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

This time i mean the wait.I asked were this was last week it was one of the first thing i looked for in the post.
I have enjoyed reading about the convention even if i didn't make it there myself you have taken be there with you.
I have seen Tom Baker twice the first time he was in the bath with Janet Fielding* the second was when he did the play Arsenic and old lace** and we had a little chat about his days in doctor who.


*That is the bath arms public house but if you tell people you saw Tom Baker and Janet Fielding in the bath together you get there attention.

** With Steven Pacey who did a very bad Jimmy Stewart and Tom Doing a very good Boris Karloff of course the film version was Cary Grant and Raymoond Massey but no one is perfect.

Echoing the cries of disappointment for last week, I'm also going to have to ask what magazine we're supposed to be looking in. Not that I really plan on buying it, but its nice to have the option.

Um, well, don't blame me, talk to Pastey - both this and the Minority Report thing were submitted last week but got lodged in the bowels of the Post server like undigested haddock in the belly of a mako shark. Shazz insisted on holding them back so 'no-one who only reads the Post the day it comes out' missed them - are there such people?!?

Anyway the mag in question (are we allowed to advertise on a Beeb website?) is (cough) SFX but issue 100 won't be out till round Xmas. Fingers crossed I'll get a namecheck in Paul Cornell's column before that, though...

I did think about going to the PanoptiCon in September but I suspect I've left it a bit late accommodation-wise...

Well i was looking for it at 2AM when THE POST comes out.
I was not blaiming you just letting you know it was missed.

When the mag comes out you'll have to yell at me, my head'll be much too full of useful stuff like lectures by that point.

You weren't advertising, it's not like you were saying it was good. Anyway, if you did a really 'wow, this is great' film review would that be advertising?

"Most of the content on h2g2 is generated by h2g2's Researchers, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the BBC." Remember?

(suitably chastened)

But hey hey hey! Stop the press! Issue 94 of the mag (out now, Men in Black 2 on the cover) has a report on the convention in it, and not only do they pretty much agree with everything I've said () but there's a group photo on page 15 with me in it! The photo's just to the left of the one of the Trekkie in Bolian make-up playing pool, and I'm the fat bloke on the far right in the purple shirt.

Apparently the TBA guest was supposed to be (wait for it) Mr Christopher Lee CBE, but he was called away to New Zealand to do reshoots for some film or other about a couple of towers. Poor show...

Oh no!

That would have been even better than Spike (maybe)

(they'd better not be delaying the release of anything just because of a few reshoots)



If you're mentioning towers you may need to reassure any americans listening that it has nothing to do with recent events, and was in fact though of before their towers were in existence.

I've heard talk (late last year, admittedly, but still) of a spot of retitling vis-a-vis the film in question. 'The Prof used the title first' is apparently insufficient defence. The middle book of the trilogy was also conspicuously absent from WH Smith's display of LOTR related goodies at Xmas, so it looked like a trilogy in two parts...

Anyway, I think enough time has elapsed - and if the WTC can actually appear in Spider-Man, I don't see the problem with another film sounding vaguely like a description of it!

DO we get to tell them to grow up or else we'll accuse them of racism or something everytime they need a british accent for a bad guy?

I understand the villain nationality issue is causing furrowed brows in Hollywood. If they use Arabs they get accused of racism by the anti-war and pro-Palestinian groups (like they have much influence in the first place) and if they use Europeans they get accused of conspiring to ignore the Islamic terrorist problem. This genuinely happened with Ben Affleck's new thriller, which was reshot post-11/9 to change the bad guy from an Arab to an Eastern European.

Let's face it, they just pick British actors cos they're good at that sort of character acting and don't care about spoiling their image by playing unlikeable characters.

The bad lion from the lion king was british.
I think it's also because evil geniuses (genieii?) have to sound posh, and what could be more upper class than someone with a proper british accent?

I suspect lingering post-colonial resentment also has its part to play. Also that English actors perform a language the American public understand, but usually do so in an accent unfamiliar enough to sound alien (=bad).

Ever seen Die Hard?
The highlight for me was Alan Rickman (British) pretending to be a German terrorist. He starts off doing the accent, then seems to think b****r it, the Americans won't know anyway, and just does his evil voice.

The funniest example I've ever seen of that sort of thing was in an episode of Murder She Wrote guest-starring Patrick Macnee. Pat was supposed to be playing an English gent, as usual, but clearly had rumbled that Americans aren't that familiar with UK accents. So, in scene one, he was an English gent. Scene two, he was Irish. Scene three, he was Scouse. And so on throughout the episode, a lovely linguistic tour of the entire UK (and Australia too).

I'm actually not that good with accents (can't do music either - must be something wrong with my hearing) but surely there are some Americans who twigged that something was not right.

Wouldn't have a clue, but blind prejudice inclines me to say 'Probably fewer than you'd think, and that sort of person wouldn't be watching "Murder she wrote" in the first place.' But that is just bias on my part, sorry everyone...

(Brief yet true, but insulting to Americans: about 10 years ago I had an American penpal. I mentioned to her that we were in the middle of a general election, and she was much surprised: 'I thought you had a king and queen!' she wrote back, and I don't think she was being ironic.)

But having royalty is a big thing that sort of gets publicised to other countries to show up our englishness. What would the country be like, though...?

What would the UK be like without royalty? Exactly the same, only it'd be fairer and more democratic.

No, what would it be like to have only royalty, and royalty that actually ruled.

Would you want the Blairs in Buck Palace?