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

Ahem. I came across this purely by accident while trying to research a writing column.

http://www.jeweltheatre.net/pdf/guys-and-dolls-dramaturgy-packet.pdf

I'm only linking to it because:

1. Somebody out there might like 'Guys and Dolls' and enjoy the trivia.

2. It proves that the Edited Guide gets applied in the most unusual places.

3. It might make you laugh to see me turn up in a footnote. It made ME laugh.

My firewall will not allow me to open a pdf

Hahaha! That is amusing!

Sorry, GB, didn't have a different version. For what it's worth, my virus catcher didn't even blink at it.

It's a resource book for people producing 'Guys and Dolls', the musical.

German Wikis like me, too:

http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Turnspit_Dog

I think it's that Southeast European air of erudition...me and Slavoj Zizek...

Knitting monthly beckons....

My machine's tolerance is very low due to the contraption I am on being slow on memory, it refuses to load anything above 100 whatevers. I intend upgrading to a super-duper model as soon as my fortunes change

(hug)

It is nice to see your work appreciated. I've read books and thought "this sounds familiar". Sometimes the bibliography includes a reference to one of my entries, sometimes it doesn't.

Yeah, no fair pinching your stuff without giving you a byline.

it'll open ok, but that's a lot of readingpass

That reminds me so much of a college student in North Carolina. I overheard this conversation once:

'Aren't you taking Dr White's drama course?'

'Well, I WAS, but I'm gonna drop it. I thought we'd be watchin' videos, but he wants us to READ the plays'n'such. I ain't got time to read all them books!'

I swear this is a verbatim account. The name of the prof has been changed.

And yet, somehow, h2g2 survives as a largely prose medium...

I used to say when watching "university challenge"

reading Dandy, Beano and Valient

Yesterday one of the news videos was interviewing schoolchildren (pre- and young teenagers) about reading. Most of them looked at the books they were offered in disgust, handing them straight back to the reporter and saying they weren't interested. One girl said "I don't read books, I don't see the point"

I believe when I was at school I spent half my spare time in the local library scouring for astronomy books as astronomy wasn't taught at my school and I wanted to be an astronomer. But then, we didn't have the distraction of social media or even 24-hour tv.

That is indeed sad.

I wonder whether that girl was read to by her parents when little? We had a routine where we'd read to our baby daughter while she had her bottle of milk at night. After a while she would take the book and pretend to read out loud - making all the intonation but unable to pronounce the words exactly. Then she learned to recite the story back to us. Finally she got inquisitive about the symbols on the page and what sounds they indicated. Reading was simple for her after that, and she devoured everything the library had to offer (in fiction, anyway). She still does in her twenties.

What a cool method, Icy.

Ditto on my own early introduction to reading, much as Icy describes, next my Mom got a pack of filing cards a and felt pen and made a set of flash cards with simple and basic words.

Next I found myself reading notes she gave me to take to the grocers.

By the time I started reading in grade school, I was ahead of the class.

Number and arithmetic games are important too.

re posting 1:

I notice you were only five lines away from being mentioned on page 42, Dmitri.

Oh the irony

I think h2g2 Entries are still popular as they are more bitesize than books but give people a good flavour of a subject nonetheless.

I do prefer text to videos myself, though, as I can read the words at my own pace rather than waiting for a speech to finish.

I sat next to my dad most times when he read to me when I was a child, so I could see the words and learned the letters as a result. I was ahead of the class when I went to school, too, which confused the teachers so they made me read the same reading textbook twice... Luckily it didn't take me too long, but I can't say I enjoyed it, because I could have been reading something I hadn't read before instead...