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

Ketchup

How you hold the reins depends on the style of riding, really. But anything derived from European styles (jumping, dressage, military, whatever) usually has the rein running through the closed hand - it goes between the little finger and the ring finger (so the little finger won't be squashed) and the thumb is clamped on top. The fists are upright, so you can move just the wrist rather than the whole hand.

Oh, and two reins in one hand, the second one goes between the middle and ring fingers.

Even in western riding, they don't hold the reins like they do in most comics.

Sorry End of rant.

Wasn't sure what you meant by comic artists Malabarista- my immediate thought was of Monty Python coconut horses in Holy Grail

Flatmates who have such short term relationships that you never get to meet their girlfriends or their girlfriends friends

Then you feel like rught t**t

Flatmates who have marriages of convenience with Cubans

Flatmates who owe you £127 then go out on a date and leave you penniless on a works night out with the electric meter running into emergency money

Flatmates who like pretentious rugby league teams in australia

Australians who are fat beer guzzlers that have JUST turned teetotal

People who post five times in a row rather than putting all their points in a single post.

Writing up papers over Christmas and doing a bollockload of other work for your journalism course… rather than relaxing and enjoying the break you were s’posed to have.

Break? Wossat? I've not actually had the breaks off since I started Uni

People making a virtue out of doing some (very minor) work on their lunch break, as if they're the only one, when I'm actually the one doing the bulk of the work and acting as if it's my fault people want stuff done before the Christmas break!

Mala, all I want is for people to leave me alone and let me work; then I might actually get something done... I don't have the energy to go out anyways.

I wanna sleep Christmas away (or work it away, whichever comes first- too much to do and far too little time to do it in. Add to that family and things to s'posedly go to and you're shafted for actually GETTING anything done!

I hate the siege mentality that seems to hit people as Christmas approaches. The shops are closed for one day, yet people still pile their trolleys with more food and drink than they could possibly get through over Christmas, even if they have a dozen people over for the whole week. Longer opening hours don't help, either. We went to our local Tesco Extra at 10pm tonight and the car park was as full as it would normally be at 7pm on a Thursday. (People round here ususally do their weekly shop on a Thursday.) And there were people who couldn't leave their kids with anybody taking tired, fractious toddlers round, which made the experience even worse.

My mom panics every Christmas and it gets very stressful for her because she makes it so. I wish she would chill out.

"The shops are closed for one day, yet people still pile their trolleys with more food and drink than they could possibly get through over Christmas"

It's an interesting study in human behaviour, isn't it? Surely mainly down to force of habit and poor adaptation to change. Our parents remembering the days of rationing, Sunday closing, and poor supply to supermarkets ...

Recently there were some horrific figures on how much food we throw away. Most of it probably that sort of buying - lots of "just in case" and "well, it's Christmas". Only nowadays we do it all year round.

Petty hate coming up: I hate myself for the way I, too, buy stuff, genuinely intending to cook and eat it and then discover it's gone mouldy or disintegrated before I actually got round to it.

One grump that is justified though is that things are often sold in packets containing too much for one meal.

Other petty hate. At work, I hate the way it's the customers who yell the loudest and make the most fuss that have to be seen to. Especially at this time of year they're demanding delivery before Christmas - even if it does cost us €300 to get that done.

If an order goes through the system without any special treatment and special delivery etc etc, it's far more likely to get carried out properly than if it gets "special treatment" and everyone's having to remember all the extra bits of work required.

RE shopping and kids- exactly why I let my parents handle what they have to handle, and I get all I need off the internet, which ensures I will not get pissed off myself with angry children or angry parents angry at the children, and snap at both of them.

Trillian’s Child- just conveniently ‘forget’ that order…

Petty hate of the day? Work, work and more work, and parents grumping cos something seems to have gone wrong. Ugh. Shut up.

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That happens far too much in the Dreadful household as well... and we keep promising ourselves that we'll eat out of the cupboard for a week or two and not get any new food but we don't and then the next thing you know that such-and-such-a-thing which sounded really nice when we bought it and we were definitely going to have for dinner on Tuesday is so far past its use by date we'd need a TARDIS to make it even vaguely fit for human consumption.

"Flatmates who owe you £127 then go out on a date and leave you penniless on a works night out with the electric meter running into emergency money"

And people who owe you fifty quid and assure you they're too skint to pay it back yet, and then you see them splashing out money on non-essential, trivial items such as a new picture frame or an ornament for the garden.