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

The place where you live now is really quite entertaning, balanced as it is on the very border between the fairly recognisable (though, this being London, still strataspherically expensive) houses over there and the never in a million years will you be able to afford that mansions, mews flats and elegant town houses over here. There is something rather sould destroying, of course, about torturing yourself by taking picturesque rambles around streets which ultimately just serve to underline exactly how underpaid you will remain the rest of your born days, but the route you choose to use to work has the advantage of taking in a road which, given that amount of money, is not one of those particularly high on your list of envious casas.

It isn't a main road, though, and therein lies the advantage of adding a couple of minutes to your journey.

Anyway, there you were, ambling down this pleasant street a couple of weeks ago, when you espy sitting on the bonnet of a dark blue expensive looking motor some thing rather luridly green. The rather pleasing contrast of colours cathes your eye and, with a wry grin of recognition, you idly assume that someone has just popped inside for something they have forgotton.

Futher inspection reveals the something to be a clod of long elegant looking but entirely unmistakable grass, which rather surprises you but it's not until you notice that it seems to be resting on the car without the benefit of it's oricinal plastic container that you joyfully start speculating on the exact circumstances of the appearance of the seemingly mundane item of flora, basing your daydram on the various interpretations of the word 'grass'.

At this point, you draw level with the veichle and look up.

And without a beat you weave the scruffy looking chap with his hands on his hips who is standing next to a van which is just enough out of place on this avenue to positively scream tradesman effortlessly into the story of mafia revenge with which you expect to entertain yourself over the next twenty minutes or so.

So the point at which you are passing him and he says "Excuse me" is actually slightly disappointing as being asked the time or the way by this hitherto mysterious figure with distinct possibilities is going to be a bit of a letdown.

But it is with genuine surprise that you hear the words, said rather aggressively:

"Do you trust the police?"

At which point your imagnation promptly explodes with excitement.

But the worst of it is that you will ALWAYS regret not actually stopping and asking, delightedly, what was actually going on.

Joey Tortellini watched the sunny bespectacled blond reach the end of the street and make to cross diagonally the road perpendicular, in doing so disappearing out of sight behind a gable end.

At which, he turned, and with one almighty blow, smacked the side of Alonzo's face with a bunched-up fist. "Ow many f**kin times do I af to tell you NOT to draw attention to our selfs?"

Alonzo had endured many such abuses and simply stood, not that such an action would have given him the opportunity to employ any other adverb even if he had known how. The blow meanwhile had been sufficiently violent to diametrically counteract any pretence of secrecy that Joey may have harboured. Curtains certainly twitched. A telephone may even have left its cradle en route to some wizzened and elderly feminine aural organ.

"Come on. Now we'll af to be quick. Sod. Inside. Now."

***

"So, lads. You got my grass?"

"Yes, Mr. Diablo. Course. Alonzo ..."

Joey stood palms and eye-brows raised expectantly. Alonzo's synapses whirred and clicked audibly like antique telephonic switchgear before he recognised what was expected and proffered forward the rolled up clod.

Mr. Diablo looked at the miniature green carpet that unfurled before him. Even a life of quasi-violence and Guy Ritchie-esque stupidity at the higher echelons of the class B narcotics market had not prepared him for this moment.

"WHAt the F**K is THAT?", he spat not without rhythm.

"It's grass Mr. Diablo, as requested".

"I can see it's grass, you bleedin' imbecile. It's green, it's bladelike, it look likes it's been lifted from the middle of STAMFORD F****N' BRIDGE. Now if this Saturday's game is in any way disrupted ..."

Alonzo shuffled and shot worried sideways glances from his shoes to Joey Tortellini, clearing his throat as he did so. Mr. Diablo just continued.

"Joey. Look at me. I'm sellin' grass ..."

"... Yes, course we know that Mr. Diablo, look, smell it. It's top notch ... make a lovely lawn ..."

Joey plucked a few blades between his thumb and index-finger and offered them to Mr. Diablo, as if he was proposing to share a toke. But Mr. Diablo swept Joey's hand aside, the green strands fell swiftly to the bone shag pile that carpeted the floor Mr. Diablo's establishment.

"GRASS, Joey, GRASS. Ganja, weed, pot Skunk. I'm a drug dealer, not a f****n' turf accountant. Now F**K OFF out of 'ere. And take your little piece of Wentworth with you."

Oh superb!

I think this was more what I had in mind:

'It didn’t register at first.

At first it was just something to frown over as Peter strode down his driveway fumbling for the keys and getting ready to activate the chirp of a disengaging lock. Outrage began building as he contemplated the idiocy of his wife in insisting that this was a perfect place to start social climbing from. Sure, the postcode was impressive, but was it worth putting up with the scaff and raff who messed up the genteel view of the thing by treating it as a throughfare to better things from their grotty bedsits two streets over? He could see one of them disappearing round the corner now. No doubt the offering languishing on his BMW bonnet was some kind of misaimed piece of rubbish she hadn’t the decency or the knowhow to aim properly at a bin, as people from any civilised country would do. Not that he was against immigrants of course. Tracy wouldn’t be able to manage without that girl from Poland coming in twice a week to help out. But he really wished they knew their place.

But even as he was moving an angry arm in anticipation of sweeping the whatever it was prementorarily onto the ground, he paused. Grass? Why on earth would someone be letting fall clumps of grass all over the place?

And then it hit him.

They’d found out. They’d found him. They were coming for him. This was a warning. He’d heard they liked to play before they put the boot in. Kept the rest in line.

