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

I really want to be more social here on h2g2. Does anyone have tips on making friends or KEEPING friends here? Or would anyone here like to chat? I'm really interested in just about anything, where you live, what *you* are interested in. I'll do my best to be friendly and positive!

Well, you've already got me as a friend, so I'll just watch.

I'm your friend too, but I'm a bit lazy... I don't journal too often, and I'm not very good to keep a conversation going. My attention span seems to have gotten lost somewhere.
But still, I'm happy to chat if you can forgive absences and scatterbrains.

Dmitri, you could of course chat here if you want to! Anyone can ...

Anyways hi Milla and thanks for dropping by! Well ... how about I tell you a bit about South Africa and Sweden? In the seventies and eighties there were a few children's TV shows that were translated from Swedish into Afrikaans and shown here! One was 'Emil I Lönneberga' but here it was just 'Emil'. I can't remember much of it, I was a bit small then, only that Emil was very naughty and played pranks on people. Another one was 'Pippi Långstrump' which was 'Pippie Langkous' in Afrikaans, I liked that one a lot because she was so strong, had a treasure of gold and could basically do what she pleased!

Another Swedish story series but which came to us via Japan was the adventures of Nils Holgersson. That was a bit later. But I can remember reading some of these stories in a book before the TV series came out. It, too was translated into Afrikaans.

So anyways I hope you find that interesting!

Hullo Willem! A Swedish story, translated into Afrikaans, that came to you via Japan? This is a well travelled story, , and cosmopolitan, and in a book and on TV!

You were raised on some unusual things! Of course, it's the way you describe it, it sounds so exotic!



I wonder, how much are we affected and influenced by the books/TV shows/music that we are exposed to, say, before the age of ten?

I remember a very scary series on TV, shown in the early 60s, I must have been about eight when I saw it. It was called The Singing Ringing Tree. I think it was German? in origin, I think there were overdubs rather than subtitles. It was soooo scary. I remember a rock turning into a bear, and I never recovered. .

Or did the bear turn into a rock? hmm. One way or another, I'm still scared.



What age were you, Willem, when you did your first drawing? Were you a natural from the start? A born artist? Did you draw what you saw around you?

Emil was a sweet boy who never really meant to do harm, he just had bad luck And Pippi was also one of the big characters when I grew up.
When I grew up, South Africa was the place of Apartheid, which seemed awfully strange and unfair, and of Mandela, who I knew very little about, actually. Now and then news from unrest in several parts of South Africa.
Childrens shows often had stories from Africa. Animated little films, and sometimes even filmed mini-documentaries about children, but sadly it wasn't always clear to me *where* in Africa. It's such a big place, and it's not fair to bunch a whole continent up like that.

Hi Milla and Cactuscafé! Cactuscafé, I don't know if you know Milla, she comes from Sweden which is why I speak of it!

Thanks for telling me a bit more about Emil, Milla! I only remember the opening song of the show, and a few disconnected images. The show was on just when South Africa decided to try out this strange foreign thing called television! I watched TV mostly when we were visiting my grandparents, they had a big colour TV in their flat. In the late seventies my parents also got us a TV, but it was a tiny black-and-white set! So most of the TV I remember from back then was what I saw at my grandparents. But because we were visiting the grown-ups were usually talking so I could often not hear everything!

What we knew of Sweden was pretty much all-positive: a large country very far in the north where Vikings used to live, where most people were blond and blue-eyed, with vast stretches of conifer forest, where ABBA came from!

As for South Africa: this country has a lot more than it seems is shown to people overseas. It has pretty much always been a harsh and unfair country, with different peoples fighting each other for many reasons. There are so many different kinds of people here! This is perhaps something people overseas should understand. It is at the root of much of the conflict. We have Europeans, like us Afrikaners who are mostly descended from Dutch people, and the English, then we have tiny remnant of the Khoisan peoples, we have people of mixed ancestry (such as descendants slaves who had children by their European 'masters' ... a group that today is very large and is considered a distinct ethnicity), we have people who came down south fairly recently from tropical Africa: the Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Venda, Tswana, Tsonga, Ndebele, Swazi, and some others. There has been violent warfare between Europeans and almost all of those, and wars between different ones of those groups. In the early nineteenth century there was a mad dictator, Shaka, who tried to conquer all other peoples and establish a Zulu empire, and the warfare he instigated was incredibly violent. At the end of the nineteenth century the British waged war against the Afrikaners, largely as a result of the gold and diamonds that had been discovered here. The second and third world wars triggered serious internal conflicts here. In the twentieth century, the main issue in South Africa had become the strategic minerals we possess and which the rest of the world wants very badly. After the wars the politics became very manipulative and there was a lot of propaganda and ideology almost to the point of being a psychological war against the entire population for the sake of the elite who wanted to enrich themselves. This is the backdrop for Apartheid and also the on-going social struggles here.

