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

For about 15 years now I have been planning to write an entry about something which happens every year in the Carnival season. I've done it again, haven't I? Carnival season is over next Wednesday and the damn thing is still in note form. No way it'll make the front page on time. So now I have another year to polish it up! I think I'll just write it this weekend and ask for it to go on the front page next year.

Is next year h2g2's 20 year anniversary? Surely there's life in the old girl yet?

As a Guide Editor, I say Do It!!!

If you write the Entry this weekend and put it in Peer Review, it will spend a few weeks there being read by reviewers before it is picked by a Scout. Then it will be in the process of being Sub-edited and illustrated for a few weeks, then it will be made Edited. Then it will join the queue for the Front Page, so that will be perfect for it to appear this time next year

I look forward to it,
I've been around since October 1969 and Amy's trip proved I'm not the only one<star

I love carnivals!

It's just that Carnival is at the coldest time of year in these parts. When I was a young gel, we were tripping in strappy high-heeled sandals through the snow. In the mid-seventies, before I had kids, and before anyone was worried about AIDS and other contagious diseases, the whole town would come out for the parade and bottles of Sekt and Schnapps would be passed down the street, everyone having a swig.

That alliteration is just crying out for a pome. Haven't written one in ages - not even a limerick. So here goes:

Streamers, booze and balloons
Jesters fools and buffoons
Four crazy wintery days
Of bingeing and sinful ways
Kids dressed as cats and princesses
Grown ups indulge in excesses
Speeches in rhyme from chancels and stages
A chance to perform for extraverts of all ages
From Thursday to Tuesday they all sing along
The silliest of songs
The cheeriest of throngs
They watched the parade
Till morning they stayed
But by Jove was it cold
Said the young and the old
When Ash Wednesday came round
And the frost on the ground
brought quotidian woes
And chillblains on toes
But one thing is clear
They'll repeat it next year


Sorry. The subject didn't offer itself for an off-the-cuff Limerick.

Oh well - I'd better get on with writing a shopping list. The shops shut earlier from now till Tuesday and the town will be cordoned off for the parade on Sunday. So I'll have to plan my weekend shop really carefully.

Our carnival's held in the snow.
I shiver when icy winds blow.
Hot cocoa's a must,
With fried dough or crust,
And then to warm quarters I go.

Very succinct. I was concentrating too much on the ingredients of the German carnival and couldn't squash it into a limerick. But you do cover my main point! It must be pretty cold in Israel even at this time of year. No wonder Jesus went to the desert.

There's a mountain ion Israelioccupied land, where people can go skiing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hermon_ski_resort

The hills around Bethlehem would have been pretty cold in late December, with at least some ice or frost covering them. The shepherds might well have camped out there to be sure their sheep were warm and safe.

Hey TC I like your pome!

It's all good.

we wrote articles about Karneval yonks ago. I keep forgetting before the event to remind the eds to put it on the FP