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

Why not dispense with the duct tape (till later) and inviting them for a drink?

... the very young ones aren't allowed to drink.

Of course! I should have realized!

They also wouldn't been found in singles bars.

The young one's that is, unless they have good fake ids.

The really TINY ones sneak into singles bars with bits of cheese and pineapples on their spines, masquerading as ambulatory small eats. When someone tries to pick em up, well ...

Well you get nice nibbles at least.

... "Drink to me only with thine quills ..." (famous fragment of porcupine poetry)(you have to be a porcupine to understand the piercing profundity of the piece)

hmm, can't say I think much of the editing job... just going and blockquoting the whole thing...

This is silly.

You know, DNA's page says that the H2G2's info bank currently consists almost entirely of gaps. I'm not entirely sure that I wouldn't want "how to pick up a porcupine" as a way to solve this problem, after reading that.

I speck it's easier to pick up hedgehogs.

And how would you go about picking up a hedgehog?

Let's not forget that the The Guide is about Life, the Universe and Everything. 'How to Pick Up A Porcupine' is an excellent entry - it's well written, fact-based and has the flavour of a one-off about it - and I can think of no good reason not to include it. Today's Recommended entry is 'Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus', a superb entry that has been checked and contributed to by the h2g2 medical team (a team of practising doctors). One can argue that these two entries serve as bookends chartering the wide spectrum of entries one can expect to find in The Guide (from 'How to Pick Up A Porcupine' to 'Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus').

Many entries do not find their way in to the Approved Guide because they contain no facts - they are written 'humorously' for humour's sake. Maybe then, they can be described as silly. This does not apply to the entry 'How to Pick Up A Porcupine'.

Generally speaking Approved Guide entries are written in the third person. Editorially, 'How to Pick Up A Porcupine' posed a problem in that it was written almost entirely in the first person, and all my attempts to render into a 'third person' piece robbed the entry of all that had initially drawn me to it in the first place.

I felt strongly that it had a place in the Approved Guide and so I got round the problem by calling the entry 'A Personal Perspective' and quoting the author in blockquotes. This is not the norm, but the editorial team will occasionally use this method for certain 'one-off' entries.

I second and third everything Sam has said above. It is these types of entries that make the Guide what it is.

Well, hedgehogs aren't as sharp as porcupines. It would probably be not much harder than picking up a pincushion or a sea urchin, except that hedgehogs wiggle about.

I agree - great entry - belongs in the guide... no argument from me there.

I just would have preferred it to have been written in the third person - or for more of it to have been written in the third person, with occasional blockquotes. If you tried this, and it was entirely impossible, then such is life, and I take back what I said... (you just can't see how *ugly* large blockquotes look on this PC... )

I also thought that nearly all of the guide was a personal perspective, of one kind or another, and that it was unnecessary to add this to the title. As a good example "Durex Condoms" is *very* personal in large sections, but it doesn't have that qualifier.

MyRedDice - needs a sense of perspective

Yeah...I've picked up a couple of sea urchins in my day, with a well-timed wink and a careful hand at the nearby aquarium..

I haven't; I've just assumed it was easier than a porcupine, even without duct tape.

But as to the silly thing, whether this information is going to come in handy someday is entirely problematical.

Picking up Hedgehogs is fairly easy, and the quills don't really hurt unless the lil' devil doesn't know you.. You just reach down and scoop the lil' critter up, and rub the quills in small circles to get them to relax.. My girlfriend breeds them so I've lucked into a lil' experience in the area of picking up Hedgies..

Your girlfriend breeds hedgehogs? That's a very unusual hobby...

I wish I had a hedgehog.

And they aren't natural citizens of America, so it'll probably cost a fortune.

I remember many years ago in Halesowen - a small town in the West Midlands of England - my Dad taking out a small saucer of milk late at night and placing it on the front garden of our little family home. It was a moon-bright night and we were all watching, hidden in the porch, waiting for a hedgehog to appear (my Dad had told us that he kept seeing the same one at night whenever he returned home from his job). And sure enough the little fella appeared, shuffling along quietly, and headed straight for the milk, taking little thirsty hedgehog sips from the saucer.