But the thing is ... if you consider all the conflict and all the reasons for conflict, actually we are doing extremely well and getting along with each other great! We also forgive each other very quickly. After the Boer wars the Afrikaans and English people reconciled rapidly and now there's pretty much no enmity between us. Also after Apartheid there has been a very great degree of peace-making between white and non-white people, and socially today we get along fine. Except for a few people who cannot get over the nastiness of the past ... white as well as non-white. But we still face enormous challenges.

Also this country is very beautiful with such a diverse wildlife ... it goes WAY beyond what is shown in most documentaries set in Africa!

Anyways now I hope you can tell me a bit about Sweden! I think the country is beautiful and the language fascinating ... I can only understand a very little bit of it!

OK Cactucafé, you ask about childhood influences! First it was my father. He was an artist, a poet, a librarian. With him my sister and I did lots of little artistic things like making figurines and masks from clay. We had a pottery oven and fired them in there! My father drew for me and read to me. I am sure that was a massive influence. I started painting when I was 5 and from the beginning I showed talent! Everybody else said so and when I look at my old little drawings, I think I might have been a better artist then than I am now! I did not in fact draw what I saw around me. I drew many imaginary scenes featuring imaginary creatures, and also creatures I had never seen in life but only in books!

I was also influenced by the countryside. From a very young age I went into the 'veld' and looked at the birds, plants, landscape and found various interesting things in it. I always loved living things.

I was also influenced by living in the great city of Pretoria! There were many interesting places we went to: the museum of natural history, the public aquarium, the zoo, the art museum, and I even enjoyed the libraries such as the university library where my dad worked, the public library and various other libraries.

I was influenced by friends too. At least as a child I managed to make many friends. My first English friends whom I made when I was 5 or 6 or so gave me a stimulus for learning the language. I would say in that respect TV helped a lot because I could watch the English language shows and figure out what the people were saying! I began reading English pretty much as soon as I began reading Afrikaans.

Now I must see if I can find anything about 'The Singing Ringing Tree'!

eeek! no! not the Singing Ringing Tree haha

Hullo Milla and Willem!

No, I haven't met Milla! Hullo Milla! So you come from Sweden? That's interesting. I've never been to Sweden, wish I had. So you're another gifted linguist on hootoo, fluent in two languages? Very amazing.

What's the best music to come out of Sweden? Ah, ABBA of course, I know that. Not kidding either, I'm an ABBA fan. So is Willem, I seem to remember. heheh. You must get fed up with people mentioning ABBA. I love them, though, seriously.

Who are the best Swedish rock bands?

I don't know anything about Swedish literature, famous authors or poets or anything. Yikes, so much to learn!



That's a good little potted history of South Africa, Willem! Thanks! I love it when you write .... '... if you consider all the conflict and all the reasons for conflict, actually we are doing extremely well and getting along with each other great! We also forgive each other very quickly'.

I find that very moving.

Ahh, and that's so interesting about your early influences. Your father sounds like he was a very special man. I shall think about him now, every time I'm in a library, funny that, you must have somehow painted the essence of his spirit in words.

And does this prove that artistic talent is perhaps in part a genetic inheritance? I wonder.

My father was a special man also, , I still miss him. He was a poet also, a lot of his poems were based on the philosophies of Teilhard de Chardin, but I still can't understand the Noosphere . Probably never will.

My life, I (sort of) know everyone in this thread.

Hi Willem,

I be the Magwitch, I help Dmitri with the post and read your entries *before* almost everyone else, they are most excellent, sir.


If you're all ABBA fans I do have a most intriguing little album by a rock band. The album is 'Black Sabbath Tribute to ABBA'. The band is *not* Black Sabbath. It's just a collection of ABBA songs 'remixed' (as it were) with classic rock songs.

