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

Why is a raven like a writing desk?


No googling allowed.

Have you been reading Alice in Wonderland lately?

Actually I was inspired to this question while pondering heavy metal poisoning.

Some days I struggling to keep up with my own mind.

I think it's the same as the difference between a squirrel and a piano.

One lives in the forest and jumps from branch to branch, and the other is also made of wood.

that would be true.

From the same genre of (anti)joke as the difference between a frog. The greener, the splash.

keep going.

You might find a quill on both of them?

(Showing my age... )

Aha KB, I didn't say that 'cos... wait for it...

Yep, I knew what I was walking into, yet I couldn't stop...

Then wouldn't it be "how is a porcupine like a writing-desk"?

+3 for quills.

There aren't many klaxons in this one but plenty of scope and opportunity to be either correct or Quite Interesting, or both.

And while on the subject of word games...


No googling allowed (but if you can do it in silence - that's okay.)

They could be connected by Edgar Allan Poe: AKA The Raven*

*Owing to him wareing a black suit and no other garment.

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. ... Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore

Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

One was owned by the other

There is another connection to Poe. D you know what it is?

they both have a build up of lead during the course of their lives

Drink problems or some other habit.

There is a writing desk at the Tower of London which, if it is ever moved, will cause the collapse of the British Empire?

I don't know if this is where we're going with this question, but a few years after the riddle showed up in Alice In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll eventually gave an answer which was something like: both can produce a few notes despite being very flat and the wrong end is naver [sic] at the front [not a direct quote 'cause that would require the forbidden googling, Carroll was probably a bit more eloquent, but the "naver" "typo" isn't - it's raven backwards].

Oops, I think that deserves a Quite Interesting bonus. +6.

Can you show me anywhere that says that? I just had a look but struggled to verify the story.