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

I don't really keep up. Can anyone tell me what these are about:

- Virgin have these big posters featuring a man with a ginger goatee. I'm assuming he'd some form of athlete because he's wearing a vest. (or are vests in fashion?) He always has one arm higher than the other. Why?

- Kardashian. Eastern Orthodox sect or member of the artichoke family?

- Men seem to be wearing these skinny-rib knitted hats, usually in grey but sometime khaki. There's a bulgy bit behind their heads. What do they keep in there?

Feel free to add your own questions too.

"- Virgin have these big posters featuring a man with a ginger goatee. I'm assuming he'd some form of athlete because he's wearing a vest. (or are vests in fashion?) He always has one arm higher than the other. Why?"

It's Usain Bolt. You may have heard of him. He's the fastest man in the history of the world. He's wearing a goatee because Richard Branson has one (Virgin), and the raised arm is his signature pose after inevitably winning a race.

He appears on the adverts because Virgin are pushing superfast broadband, and Usain Bolt is a superfast human being.

Kardashians - American family. Have some tenuous connection to fame (can't remember what) and have parlayed it into genuine celebrity via reality shows and a short-live marriage to a basketballer (Kim Kardashian).

You don't need to know about the Kardashians: they're a family of "reality" TV stars, famous for behaving in the kind of ridiculous way "reality" TV likes to pretend is reality. I think they're an American thing, of partly Eastern European descent, hence the name, and hence not having any particular prominence over here. I think one of the digital channels has their show, but I don't know anybody who watches it.

Question 3 answers itself. Look at the kind of person wearing those hats. Take in the look on their face - the slack jaw, the blank eyes. Observe their shuffling gait.

Drugs, obviously.

Now a question of my own: Keith Lemon. "Potato!". Explain, please?

This is the only reference to 'potato' I really get.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgunWu3dWW0

Please note this is *not* Keith Lemon (I do not know who he is, nor do I want to)

The Kardashians are of Armenian descent and one of them (possibly Kim) managed to go from Paris Hilton-style porno to reality TV. The pornographer then included family who seem to have an aversion to the letter C (hence Kourteny and Khloe) despite being rather big C's themselves. Since then they've become rather infamous for being media prostitutues included a marriage that lasted less than most sneezes but still raked in over a million quid for each partner.

One of those rare porn-star to actual celebrity leaps.

Keith Lemon is a character played by Leigh Francis. He is supposed to be half man, half potato. Allegedly he is watched on TV by couch potatoes, who probably have the same genetic abnormalities.

I can't explain why people want to watch him. Maybe they actually don't, but can't rouse themselves from their chairs and couches to turn the TVs off when his show comes on. Or maybe they can't find their remotes. Or are too lazy to even use them. Or they think he's some other show that they used to like or at least tolerate.

I thought the Kardashians were conspiring with the Romulans in The Neutral Zone. but suspect I have a frame-of-reference error.

Never heard of those hats... sound vaguely simular to my cotton peaked, kinda rasta hat type thing, with a tremendously large sort of overhang bit at the back... which is just about the right size to chuck all my hair in... Though having said which, most people I know seem to wear bowler hats, or trilbys... seriously... Who is the consumer of popular culture today anyhow, isn't we all a bit made up of multiple smaller popular cultures, these days... dunno... maybe...

No, the Kardashians were in league with the Dominion, weren't they? Or something?

And isn't there one called Kim? Isn't he out of off of Voyager?

I see one or more of the Kardashians on the covers of the tabloids every day when I shop at the supermarket. Someone must care what happens to them, or the tabloids would be running stories about someone else.

Sorry Hoo, but I need to take your geek card from you: the Kardashians were in league with the Romulans before they hooked up with the Dominion. They're easy like that, flitting from one major power to the other.

You're talking of taking my geek card away because my information is more up to date? How does that work?

btw...if a name ends in -ian, you can pretty much assume it's Armenian.

Cherilyn Sarkisian is probably the most famous.

Did you know that System of a Down are Armenian Americans? I didn't.

I'm pretty sure they wrote a song about the Armenian Genocide: they're my brothers favourite band so I was aware of their Armenian descent. They and the Kardashians live in Nancy Pelosi's Congressional district, iirc she represents the most Armenian Americans of any Senator.

Hoo, it was your 'No' that implied you were unaware of the Kardashians previous liaisons with the Romulans, brief though it was.

But it didn't fecking matter anyway. It was only Star Trek.

That's the spirit, Ed!

TRiG.