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

I want one of these for my front garden instead of the crappy council fence I've got. I need something to keep all the rubbish from the shop opposite blowing into my garden, and I think these look cool.
How much, and when can you come round?

Where do you live? Do you have any stone handy?

Oooo *sucks in breath* - it'll cost a packet luv. (sorry- I've always wanted to say that but farmers are a bit too intimidating)

I remember one of Pam Ayre's poems:

I am a dry stone waller,
All day I dry stone wall.
Of all apalling callings,
Dry stone walling's worste of all.

Is it really that bad?

You remember all that?
Actually building mortarless rock walls is a compulsive obsessive activity based on physical, spiritual and emotional needs I can't control. I have lost everything to this madness... I steal rocks everywhere I go. It's out of control. Help me!

I don't think there is anything I can do to help!!

God himself couldn't help me now. In fact he's a little pissed at me for moving so many of his rocks around. "Let 'em lay where I flang 'em!", tha's his attitude. But I gotta move 'em. Rebuilding the world in my own image y'see. And the bigger they are, the harder they are too move. (That may seem obvious - but god made rocks of all sizes just to test us, to see how far we'd go. I have crossed The Line of Impertinence!)

Please send pics of Stonehenge 2 to.......

Avebury is my most fave place in the whole world.... so far. I want to retire to a little cottage inside the stone circle - I want my ashes scattered there!! Do you move 'em that big?

Scattered .. at Avebury?
Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
Or is the too obvious pronunciation of (h)ave-a-bury causing me to share a laff at my own expense. You probably pronounce it Avery or Veeburg in the local dialect.

Avebury - a small village in Wiltshire about 10 miles south of Wootten Bassett.

The village is enclosed within a large stone circle. The stones are not fashioned in the manner of Stonehenge and aren't as large, but there is an associated earthwork with the whole circle.

A truely awesome feat of engineering.

Bassman

Happy New Year.

He forgot to tell me how to pronounce it. He must be scattered already. Now I'll never know if my pun works...

...or be able to ask directions when I get there. Oh yes, I'm a-coming - gotta have me a look at Stonehenge and the many other great works of man from the time before the 'word' became more important than... well that's another story.

It's only taken me a few years to get round to this....

Avebury is pronounced with a hard"A" as in slave.

Hope that helps - will look forward to your reply in 2016



Bassman

Dec 29, 2016

The mills of the gods do turn slow, but they grind exceeding fine!


~jwf~

Nicely said....

Is that one of your own, or a standard phrase that I've never heard before?



Bassman

'Tis a classic!
I want to say Shakespeare, possibly Othello but something stops me. More likely it's from one of them 'justice delayed' novels like the Count of Monte Christo.

I paraphrased it anyway. Still can't quite recall the exact wording or the source but the last bit sounded like that 'late Age of Reason' way of expressing things, something like "...slow, but they grind exceeding fine."

Those last four or five words might serve up some good googling, but I only get four or five hours online per week these days. This library will be closed for the New Year's and won't be available to me until Jan 6th. Just in time to celebrate an Orthodox Xmas with the Orthodox Xtians.


~jwf~

And there was me thinking you were a genius! LOL



Bassman

Phew! Glad we got that cleared up.
I am no genius merely a bad actor who plays the part of egnius badly. I am indebted to hundreds of Shakespeares, Shelleys, Pratchetts, Lennons, Dylans, Mil;tons, and Swifts. And some of them get mad when I don't credit them properly. They start behaving like mad loan sharks.

~j~

I'm not much in to classic literature I'm afraid - more technical manuals....

I do have my fave quotes, mainly from song lyrics and Monty Python, although one of my top faves is:-

"Would you care for a drink inspector, or are you going to tell me you don't drink on duty"

"Oh no sir.... I always drink on duty. I can't afford to in my own time"



Bassman