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

A87952981 Jadis, the White Witch - a character in CS Lewis's Narnia stories
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Thanks, BB. I saw this before I saw that it had been picked!

I hope I didn't spoil the surprise.

I've not got anything to add or change, so if you'd like to read through and let me know what you think. I'm not for a moment going to suggest that you include that Justine Lord played the White Witch for a few seconds in an episode of 'The Young Ones'

Not that it matters for this entry, but I had some thoughts on the question of Charn and its sun:

Either Charn itself changed orbit to remain in the 'Goldilocks zone', which in our Solar System currently stretches from roughly 0.8 – 1.8 AU (different scientists give different definitions) and during a Red Giant phase will stretch roughly 50-80 AU.

If the people of Charn are able to put themselves (and possibly other life?) in suspended animation, could this have been done to preserve life during the most dangerous times in the sun's expansion?

Or possibly the people of Charn moved to their current world from another one, possibly but not necessarily from within the same solar system.

Or life did not evolve on Charn until its sun was a red giant.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-planet-redgiant/first-known-planet-to-survive-red-giant-phase-found-idUSL1281159020070912?sp=true

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Or, as I suggested in the entry, the people of Charn were from Earth, from Atlantis, and they went to Charn using their magic dust after the sun had moved into its giant phase.

I've just one suggestion for the entry.

It is mentioned in two places that 7 feet is 2.13 metres. One of these is redundant.

I suggest that you remove the comment in brackets from this:

Other than being extremely strong and very tall (7 feet is 2.13m)

G

Okay I've changed that – do you have any other suggestions or is this ready to go?

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It looks OK to me

Just spotted this:

1906children's book

There should be a space after 1906.

Space – the final frontier, and now there's even more of it in and around 1906.

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I've just realised that the term "white witch" is often used these days by Wiccans to mean a woman who believes she can do magic but uses it only for good.

Do you think there should be some sort of note in this entry to acknowledge this other meaning of the phrase? The problem is wording it in a way that doesn't insult Wiccans but also doesn't claim they are capable of doing magic.

Or should we just ignore this?

I would have thought that the (Narnia) White Witch is such an established character now that it isn't actually needed. Especially as apparently the use of terms such as 'white magic' = good and 'black magic' = bad is increasingly frowned on these days, with the use of 'high magic' and 'low magic' preferred.

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Congratulations! Your Entry is on the Front Page today

Thank you! That's a great picture.