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

A welcoming environment with fine teas and coffees and specialty drinks. If no caretaker is here the IIEM (Infinite Improbability Espresso Machine) will fill your order.

*A, somewhat surprised at being first, man enters the cafe*

IIEM, lemon tea and two asprins please. Rugby score? Don't ask. Sob.

Let me. -----------> ^}~{^ and o o

It's going to be quiet all weekend, I fear. As good a time as any to start a tidy new forum. Console yourself with the ringside seat you will have for the Olympics, being in the same time zone bracket and all.

I'm quite looking forward to the Olympic coverage. I attended the Games in Munich in 1972. An excellent experience (apart from the Israelie athletes massacre of course).

One of our TV channels is taking blanket coverage from first-thing in the morning to close-down at night.

TV Coverage has been the scourge of the American Olympic experience, which for me hit its nadir in Seoul, when a breakfast-show host named Bryant Gumbel was emcee-in-chief. I was looking forward to the equestrian coverage, but Gumbel didn't know anything about horses, so he made sure we got lots of boxing instead, since that's what ~he~ was interested in.

And then there were the Opening Ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in Japan. They wired a 15-year-old skater named Tara Tapinski so that she could describe the experience of being in the march while it was happening. And, when it came to the Ode to Joy, the TV people just couldn't stand it. The POV skittered from camera to camera and then they quickly broke for a whole bunch of commercials, absolutely convinced that the US audience wouldn't stand for a bunch of dancers acting out to some classical choral crap. I was very depressed. Back to Tara. How are you feeling Tara, what's it like?

Laughs. NZ TV used to take the American feed of the Winter Olympics. It was so excrutiatingly bad, one-eyed and trivilised, that after thousands of complaints we now take CBS Canada's coverage.

Married NZ equestrian, Mark Todd, winner of 2 individual Gold Medals, (Los Angeles, Seoul) is under a lot of pressure to pull out of the NZ team for Sydney. England's Sunday Mirror newspaper recently set him up in a unprotected gay sex, cocaine snorting, sting.

Think I don't know who Mark Todd is! But I didn't know he was still competing. I hope NZ ignore the Sunday Mirror, a real bastion of intellectual overachievement if there ever was one. Only the Sun has more class.

One is surprised that NZ doesn't turn out more world-class eventers than it does. Must be difficult to get the horses back and forth from England, where the bluest-blood 3-day events take place.

Todd's problem, with some of the more red-necked NZ media, is he hasn't confirmed or denied the story.

In NZ, equestrian sports are participated in by your average, non-wealthy, person. If someone gets a top horse the money offered is mind-boggling. Most people sell.


New Zealand Olympic equestrian medals

Gold
Mark Todd, individual three-day, 1984
Mark Todd, individual three-day, 1988
Blyth Tait, individual three-day, 1996

Silver
New Zealand, team three-day, 1992
Sally Clark, individual three-day, 1996

Bronze
New Zealand, team three-day, 1988
Blyth Tait, individual three-day, 1992
New Zealand, team three-day, 1996

Hi there IIEM, finest Kenyan please.

*flops on the comfy sofa and opens the Sunday snoozepaper*

Turned out nice again

Hallo eatsmice. It's another blinding hot and humid day here in central Florida.

*puts water on to boil for tea*

Hi there Lil,

Spent last week on Tenerife, up to the north of the island.....pleasantly warm 28C.......bit better than our 17C here

Any mbougatses on the go?

*mouth waters in hope....*

*floating in, in her usual vague, elf-like manner*

G'evening, all!

IIEM, un café mélange, s'il vous plait!

eatsmice: ---------> m==

*walks in*

Hi can I have some iced tea please? I'm sooo hot - not 'cause of the weather but because we have the heater on in out front room. ugh.

*starts flicking through the travel brochures of the future to try to make sure she can be somewhere other than Manchester in July/August 2002*

G'night all!

*drifting off, in her usual v.e.l.manner*

---------> [%]
Hi Joanna!

Hi Lil... dare I ask how's the plumming?

Hey Lil, any chance of another Kenyan?

*Chomps happily on mbougatses made in heaven*

Bit cool doon sooth Joanna?

Autumnal. Bright but a little chilly. But I don't want to get away in 2002 'cuz of the weather...

How's it up North?

Warm enough....was in snorkeling for about an hour this afternoon in the sunshine......!

Why 2002?