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

I just broke down and found out how to make ! I'm sitting here with a hot cup of , glorying in my growing knowledge of GuideML. !

hi Nora!

Has herself a trendy just to show off.

You really are settling in well - i've seen your entry on Russian which is looking great. I reckon within a month or two you could have your work on the front page! And you have picked up guideML pretty darn quick!

When you say you like to look around Dublin do you mean that you meander through the city looking for interesting bits you haven't seen before? I tend to enjoy a good directionless mooch around London now and again, most gratifying to find incongruities like public loos converted to trendy bars, 17th Century pie and alehouses down tiny cobbled alleys and unusual events and sculptures. Theres a lot goin on out there!

pj

Hi!

I figured it must be you when I saw a reply to my . Thanks! And yes, that's pretty much what I do in Dublin. Haven't found any 17th century alehouses, though - I'm not sure we were up to much in the 1600s, and Dublin is always remaking itself. Any 17th century is probably three layers of tarmac and concrete down... We do have part of the old city wall, which goes back farther, and Dublin Castle, some of which looks pretty early. Mostly we have Georgian on up. I guess some of the buildings in Temple Bar are a little older - oh, and Trinity, if any of the original Elizabethan bits are still there. I think the entry hall goes back a good ways. The cathedrals were both extensively remodelled by the Victorians, so they don't really count.

But in answer to your question - basically I walk along an area I know and then say "What's down here? I've never been this way.." Then I take that road, with whatever turnings, until I a) find something neat and stop b) reach another area I know or c) give up (very reluctantly) and turn back. My earliest directions to the National Gallery were "go to Merrion Square and get lost". Aside from very early things like the galleries and bookshops, I've found the Croppies' Memorial Park, which really was lost - no one in my family knew it - and King's Inns, where they train lawyers. I've walked the city lengthways - now all that's left is to plumb its depths...

Good to "see" you again. More soon!

Hiya!

Hows it going? i noticed your name somewhere as the sub-editor of an entry. Nice work fella!

Do you know how long Dublin has been lived in? I went to the museum of London a few months ago and there's at least 2000 years of people living there and doing stuff - there's a great bit in the museum wher you read about the building of the first city walls by the romans, and then the plaque says "look out of the window to see the remains of this wall" and there it is, all solid and real and very, very old. I'm now on a half-assed mission to find the site of the oldest church in London...

I'll keep you informed of any cool discoveries,

love Jenny

x

Hi!

I'm really sorry I haven't written - several different reasons, the main ones of which are School and Procrastination. I didn't know how long Dublin had been lived in, but I looked it up when I heard from you. It was settled around 900 by the Vikings, who gave it the name 'Dyflin', or black pool. There was already settlement in the area, including earlier Viking stuff farther upriver. True Dublin began in the area of the Ha'penny Bridge and Temple Bar. When they began to build the (very ugly) government building at Wood Quay, just upstream from Temple Bar, in the 1970s or '80s, they found Viking Dublin. After the Vikings came the Anglo-Normans, who arrived in this country in 1136. They built Dublin's City Wall, some of which is still standing (not nearly as impressive as your ancient barrier!), and the first Dublin Castle. The Vikings didn't do castles; most of their stuff was wattle-and-daub. The Normans could work stone, and they had to, because they weren't always friendly with the locals. The Vikings could always hop into their boats and leave. Some of the nicest bits of Dublin still standing and in use were built in Georgian times. We had an Irish Parliament which, though strictly secondary to Westminster, attracted an aristocracy and in turn a professional and merchant class. That ended in 1801 or '03, with the Act of Union. The Act resulted in Dublin being anachronised, sometimes pleasantly and sometimes not, as did DeValera's isolationist policy after independence. Sorry for the history lesson - I'd be happy to have you do the same for London or wherever!

I'm scared about what's happened in New York and Washington. The scale of the tragedy is overwhelming, incomprehensible. I'm not scared of terrorists crashing into me, though I wouldn't like to work in a skyscraper now. I'm scared of escalating violence beginning with revenge attacks. I'm scared that this will add to the darkness in our world - race riots, war, recession (though I can hardly equate the third with the first two). This is a turning point, and I want to make it turn for the better, but there's not much I can do. I'm very lucky not to have known anyone directly affected; what about you?

And yes, I followed your advice and became a Sub. It's really cool, though I haven't given much of my time to the Guide lately. I *have* kept up my entry a week, though sometimes only just...

Love, Nora