Sadly I cannot find a Youtube link for any of the songs, but that album (acquired I don't know where) is absolutely brilliant.

I'm here, and reading--but most of you (and certainly Willem) know that I'm pretty quiet, most times.

Mille, I don't know whether you've seen this, but the BBC had an interesting story of moving a mining town in Sweden called Kiruna. It is an interesting bit of logistics.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26447507

I wish everyone there good luck. Moving 20,000 people is quite a feat.

I hadn't seen that particular article, and not the details that were in it, but I had heard that they're moving the whole town. It's kind of scary that it might just sink through the ground.

Evening all!

That is quite a feat, moving a town two miles East. If you put that in a song, people would say it was a surreal lyric that meant nothing 'they moved my town two miles East'

hah! but it is quite literal.

And just reading about this mysterious album that Magwitch mentions here. Black Sabbath tribute to ABBA, , that isn't anything to do with Black Sabbath? huh again? Mind you, I can't imagine the Sabs covering ABBA. This is incredible. I feel my consciousness moving two miles East. . I will check it out, and will probably own a copy by the end of next week. .

Mufflewhump! There's that magic word again! heheh.

Ah hootoo, what dear, sweet and interesting people and conversations you do attract.

Cactuscafé, 'The Singing Ringing Tree' has been voted the 20th spookiest TV show ever in a Radio Times poll!

Ooh, Swedish music! Well I happen to like: The Cardigans; Opeth; Soilwork; Falconer; Therion; Diablo Swing Orchestra; Dragonland; Meshuggah; Hysterica; Katatonia; Sofia Karlsson ... and a few years ago there was Roxette (I didn't like their later stuff so much). I'll see if I can find some more, there has to be! Milla, your faves?

Hi Magwitch! Thanks a lot for your help and kind words! And here is the Black Sabbath Tribute band performing ABBA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDoPdMwE1qo

I'm sure this is what you're thinking of?

Well Black Sabbath isn't too bad themselves!

Hi Amy! Still, we all would appreciate an actual word from you every now and then!

Hi Elektra, thanks for that fascinating link! Over here they would not go to that sort of trouble.

Cactuscafé, gimme some time and I'll tell you more about the noosphere!

Anyways news from over here. A friend in Canada wanted to buy a couple of my paintings, so today I had them sent over there by courier. So now I'm just very tense waiting that they arrive safely over there, and then we have to figure out how to manage to payment. If this works out I'll be very happy!

Really???? The 20th spookiest TV show?? Now I am legitimately traumatised, and my entire life takes on a new perspective. .

I wonder what was voted the spookiest TV show? I daren't think. Dr Who and the daleks could be close to the top of the list.

Holy roses, Willem my friend, you know your Swedish music then! And I've never heard of any of these, except for the Cardigans! The Cardigans! of course, and I thought I was a music expert. damn. So I have my weekend homework sorted!



Ahh, a YouTube link to Magwitch's weird Sabs. . Really?? They're out there, then, it's true all true. heheh. I'm going to check this after supper, I must eat before I fall into the crack between worlds. . I need calories for the journey.



Congratulations!!!!! You sold a couple of paintings! Do we get to know which paintings, or is it a secret?

How long will they take to get to Canada? Do they have to change planes? How do you package them for travel? Maybe a major bubble wrap situation or perhaps even a special hard case, like a fragile musical instrument.

Teach me the Noosphere in a paragraph, and I will be eternally grateful, and give you a listen of my Not Really Black Sabbath doing Jonathan Livingstone Seagull covers. I'm being stupid, I must eat.

I love it. heheh, just listened while eating peas and veg chilli pie. Very good for the digestion. I'm grooving while I choke. . All Magwitch's fault. Not really. Anyway, I'm insured. They say the band is a mix of ABBA, Sweet and Golden Earring, nice mix, who are they?

Hi again! Cactuscafé, these are the paintings I sent to my friend in Canada.

Forktailed Drongo:

http://willemsvdmerwe.deviantart.com/art/Forktailed-Drongo-341661576

Brown Snake Eagle:

http://willemsvdmerwe.deviantart.com/art/Brown-Snake-Eagle-341165278

They said the paintings should be in Canada around Tuesday! I just put them between two thick cardboard sheets. The couriers will perhaps add some more packaging, but they told me they'd make sure the paintings don't get folded.

