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

REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER

(Traditional English Rhyme - 17th Century)

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament
Three score barrels of powder below
Poor old England to overthrow
By God's providence he was catched
With a dark lantern and burning match
Holloa boys, holloa boys
God save the King!
Hip hip hooray!
Hip hip hooray!

A penny loaf to feed ol' Pope
A farthing cheese to choke him
A pint of beer to rinse it down
A faggot of sticks to burn him
Burn him in a tub of tar
Burn him like a blazing star
Burn his body from his head
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hooray!
Hip hip hooray!

Thanks ITIWBS, it's a splendid old rhyme - n'est-ce pas?, (pardon my French), and not many people know it past the first two lines.

This is destined to be one of my/the shortest threads ever....I put it in as a light counterbalance to all the Hallowe'en stuff.

It's nice to have the full text here. I could only remember the first four lines, but then it *is* a very long time ago that I learned it in school.

One of my kids, when he/she (I don't remember which one it was!) was very young, had the 2nd line as:

Gunpowder trees in a plot

I wish he'd completed his mission

A forest of gunpowder trees?

Shouldn't want to take a walk in those woods.

I suppose I could go even more off-the-wall.

So I was watching the film "Mars Attacks" and there came the development that the "Mars Attacks" aliens were nitrogen breathers.

Nitrogen breathers!?! How could that be?

Then it hit me, visions of Donald Duck's speckled nitrogen experiments running through my head.

You take a pound of alien hamburger, a pound of terrestrial hamburger, knead them together into a ball, insert a blasting cap and stand back a safe distance before detonating.

Another variation on the theme is founded on Isaac Asimov's suggestion that the high volume of super-oxides in the Martian regolith may be due to the action of super-oxide fixing bacteria in the Martian soil. (Only an exhaustive microscopic examination can definitively settle the question.)

At any rate, if bacteria of the character are cultured together in the same soil with terrestrial nitrogen fixing bacteria, the results should be obvious. (The principle was used to good effect in one of the more recent "Red Planet" movies with respect to the popping insectoids and related trouble that came up when a terraform effort ran into some of the native ecology, generating a mixed system.)

Meanwhile, back at the Opera (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tracking Apparatus) experiment in Italy:

The barman says to him "what'll you have?"

A neutrino walks into a bar.

What good does it do for nitrogen and oxygen to be fixed in the soil on Mars? Those are the components of air, but no one could breathe them as long as they are in the soil.

In context of the film, the combo was supposed to be releasing elevated amounts of oxygen into the air when they reacted.

http://10starmovies.com/Watch-Movies-Online/Red_Planet_2000/

The humor on the other hand has to do with the fact that the combination of reducing biochemistry (ours) taken in combination with an oxidizing biochemistry (super-oxide fixing bacteria) would have to be explosive.

(...or "Mars Attacks" UFO space aliens...)

http://10starmovies.com/Watch-Movies-Online/Mars_Attacks_1996/

OK, I give in. You've lost me.

Think I'll eat

Post 11 was a particle physics joke. If you don't get it, Google "neutrinos" or "faster than light" to see what it's on about.

This is a general point, not a reply to el D.

OK.

Anyone for?

A neutrino laced walks into a bardoes that mean you CAN'T have your and eat it, it was there before you ?

It's a jam-filled Victoria sponge. Does that make any difference?

mmm! not sure ?