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

Chicken kievs are the best.

Well, actually Shakespeare is the best, but chicken kievs come a close second...

Hey - a kindred spirit!

Chicken Kievs rule. And so does (did?) Shakespeare. Favourite Shakespeare play? Mine's King Lear. Or maybe Richard III. Or possibly Othello....or Macbeth....Merchant of Venice.... erm...

I know the feeling. Whenever I try to name a favourite, I end up naming all of them.

However, my current favourites are Othello, Henry V, and Twelfth Night. And all the sonnets...

I think it's present tense... Shakespeare "does" rule... at least, I've never come across a writer better than him, in my opinion.

Last year I was in catered accommodation (at uni) and all the other students decided to go on strike about the food. I was one of the 7 or so who didn't, and so we had lots and lots of food - primarily chicken kievs that evening. I ate 10. Mmmmm....

Mmmm....Chicken Kiev...

Watch out for the Vegetable Kiev's, though. Sometimes in our uni canteen they try to trick us into getting veg when they know full well that what we really want is Chicken. Swines.

*cue cheesy Mulder type voice*

It's a conspiracy. It's all a conspiracy... It's all one big conspiracy. Conspiracy. Conspiracy. Ummmm.... anyway.

To go back to the other topic - do you live in England, and if so did you see the recent production of King Lear in Stratford starring Nigel Hawthorne? It was very, very good.

Yes - I live in England. Canterbury, in fact, but I'm from Merseyside originally - and proud of it.

So basically I wish I lived near enough to Stratford to see plays. I have to settle on the Marlowe theatre in Canterbury which puts on terrible musicals. Where are you from, then?

Originally from Swindon, now in Southampton, but still close enough to Stratford to get there occasionally. So far I've seen King Lear, Othello, and Antony & Cleopatra there. All very very good. But then, I would think that..

I'm hoping to get to London to see Ralph Fiennes' production of Richard II. Apparently it's rather good.

I'm jealous now...

But Canterbury is fairly close to London, isn't it? You can get there for plays, surely...

But, well, you know, there's this thing called money, and I don't have enough of it. I'm a student, for goodness sake. I can't afford to even eat properly, let alone go to London

And besides, I'm saving up to go to Kyrgyzstan in summer, so I'm living on the bare essentials. That is, crisps, Maltesers, bread, cheese and Chicken Tikka Sandwiches bought from the campus shop.

Such is the student life. If I already know this, then I'm sorry, but I often mislay information, (Behind the sofa or at the bottom of drawers, usually) but are you a student now? If so, where are you, what're you studying, etc, and if not, WHY NOT?

Well... I *am* a student (at Southampton Uni), although of course that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm studying anything...

I'm *supposed* to be studying aerospace engineering, although my grip on the subject has been slipping somewhat in recent weeks... you know how it is.

I understand about the lack of money that goes with being a student - tonight I start an evening job in an attempt to not be quite so short of money as I usually seem to be...

Kyrgyzstan sounds cool - what are you going to do there? Just holiday, or something else?

Hey, I hope the job is going well - what're you doing? I might get a job, but, well.....no.

Aerospace engineering? Is that, like, planes and stuff?

I'm going to Kyrgyzstan to work at a drop-in centre for street kids in the capital, Bishkek. It's with a Christian organisation called YWAM. I'm as nervous as hell about it and have to raise another £300 (I've already got £600 saved up). It's horrible seeing all that money in my account and not being able to touch it...sometimes I've had to have people physically restrain me from the cash machines...I can only buy food from now to the end of term

My job is very advanced. No, really... It's audio data analysis and processing... for that, read "a fairly boring transcription job".

Aerospace engineering - planes, trains, and... no wait. It's just planes, and spacecraft, and in fact any sort of vehicle that moves through the air at all. But not flying fish. Unfortunately.

WYAM - from what I've heard about them, it stands for Youth Without Any Money...

Good luck with the money-saving, and the trip itself... I'm sure it will be a very, um, what's the word, ah yes, life-enriching experience.

So after the end of term, you can't buy any more food...?

Yes - a life enriching experience. Although, to be honest, anything other than being at uni is bound to be life enriching.

Right now all I can buy is baked potatos with beans because it only costs 94p. I'm not sure how much longer I can stand it.

Maybe you should expand the field of aerospace engineering to include flying fish. I'm sure both the engineering and the flying fish worlds would be delighted and enriched (there's that word again)

Chicken kievs only cost £2.99 for four of them - so that's cheaper...

What? Where d'you get chicken kievs for £2.99?

That's ridiculous. In our canteen they cost about £1.50 each!!!

Or are you one of those weirdos who buys food and cooks...

Oh, hang on, you're not a first year, right? That would explain it.

I am theoretically a first year - I did a foundation year last year, and I lived in catered halls for that. But now I'm an *actual* first year, and living in a house. So yes, I have to cook...

Well, I've got all that to look forward to next year.

The one advantage of our house though is that it's got a brand spanking new power shower. It's a wonder to behold. And we'll be able to move in in...oh, about 6 weeks.

All I can say is - have fun!

Our shower, although apparently new, dribbles out water in an extremely feeble, uninspired way. Most annoying.

Just watched Ian McKellan's Richard III today - brilliant. Have you seen it?

The shower in our corridor is a strange phenomenon. First of all it sprayed water everywhere, so there was no point in having a shower curtain because water would flood the room anyway. Then one day a man in an overall came along and went into the shower room and started tinkering and banging on the pipes. We thought he was going to break it. Then he left and we turned it on and we got a tiny little dribble...which slowly turned to a tiny brown dribble...so then it was less of a case of having a shower as it was of letting dirty brown water trickle onto your head.
And then, after a few days, it suddenly started working like a dream. And it's been fine ever since. But we're all paranoid that someday soon the situation will change.

No, I haven't seen it. Richard III is perhaps my favourite play, so I wish I had. But oh well.