Heh heh I hope you feel good about being 'legitimately' traumatized!

You know what was the spookiest TV show for me when I was a kid? The show about Unidentified Flying Objects ... in Afrikaans the show was 'VVV' so that's how I remember it, in Britain it was 'UFO' of course! Another dubbed show, but there were some scenes from it that I found extremely frightening and especially I had the idea the UFOs were out there and could appear any time and then I'd see these frightful aliens!

The spookiest show, according to Radio Times, was 'Stephen Kings IT'. Then The X Files, then Ghostwatch (I don't know that show), then Tales of the Unexpected ... here is the whole list:

http://www.zetaminor.com/roobarb/showthread.php?542-RADIO-TIMES-SPOOKIEST-TV-OF-ALL-TIME

OK let me try to put the Noosphere in one paragraph.

The Noosphere is the realm of the mind! It is where ideas reside, concepts, feelings, memories, images, dreams. Whenever we use our minds, what happens inside them belong to the noosphere. When we consider that we only know outside reality through the medium of our minds, then we must put knowledge of outside reality in the noosphere as well! The idea is that all the contents of all minds ... and I would include animal and alien minds along with human minds ... are part of this 'sphere' or realm. Perhaps even the information kept in computers! It is difficult to understand or even imagine how the noosphere could be related to 'real' but mindless matter. What is an idea, after all, or a feeling, or an item of knowledge - a fact, when it is known? The idea that all these things are part of a single kind of reality is where the concept of the noosphere comes from.

All right, second paragraph! Not cheating because the above explains the meaning of noosphere, but I will now say something about its implications! Teilhardt de Chardin believed the noosphere is evolving, and I agree! He spoke of something called the Omega Point, which is the endpoint of the evolution of the Realm of Mind. Now I do think something like this is where we are headed. What will happen is that the realm of mind will grow and expand and come to encompass more and more. Human knowledge will keep growing. So will human ideas! And also, individual human minds will keep becoming more and more interconnected. If this continues to the logical end point, all human minds will be extremely intimately interconnected, to the extent that we might talk of an incredibly complex single, global mind. And this can keep evolving even beyond that ... suppose we go out into space and find aliens, and link our minds with theirs as well. Suppose this happens over and over until the entire universe has been explored and all sentient beings have had their minds linked up so that the whole universe is now sentient! Then this universal mind can still keep evolving, still gaining new knowledge until it knows everything about itself - the universe being intimately aware of every single part of itself. Then it can still evolve by way of imagination, by imagining things not real, by creating stories, by dreaming on a universal scale! Perhaps at that point the universe itself will be able to create as many new universes as it wants.

Those are ideas that intrigue me, at any rate!

Hullo Willem! Wowzum, I can see why your friend bought these paintings, they are incredible, how can you possibly paint so realistic like that? You are an awesome fella, Mr. Willem.

So, they'll be in Canada by Tuesday? I'll think about their journey. That's interesting about the packaging. I'm a packaging geek. . heheh. My husband trades guitars all the time, by mail, so my life is all about cases and boxes and couriers, and valuable objects on the road.



Thanks for the list!! Awesome!This is reeeeeeely spooky now.

I don't know UFO, it sounds incredibly spooky.

Was it showing in the 70s or early 80s? In which case I would have missed it, because I'd just left home to go to work in London. Hmm perhaps there was some advantage to the years in South London in the flat shared with strange friends, roaches and a mangy cat, but no TV. hmm.

Not sure I think UFO might have been less spooky than that. I'm going to have to check it now, see what might have been. haha.



Hah! OK Ghostwatch. Was that the live documentary with Pipes the poltergeist? It was incredibly scary, even though I think it was a complete hoax? I wish I had never remembered Pipes.....



And Twin Peaks eeeeeeeek ohmigod, I remember everything, David Lynch ruined my life with that one. haha.

And as for Millennium, I never got as far as watching it, but I read all the press, and I was crazy about the idea of Frank Black, a psychic ex-FBI guy, who could see into the minds of criminals, especially if that guy was mmmmm Lance Henrikson,

Well, now I must have at least one drink. haha

Ahhhhhh I see the Noosphere paragraphs!!!! This could be my breakthrough!! Take my mind of Pipes and Lance Henrikson.

Later tonight, I shall return to this.

I wish my Dad had known you, Willem. Thanks so much for being you.