually across the harbor in Kowloon, which is just teeming with shops, of all sorts. I went from one to the next, poking my head in long enough to see if they had any umbrellas, then zipping out to the next one. It took much longer than it should have, as I didn't see any umbrellas anywhere. Just as my friends' patience began to wear thin, I saw an umbrella display front and center in the next shop. I went in and purchased it. It was some sort of name-brand thing, far fancier than I would normally take, but I was in a hurry, and it wasn't terribly expensive.

When I got out the door with it, I found that the rain had stopped while I purchased it. It did not rain again for the duration of my stay there.

That umbrella is now my favorite object which I never, ever use. To me it is the perfect symbol of life, the universe, and everything.

My satin panties.

My 1979 Gibson Les Paul (sunburst finish). It makes me sound like like a real guitar player.

lucky guy!

It might be the Evening Standard poster I... er, found on the day that Margaret Thatcher quit. It says in great big words "THATCHER RESIGNS"

I, er, also have the Evening Standard board thingy that it was displayed on

But I didn't pay for that one. The most precious thing I parted with any wedge for is prolly my old Crombie. I've had it since I was 17... that's just shy of 30 years. The sleeves may be a little short, the lining and the pockets are both shot, but the coat itself is in excellent condition, it fits like a glove and I couldn't bear to part with it