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

Entry: Filth: What Is It Good For? - A46416125
Author: Tibley Bobley - U170471

Here's the something I consider "emotionally overblown" for part two of The Stretcher Challenge.

Haven't often been up this end of h2g2, so I thought I'd better try to submit as early as possible, and give myself time to mend all the rules I might have broken - if some kind researcher(s) would put me right

Thank you.

Looks good to me, through I might not have the critical attention to detail that fome of the more experianced Peer Reviewers do, after all speling mishstakes often go unnoticed to me somehow.....

But... A good read; read through the whole thing without realising I was if you know what I mean... flowed nicely, pace was good, and the bit about the immune system seems accurate enough (I did Immunology and genetics MSc a few years back)
And, of course, I'm a bit of a fan of filth myself

Whew! What a relief. Thanks 2legs That's my sense of trepidation down a notch

It just read through really well which useually means to me at least their ain't no major gafs or suddnely out of place words that I tripped up over or which semed out of place in the piece As I say I'd only spot a really glaring speling erorr that happened to make a word look like it was pronounced wildly differntly from how it is ment too mind.... I was a little* bit disapointed.... I thought it might be about a differnt* kind of filth

Fun entry, and thoughtful with it. In school a million years ago they warned us against the 'Suzy Clean Complex'.

My only nitpick would be the word 'icky' near the end. (As usual, this may be a colonial reaction.) I know you wanted a semi-cute word, wonder if there's a better one to get the response there?

If not, leave it. Or go to the other extreme and say, degôutant (sp?), or some such.

Thanks dmitri I'll sleep on that icky. There must be a better word and I *will* find it!

Sorry to disappoint with the wrong filth 2legs

Off to raise a glass to Rab (I need it after all that muck)

Excellent entry very well done.

Just as an aside experiments with Roman Saxon and 17 century diets show we can on longer digest or keep down some of the foods, the gut has to be re educated to tolerate the food.

As someone whom the frankenfood industry is slowly killing (gluten allergy, lactose intolerance, nuts...what next?), I wish I were back in a dirtier age with better diet.

So there! *goes off in search of more rice cakes*

Thank you Bob That's interesting. What other animal on the planet, I wonder, has to have its gut educated to recognise food Makes you wonder...

Just dashing in in the lunch break to change icky to repellent. Sorry to hear you're having such problems with the diet dmitri. Years ago, I remember a woman telling me that she was on a stone-age diet because every kind of modern food (including grains of almost every type) made her ill. It seems that for every new 'convenience' there's some new inconvenience to cancel it out.

I think repellent works better.

And taking 'flare' (=flour) out of the diet of a Southerner amounts to torture...fried chicken ain't the same, no biscuits (home-made quick bread), gravy with corn starch, for heaven's sake...

As Wordsworth said, 'I'd rather be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn...'

Well done..

I like it

A good overview of a very interesting subject

A couple of little things:

Rather than footnoting the link to the Entry on the immune system, you could change the code to 'The immune system has been evolving...'

I'm not sure what you mean by "Although we may think of parasites and diseases as two different things, diseases are also parasites." Surely diseases and parasites *are* different things? Plasmodium, a parasite, causes malaria, a disease. And what about those diseases that aren't caused by parasites? Epilepsy, for example, or cirrhosis?

Well, I'll be....

That's what comes of not paying attention Danny B! I meant viral and bacterial diseases are parasites, just as the things we normally think of as parasites (worms, protozoa, amoeba) are. Thank you very much for that! I'm at work at the mo, but I'll rectify that omission (and change the link) later, when I get home

Thanks lil

I'm constantly amazed by what I don't see when I'm reading my own writing!

Oh, dmitri! What a pain in the neck that must be. Biscuits, cakes, gravy, bread.... It doesn't bear thinking about. You have my sympathy

That's you and me both then

Good catch on the diseases. I stumbled over that, but thought I was missing something, and went on...

Parasites are just trying to earn a living, like the rest of us.

I'm really glad I'm not the only one who misses such things.

Tibley, maybe you could somehow mention oysters as being filthy (for later linking)- that would close a circle nicely.

You could also get in a reference to the *other* kind of flith...

Which in the US used to be called 'smut', believe it or not. As in 'smut peddlers'...

Smut, filth, now your talking....

I vaguely remember that at least some forms of wheet/flour/glutin intollerance, or allergy I should say, are more akin to an autoimmune reaction, with an allergic 'kink' ... clucking bell its been so long since my degree.... hang on I'll have to find my clamps... I mean notes