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

Why would anybody be upset if you didn't want to do a NaJo project, dear friend? That's always a matter of personal taste. Good gracious, we were just asking around. We'll take the discussion elsewhere if it disturbs.

No, you can't close a thread. At least, I don't know any way to. These things just sit around forever, like the Nighthoover post.

On the other hand, if you're telling us not to leave, I for one will go away quietly and post elsewhere.

I don't think we're moving in any particular 'direction'. NaJo's just...NaJo, you know? Like Christmas, or the equinoxes, it comes and goes...there's always room for people to just say hi.

Robbie Stamp has something he likes to say: it's not either/or. It's both/and. If somebody comes up with something new, we add it to the mix. Last year during NaJo, bobstafford inspired us all to do photos. Now the Post is full of great photos, for which I am extremely grateful. This year, we thought we'd make up a story. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

FWR and Sasha's dad both watched this quiz show y'all have over there today - 'The Chase'? - and h2g2 was one of the questions! (Robbie was so chuffed when we told him.) But we won't go all uptown about it.

Phew, well, hey, thanks for getting back, dear friend. That's OK then, I can come back sometimes and go on and on and on, , but sometimes I might drift for a while, to my corner, and it doesn't seem rude.

I think I was brought up so English I worry that I'm rude even if I am impolite to a snail. Or an atom.

Not that I am ever impolite to snails. Or atoms. No really, I am very polite to snails. And atoms.

I must seem like a very odd person to the internet generation. . I ask my young nephew and nieces this question, and they ask what exactly is the internet generation?

And there's videos from Sasha and Willem and you that I haven't caught up with yet, its brilliant, all this talent, I'm so happy that its here.

So if threads are left in space, sort of sitting around forever, ohmigod, that's a weird image ... wait, back in a minute, just heading out for a two minute nervous breakdown ..

Sorry I just got a bit overenthusiastic with my vision of h2g2, and didn't mean to upset you, cc... This thread is great for sparking creativity, but I can find another corner as well if you need me to...

It sails along as it has always sailed along, with its comfortable cabins and solid deck within the moving sea so the view from the porthole changes, but there's plenty to do inside as well...

"Robbie Stamp has something he likes to say: it's not either/or. It's both/and."



Look after yourself, cc

What Sasha said. About portholes.

I'll get back to watching that video, Sasha, as soon as my company leaves. I only ran upstairs to check on this thread while the ladies are across the street visiting our elderly neighbour. She just got home from hospital and I don't want to go over because I still have a cold. *achoo*

Hey ho! I just did an entire posting, and then pressed a strange key on my laptop and lost the posting...

Where has it gone ...... ????

Into peculiar space ......ah, spookoid ...

So, no!! yes!!! please don't go! I think I was just trying to symbolically mark change or something, close a window so a new door can open, but now I know that threads just hang around anyway, that's so weird, I might as well start going on and on again.

And anyway, I'll miss you all after five minutes....

Back in one minute ...

Yay! About The Chase! The Question! Be chuffed, Mr Robbie, let's go uptown.

Well, not like you and me, you understand, , that's a bit rude (English blush) I mean the site, cos Dmitri said uptown.

(changes out of old t shirt to put on uptown shirt) (actually I don't have an uptown shirt) (but I can pretend)

So now I'm looking forward to November and can't wait to read the peculiar journey of the NaJo travellers. heheh. It will be hilarious. And deep. Very deep.

Yes, of course. Massive wise statement. Its not either/or, its both.

Old threads on computer software, just hanging there forever ...

This is a fear that I now have to face.

Its not like phases in other aspects of life, when eras end, you hand back the keys, you close a door, you say farewell, you walk into a new time, and the era exists in memory.

And in old photos. But we won't gp there. Where? Old photos. We're talking green loons (loons, erm.. hipster flared cotton trousers.) and tank tops. Why remember the 70s in old photos, when you can just as easily forget. Especially tank tops.

Actually, the tank top ... No! No!

I could wear mine to virtual uptown.

To meet Robbie. And Dmitri.

Anyway ...

Who was I yesterday, or five years ago, on computer software?

Where went those friends with whom I talked in spirals? I never said goodbye. Who had the last word?

The thread is still there, somewhere, but I don't want to go back, read it again, eeeek, its kind of like a memory but does it still exist? or is it a ghost thread?

I sort of want ghost threads not to be there, but I can't apply emotions to them that aren't from the computer world.

Like, they're not old houses with empty rooms from a time gone by. They're not haunted. They are just digital storage.

Quite interesting really. A bit. Sort of. Not really.



Do any of you get spooked by ghost threads?

Doubt it. .

Do you have any images that can explain them?



So, in balance, guys, I might disappear sometimes, and do my corner bit, and sometimes I'll be here, going on.

And on

And on

And on

Forever

Into computer eternity

But really, in fact, I am talking to some amazing human beings.

I like the portholes, and cabins, and solid deck.

And cocktail bar. teehee

on the video, Sasha! I know many high school students who would love to have that version at their graduation. (In the US, this is the 'graduation song'.)

You have a lovely, precise rhythm. And make interesting choices.

We all have phantom footprints in the internet cc, every now and then one pops up to say booo!

Social sites, jogging our memories, put forgotten thoughts in our heads. Had one yesterday reminding me of a conversation I had with a dear friend on line who sadly is no longer with us, but the words...the feeling...of that jokey exchange sits in a corner forever, just waiting to be re-discovered. And is a welcome ghost.

