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

The more it snows

(Tiddly Pom)

The more it goes

(Tiddly Pom)

On snowing.

And Nobody knows

(Tiddly Pom)

How cold my toes

(Tiddly Pom)

How cold my toes

(Tiddly Pom)

Are growing

Love the style of your poem Jabs.

It's not Jabs's poem, Thinker. I think it's Owl's poem from one of the Winnie the Pooh" books. Jabs seems to want us to guess where various quotes come from. If I'm wrong about this, I'm sure Jabs will say so.

Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom, Whoo! Whoo! Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom,Tiddly Pom

ah! the sound of british rail when it worked

Shows your good taste, Thinker. It was mesnt to be a rejoinder to some poem here, but I've forgotten which. This is the original, by AA Milne/Winnie The Pooh.

Apologies to any who don't know the original. Derivation: The House At Pooh Corner or some such.

I thought it was better known, hence no intention to deceive.

jabs.

OK, OK, I'd better do this.

Grovelling apologies to anyone who didn't know the original so thought I was trying to pass AA Milne's work off as my own.

Can't help thinking it's on the level of 'To be or not to be' he said (with difficulty if he wasn't from Yorkshire) as he downed his 14th pint.

From 'To be or not to be', a children's comic on philosophy, although it did catch someone I have the greatest respect for.

I don't think it had to be said at all.

Jabs I don't remember reading the Winnie Pooh stories as a child, but remember quite clearly reading the Doctor Seuss stories which I got from the school's mobile between the ages of six and seven after that I started to read Charles Dickens stories.

Tiddly pom,
I'm back in the classroom.
Tiddly pom,
cleaning the room with a broom.
Tiddly pom,
then having my lunch of mushrooms.
Tiddly pom,
and then putting plumes on all my ball gown costumes.

I'm getting very confused.

Are we here to present quoatations and hope that people can figure out where they came from?

Or do we create variations on the quotations?

Are we allowed to ask for hints, or to give them if we're presenting quotations for others to identify?


If the first possibility is the one that Jabs intended, then here is a quotation to identify:


"Call me Ishmael."

The answers to the second part of Paul's question can be economically dealt with by bundling them up amd sending them to their (blood- and money/and or money and money), and/or blood descendants) at The Pentagon, Washington. It's in 'Learning: A Three Year Old child's Guide to the Way To Lose Wars against far less powerful opposition section'

Or just dump it.


Jabs

"Call me Ishmael" is the first line of Melville's "Moby Dick."

Next clue:

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"


[If I'm wrong that the purpose of this thread is to offer lines from famous books and let others guess them, then I shall go quietly.]

Well, FPR, you've been lying quietly on my sofa for months, so you have credibility when you say that.

That quote is the first line of "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoi, as translated by Constance Garnett.

Next clue, from the book that messed up my mind for life:

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/strange.html

makes my mind boggle
I'd love to have a famous quote to my name

I'm pretty sure you've already said some very quotable things, prof. You have a way with words. That's a priceless gift.

my thanks for your comment Paul, I have some good teachers here to learn from

I KNOW that Paul...'twas the point of my post!