Peter looked wildly around and immediately spotted the third out of place blot on his landscape as the hard-looking man in worryingly practical coveralls strode in a measured but purposeful fashion directly towards him, an angry scowl underlining the menace of the situation. He froze in panic and watched his doom approach.

But there was a way out.

Frantically he pulled at the car door, before remembering it needed to be unlocked first. The bruiser came slowly closer. Sliding inside, he scrabbled to get the keys in the ignition, dropping them twice. And still the thug got nearer, waving his arms now and starting to speak as he saw his quarry getting away. The engine engaged in a roar of revs and crunching the gears in a way that would have him weeping on any other day, weeping, Peter pulled away.

Tom stopped dead from his charge down the street and watched the blue car crash through a red light and immediately get sideswiped by the big bus from the big bus company barrelling on its way to Big Ben. Later they told him that the chap inside hadn’t had a chance, smashed as he was into the no.10 coming the other way. Pity about all those tourists, of course, but there it was.

Odd too, that the man seemed to have got himself so worked up. Afterall, it was he, Tom, who should be livid.

He’d come back to pick up a few bits and bobs in preparation for starting work at number 23, nothing to fancy, a bit of replanting and general weeding, to see one of those mounted policemen they insisted on putting onto the beats round this way ambling past his van. And blowed if the the stupid nag didn’t reach in the back and take a firm mouthful of the ornamental rye grass destined for Mrs Trebbit’s windowboxes, pull it right out of its box, take a few contemplative mouthfuls, before spitting it out all over some poor blokes expensive motor down the road.

It didn’t register at first.

In fact it took him a full ten minutes as he watched the copper disappear, oblivious into the distance, before he could speak at all. Properly put the wind up that dizzy piece of work who had the misfortune to be walking past when his brain finally recovered from the shock.

Served her right, sauntering down the road without a care in the world as though he hadn’t seen 100 pounds worth of infrastructure go up in saliva.'

But I like yours better.

We'll put it in AWW/Post?

What, the whole thing, as a sort of competition? Or just your bit?!

OK, I was having a little think, and I decided that while I am rather enjoying the idea of expanding the whole thing to garner further examples for an entry for AWW, the disadvantage of running a competition (in the post, say) would be that, assuming anyone answered it, actually having to choose.

Of course we could just invite submissions, but then what if we got 200 (perhaps slightly overoptimistic, but...). Then we'd have to... er, choose. You'll note I say we as I certainly would be coopting you should such a horrendous circumstance arise.

But it might work if we put it in AWW and then invited submissions on a strictly first come first served basis, with some kind of time limit, would it not? How do you fancy that? I just rather like the conceit of challenging people to come up with bizzare explanations for the whole thing.

OK, I was having a little think, and I decided that while I am rather enjoying the idea of expanding the whole thing to garner further examples for an entry for AWW, the disadvantage of running a competition (in the post, say) would be that, assuming anyone answered it, actually having to choose.

Of course we could just invite submissions, but then what if we got 200 (perhaps slightly overoptimistic, but...). Then we'd have to... er, choose. You'll note I say we as I certainly would be coopting you should such a horrendous circumstance arise.

But it might work if we put it in AWW and then invited submissions on a strictly first come first served basis, with some kind of time limit, might it not? How do you fancy that? I just rather like the conceit of challenging people to come up with bizzare explanations for the whole thing.

I like your first explanation just as much as the second. Should we submit our efforts as examples or as entries?

Trout

PS You're russianish. I've got one of those Yeltsin matrooshkas. But I can't get Gorbachev's head out from inside Boris. It's been stuck before and brute force won over, but this time it's even stucker than ever. Any hints other than mechanical means?

Look at the man, laughing at the woman who, in a fit of irritation at the webjello, started pounding on the enter key. Before noticing she'd got a word wrong.

Well, I was thinking examples, since there is no way in hell that we don't get to include ours ... OK, I'll try making an entry out of it on Sat then, and submit for your approval. You don't think the AWW will mind that we are making up an entry as we go then?

As for your other problem. Does heat make wood expnd and cold make it contract? Or is it the other way round? Either way that will mean either bunging it in the freezer or holding it over the kettle. But this is not an approved Russian method, you understand. The approved Russian has gone to work...

OK, so I've cobbled it into an entry, and cobbled is the word as I can't make it make us both writers, or me at all in fact, and my links don't seem to work, not to mention the fact that it looks a bit odd at the moment. I can't think of a better title, and perhaps each stroy could be given a title, which would at least make it clear where one ended and another began, but wrestling with anything this computer related has tired me out, so I'll retire and leave you in possessio of the feild should you so wish it... A2676620

The hard work is done. I can't edit it, not being the editor after all. Maybe the two endings could be in different fonts. Or colurs? So they are easily definable. As Boots says underneath it all, tidy piece of editing ...

Different fonts are probably doable. I probably won't be able to have another concerted fiddle until the weekend again, though.

It's quite long as it is, don't you think? I was wondering whether it wouldn't perhaps do as it is after all. After all, anyone can add to it in threads, and if they are quick enough...

Have had a glorious fiddle. Do you like your font? Rekon it's ready now. Final decision time: AWW? Sans competition, but with the possibility of adding something if someone gets the point?

Good job sunny pseudo-Russian one.

Now bang it in AWW. It is after all a workshop. Maybe someone will epiphanise.

MT

Done ... F74130?thread=429821&post=5407241#p5407241