Like finding old photos in the loft, fallen from a torn box, hiding in the dust, a reminder of gentler times, or Wilder youth...or green flares and tank tops! The internet is that loft now, different sites taking over from dusty boxes. Photos digitalised and waiting to be found. A website I'd forgotten about years ago holds hundreds of forgotten bike pics, memories returned with the ghosts, and again, were very welcome.

On this very site, living and alive, our history, most much longer than mine, but click on the very first pages and there are forgotten ghosts here too.

Things evolve, random thoughts lose their meaning, but bring back smiles.

I hope, if you do indeed leave this wonderful journal open, to revisit often. Not to comment, but enjoy the warmth again, and welcome home a dear friend, even if it's a ghost.

The Post draws me in, my own preferred corner, where I sit and doodle, whilst others thrive on the encyclopedic aspects, or long running private conversations.

Whatever you decide, you have a place here, we all do, whether read or not, commented upon or not, but hopefully, in future times, others will find our ghosts and welcome them into their lives.

Researcher5 here. I know I don't post often but wanted to say that this is absolutely beautiful, poetic, thoughtful, honest and a wonderful evocation of the care and the values of h2g2. When you step back and think how we have somehow managed to keep this all going - held together with love and sticky tape - well it is pretty remarkable and it is because minds like this still find h2g2 a place to be. There are many things we would all like to change and improve but there is a core sense of this space, spiritus loci, if you like that makes us unique. There is a new and important next stage of the story coning up, I can feel it...

Holymoly Mr FWR, darlin, you had me shedding some tears here. In a wonderful and poetic way.

Thankyou so much for your insights, and thanks to all, I'm learning sooooo much here.

Quite awesome, amazing and marvellous in fact.

Things evolve, random thoughts lose their meaning, but bring back smiles. Yes!! I course!

Of course!!!

I get it now. The online loft. heheh. Love the online loft. Quite good really, because we don't have a loft.

So, now I'm getting it, I can turn my understanding into my own kind of essence poem.

Awwww thanks for what you say about there always being a place here for me.

I'm very moved right now.

I guess memories and data from the past have to be stored somewhere, whether in the digital loft or in the brain, or in the atmosphere, or everywhere really, because typing the start of this posting is already the past, like, three minutes ago.

And its up to us how we interpret all this data, what we do with it.



And now I realise I love it when data fragments collide with fragments of my ache and poetic yearning, because they then weld together and make a peculiar new shape.

Huh??

Ah yes!!!

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank youuuuuuuu

Hullo Robbie!

Great posting!

Now you started me off again. I'm being such a girlie at the moment. Driving my friends crazy. I love it though, because we can talk real here, these people are all very wise.

'...there is a core sense of this space, spiritus loci, if you like that makes us unique. There is a new and important next stage of the story coning up, I can feel it...'

Ooooh eh, I've got got goose bumps now.

Spiritus loci. Spiritus loci. That's amazing. I'm going to go write that down.

Goose bumps, that's a funny expression. Goose bumps. Wonder where it comes from?

I'd better go ask a goose.

Love and sticky tape. Good way to hold together.

I once told someone I was held together by paper clips and brandy.

I think I'll switch to love and sticky tape.

Held together with love and sticky tape. It's a great achievement, I think to hold a place, or a website, or a life together with love and sticky tape.

Love to ensure those around you are respected and nurtured, and any unkindness is soothed away. Sticky tape because anything less flexible won't cope with the changes of time and direction.

Great video, Sasha! Sounds great, and you can make the visuals go all bendy!

You video makers, you send me round the bendy bend with your marvels.

Yes mvp! Its a good image that what Robbie said, about the love and sticky tape.

Nice insights, poetlady.

Interesting, isn't it, love.

uh oh ... this could be deep.

Like, love.

Erm .. well.

See, this is h2g2 in action. Now I have sprung to life again, I am trying to find incredibly poetic words for love, at three minutes past midnight.

And failing.



Spiritus loci.

Spirit of Place.

I wrote this once before, in a notebook, ooh eh, this is deja vu, Spirit of Place. Way back when, could it have been from DH Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia??

Hmmm. That's way too much thinking for nine minutes past midnight, but it is a lovely phrase. Spirit of Place.

Yes,some places have a spirit.

In Lewes, for example, you are aware of the continuing influence of history on the place. In Newhaven it's the port that gives its spirit to the town.

Crawley, on the other hand, is seen as one of the anonymous new towns that has just grown and grown. Where I live, it seems to be popular to say, whenever people discuss the development proposals for the town "We're not Crawley, you know."

Hullo mvp!

Interesting indeed. Ancient places do have a certain kind of spirit, sometimes actual phantoms lurking about in castle ruins.



New towns. Yes. MK (Milton Keynes) has had bad press, a reputation for having no soul. Although I saw a documentary about it on TV, there was a very visionary architectural intent behind its creation.



Meanwhile, there's nothing that 30 hours in Hooverville can't fix.

I am there already, waiting for November.

It's good to sit in the Waffelhaus Cafe, wearing a faded Ex-Star Reporter t-shirt, using up my free drinks pass and waiting for November and the arrival of anticipated travellers.

I could show them my latest work written in my coffee stained notebook. The Chronicles Of Fragile And Quite Annoying Life Experiences. Chapter 700.The Transparency Texts



Hohoho

See you there.