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

My colleague is away this week and we have a huge order coming in. It requires a lot of concentration on my part and is peppered with obstacles as the new items created are blocked with some data missing somewhere back in the system. The telephone going all day and only me here to take all the phone calls in French means constant interruptions and returning to a list of over 100 items, sighing, and starting again. I was here really really late last night.

The French expression "Metro - boulot - dodo" occurred to me, except in my case it's "Velo - boulot - dodo".

That is what workers used to say who had to take the metro across Paris and had very long commutes to work.

Metro = Metro
Boulot = is argot for work
dodo = is baby talk for "sleep"
Oh - and "velo" is a bike.

i.e. - no time for anything else in between.


In other news - I very rarely have any problems with people here on hootoo. But there's someone who keeps making comments about Germany which are totally unqualified, ill-informed and unpleasant, as if we were still in the 1930's. It makes me and I want to from some otherwise fun conversations.

I suppose we should be glad that anyone's posting anything. I have never known the site to be so slow-moving. Looks like it's dying.

I posted this to the Limerick thread in my despair:

It looks much as if we are stranded
So little happening - hootoo disbanded?
I'll post and I'll write
if it takes me all night
to save this dear site single-handed

Well, it's not very good, I suppose, but it reflects this happening already last week.

I do my best to work only the hours for which I am paid, which is 7.25 hours a day, 4 days a week. When I occasionally have to work on a weekend, I take off twice the number of hours I worked.

This post has been removed.

This post has been removed.

Stop all the clocks,
Cut off the telephone,
And get this order sorted,
With no interruption.


(Apologies to W H Auden).

TC. I'll be sending some energy your way. I am impressed that you can deal with French so well. The numbers would be real confusing to me, I can barely do it in German.

I apologise for filling your journal with "Posting Removed" messages, TC. I posted two comments, one of which was quite rightly removed, but I've no idea what was wrong with the other one. I didn't receive any e-mail explaining, either.

Hi Gnomon,

I can confirm that auto-emails were sent from the moderators email account for both removed posts. They were sent to the email account associated with your h2g2 account. If you did not receive them, please contact us directly at [email protected] and we can re-send.

Also, I can personally attest to the fact that all of the Italics, myself included, are present on h2g2 on a more or less daily basis. No worries!


Hi TC,

If someone is making denigrating remarks about Germany or Germans, and as a result are driving you from otherwise enjoyable conversations, they are breaking h2g2’s House Rules. When you encounter such abuse, please use the Yikes button to refer the post to the moderators.

Regards,
psychocandy, Moderation Team Leader

Thanks, PC - it's more subtle than that. It didn't seem worth yikesing even, but it peeved me. This person obviously has no idea, but then, there are things I may have the wrong idea about, so I could be offending someone, too, somewhere.

I'm intrigued about Gnomon's posts. Was there some furrin words in them? I took care to translate mine, (still wincing after 10 years of not being able to post in foreign languages, but I generally understand the reasons for it)

Hi, TC. The moderators no longer remove posts just for having foreign words or phrases in them, provided their English equivalent(s) would not break the House Rules, and the likelihood that we could obtain a reasonable translation if we needed one is good. You are by all means welcome to do so!

Formidable!

(An attempt at trying to be French using h2g2 smileys)

Hey TC, working long hours can be a soul-sucking and thankless affair. So I leave you with some because protects us from soul-sucking, thankless jobs. Praise !



And I leave you with some because it really tastes good with . Better than even.



Plus I can't possibly drink all this by myself.

*sneaks a *

Help yourself, Amy!

I would love some or but I've discovered I seem to have given up alcohol for Lent. Just wait till after Easter though!