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

Hi again Just Zis,

Nice to catch up with you again. Great article about a much overlooked man. Also good to see that you have not succumbed to the idiocy of politically correct BCE and BC dating for years - something so jarringly incongruous to a piece on Bede!!

Happy first New year of the new Millennium.

Walter.

Good to see an article on His Venerableness. My school was named after him and we were always told he was the patron saint of scholars and an extrememly suitable role model for us young students.

Greetings, Walter. Yes, Bede was quite a figure by all apearances. This is mostly the result of one of my four hour research splurges, as well as some memories from school Founders' Days (although he'd been dead some two hundred years before my school was founded, so I can't think what the connection was).

What do you think of http://www.h2g2.com/A503957 - does it have potential?

Hi Just Zis,

Cobber, it must surely have BIG potential, but on this as in many other things, I am no judge. My knowledge of such matters is abysmal, although I need to confess that this is to some extent deliberate. I suspect that a few Luddites, like me, will find the article too long and too impenetrable. But don't by any means be discouraged: we would-be historians of advancing years and enlarged girths really don't want or need electronic wizardry beyond word processing and access to the Internet and email.

By the way, I didn't read your Bede article as claiming that the Venerable one had actually invented BC/AD dating. The fact remains that it was unquestionably him that took the concept and gave it practical application and to my knowledge no-one has ever claimed otherwise. Newton didn't 'invent' gravity nor Galileo the fact that the earth revolved around the sun, but they are still entitled to the credit for those concepts gaining widespread acceptance. Take care,

Walter.

Your points are sound and wise, as ever. Luddites... what does the Guide have to say on the subject of Luddites? (exeunt stage left, muttering).

Hey Just Zis,

Don't despair of us Luddites. I thought electronic calculators and typewriters heralded the end of civilisation as I knew it. Word processors etc will make handwriting redundant in the not too distant future. But you know what? Outrageously expensive fountain pens will still sell like hot cakes. Had you noticed that as handwritten communication and standards of literacy decline markedly, there is an exponential increase in the numbers of Mont Blancs, Watermans etc sold?

Which John Williams, the one most famous as an Oz guitarist or the one most famous as a composer of scores like Star Wars?

Walter

The guitarist.

Hi Just Zis,

That's quite a coincidence, because I was playing one of his albums yesterday, an old number, mostly recordings from the early seventies, but still superb. And Segovia, of even earlier vintage. I've never met anyone really famous, unless you count politicians (which I don't)although I was introduced last week to Geoffrey Blainey, one of Australia's most illustrious and controversial historians. Take care,

Walter.