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

I am sure that most people sometimes find themselves on the cusp of sleep - - - and a curiosity comes to mind.

Recently for me:

It is stated that plastic water bottles will take 450 years to fully break down in the oceans. Who stole a T.A.R.D.I.S. to faithfully determine this?

If a person can return cleaned bottles from beer, liquor and other beverages for a "return of deposit", why can you not return the bones from a standing rib roast, pork ribs, or even a very tidy sized turkey?

What world shattering mysteries disrupt YOUR sleep?

When colour televisions were introduced they were always called 'colour television' to distinguish them from the standard black & white tellies, which were normal televisions. But when did 'colour televisions' stop being called 'colour televisions' and saying 'television' automatically mean colour?

Have we reached the same point yet with 'smart phones' where people stop saying 'smart phone' because the standard is now for mobile phones to be smart, and if so what does that make my nine year old £10 phone?

<BB<

I remember the first colour television that I saw. A school buddy invited me to his home for lunch one day, and we watched cartoons as we ate. I was surprised to see that Huckleberry Hound was blue !

When my daughter was almost 15, she was with us for a visit. I prepared supper and she was flipping through channels and called out - "Dad, I think your TV is broken." She had landed on some program from the 1960's, so naturally it was produced in black & white. She had never seen that before.

(Later in that same visit, she was astounded to watch a lunar eclipse. Apparently, the moon in Newfoundland never disappeared like that.)

"why can you not return the bones from a standing rib roast, pork ribs, or even a very tidy sized turkey?" [Rev Nick]

Good question. I would recommend putting them in your compost pile, were it not for the very long time it would take for them to decompose. Maybe you could find some way of grinding them to powder, for use as garden lime. Since they're bigger than chicken bones, it might be okay to give them to your cats or dogs. Chicken bones, on the other hand, might get stuck in their throats.

Or using them to make a nice stock

Yes, that's a good idea. However, there will still be bones to dispose of afterwards.

Do not give cats or dogs any bones.

Why should I have to wait for a bovine to be tended and fed to some hundreds of pounds - - - just so that I can desiccate some of the meat to 40% of original mass? ( I do like my jerky )

And related: why is a piglet have to grow to market size of 200 lb, and then produce so few pounds of the best stuff. Bacon !!!

I imagine that most pigs would be happy *not* to be slaughtered for bacon.

Why did it seem like a good idea to mix some sort of fungus with fruits or grains to make a beverage? Was it because the intoxicated live-stock seemed happy?

Who-ever it was, I do enjoy a nice wine, brandy or beer.

Perhaps the fungus was not visible, but rather tiny yeast spores that were blown about by the wind. Probably someone left some fruit juice out in the open, and after a few days it had a tangy taste that people grew to like.

Maybe someone then took this fermented juice and tried mixing it into lat bread batter and noticed that the batter began to rise. The resulting fluffiness was enjoyable. Yet another step might have been letting some crumbs get mixed in with aging milk, forming cheese with blue spots.

People who wanted to continue enjoying fluffy bread might have saved a bit of the dough for reuse. Thus was born sourdough. At one time I bought a book of sourdough recipes and tried most of them. This went on for about six months. I wasn't able to eat all the bread I amde, so I gave some to my parents. Thankfully they never complained.

Coincidentally, I just bottled 4 gallons of black cherry mead.

Oh, and speaking of "late night ponderings", yesterday morning it occurred to me that the title of the Pink Floyd album, Astronomy Domine, probably rhymes. I've been pronouncing it (in my head) "dough-mine" for all these decades.

I hope you will get paid soon.