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

"It does amaze me though, how bonkers excited folks can get over something that is so utterly inconsequential."

Exactly I can get excited about tangible things which directly impact me, my environment or indeed the wider planet's health. Or things that affect people I know and care about.

Why I would feel happiness from the fortunes of a group of strangers who have mostly only been assigned to my country/district in a tenuous and arbitrary manner anyway, is beyond me

I was being flippant earlier ascribing it to genes, but I wonder if indeed there is a genetic reason why some people get excited about games others play and some do not. A bit like the 'god gene' sometimes mentioned when alluding to people who are prone to 'get' religion.

That's another one ... religion...

I can watch a tennis match occasionally, or Olympic events like swimming races or ice skating competitions. As a swimmer, I think I can imagine being as great as Michael Phelps, though it's always going to be just imaginary. The feeling of water massaging my skin as I glide through the water....

Fairy nuff watching a sport you play; we all like to watch others do things we do, like watching a TV program about folk doing the same job as you for example. What I don't get though is the obsession over a specific team, even by those who do not play.

Folk get so obsessed that they are happy to have their life defined by who they support; team scarves and photos of players as memorials when they're killed in an accident for example. Just plain
If I was to have memorials to me, I would want them to be about something I did or achieved. I have always enjoyed star trek. But I would not for one nano-second want a bloomin picture of spock on my grave!

Fiction on TV.

I do watch some TV shows (I don't have a television, so I watch them later, on YouTube). Television exists for quiz shows and panel shows. The occasional documentary might be interesting, too, perhaps. But narrative? Nah. That belongs in books, not on screen.

Most films bore me too. I can perhaps watch them if I have someone with me; otherwise, I lose interest.

TRiG.

I'm the complete opposite. I could not give a flying fig about quiz shows. I switch off the second I see one. I actually actively dislike them fairly intensely.

Dunno, they just make me cringe. I find every aspect of them hackneyed, unoriginal, new money for very old rope, the same style of sets, the same type of grinning smug quizmaster, the same style of awful jingles and sound effects.

It also seems like programming of the masses to me... hard to explain that really, it's as if just by asking questions on TV people will drop what they're doing and pause the revolution, just so they can ponder who the first king of Denmark was and then shout the answer at a deaf and dumb idiot-box, hoping that everyone else in the room will be impressed at how clever they are...



Now, give me some great immersive, well-written and acted TV fiction and I thank the dolphins for their invention of television.

" What I don't get though is the obsession over a specific team, even by those who do not play" [Winnoch2]



Cynicism about millionaire pro athletes with not much gray matter between their ears bubbles up in me when I think about most teams. I've been to baseball games and basketball games as a captive audience: I was there to sing the national anthem as a member of a choral ensemble. The lights were too bright, there were too many ads for companies that sponsored the games/teams, there was a sense of being dwarfed by a huge arena with too much going on to process.

With tennis, at least you can follow the two or four players' moves. Even a swimming competition has a limited number of lanes to watch, with one competitor per lane. The action is focussed on a definable goal.

Now we've got half of Ireland on this thread - *waves to winnoch and TRiG* - can I ask what IS going on re the border after Brexit?

Ah, but I watch Only Connect.

****

Brexit? Border? Who knows? Currently, it's almost invisible. The UK's desires are contradictory, but they don't seem yet to have realised that.

TRiG.

I had a dream there was a hard border between Scotland and England, which consisted of a big gate and a little she'd with a little man inside who just waved you through, and I dreamt to myself, why can't they just do this in Ireland.

I of course would have preferred to dream of Tom Hardy, but such is life.

Isn't there a little town just over the Scottish border from England, where eloping couples can go to tie the knot?

Yep, Gretna Green.

I don't see the point of game shows at all. At least before 1993 there was a prize limit of £6,000 which meant that game shows couldn't afford to give away an average family car and so had to present the family in Birmingham with a speedboat instead as it was the most interesting prize they could afford. Now they can give anything away including a million pounds there's no interest any more.

<BB<

Dai the Death and Beatrice (Lucky Star) married there - with Aye Bee, Pirate Wench as part of the bridal party.

I don't care about bare-root plants. So many nurseries want to sell their plants with just the roots -- no soil. I'd rather minimize shock to the plant by letting it have the soil it was growing in.

Having recently replanted a hedge which had died of old age, I was rather glad not to have all the soil delivered with the plants.

Was it a fairly large plant? I usually prefer to get smaller plants.

It was 25 small spikey hawthorns...
Planting them hurt even with decent gloves etc.

Ouch!

This time of year, I have poor luck with bare-root plants. I bought three rose bushes a few weeks ago, not knowing they would be bare-root. They came with dried leaves. I planted them in soil, but I fear that they're dead.

Planting bare roots in the Fall gives them a chance to remain in dormancy and gradually grow more roots over the cold season.

Actually, I usually manage with bare roots, it's just that it seems like too much extra stress for the plant if they're not dormant.

I managed to get these delivered 3 weeks ago just as they were begining to bud and so far they all seem to have taken.

I'm glad to hear that!