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

either buy another bookshelf or edit some and give them to your local doctor's surgery.

i think my fever has gone. i haven't thrown up for over 24 hours now, so hopefully i'm on the mend.

I have no space for another bookshelf and everything that I don't need is gone already.


That's good.

I have the same problem, Tav - s piled up in stacks on the floor, lying across each other on the shelves, etc. Mrs BA keeps asking why I don't get rid of some of them, particularly 'those you haven't looked at for years'. What she doesn't understand is that I am frequently dipping in and out of different books for various reasons, so she wouldn't necessarily notice this.

(Aside: Wonders whyh2g2 keeps inserting hieroglyphics into people's postings, as in this one, "i haven't thrown up for over 24 hours now, so hopefully i'm on the mend".
Does anyone know?)

yes, same here

The hieroglyphics come when somebody writes an apostrophe in Burlesque, it uses some other code or so that the DNA of the old skins doesn't recognize. So instead of posting the actual ' it posts some code. At least that's how I understood it.

AhHa!

nothing happened yet lol

Just rang the garage and they can fit the new handle on my car tomorrow so I need to find someone to drive me there to pick it up again...

I just got into work...thats what just happened

I've been robbed. My tool kit now consists of an adjustable spanner and a pair of pliers. Took me years of work building it up and some of the things have been all over the place with me, and only a couple of power tools were insured. I'm too pissed off to even be angry.

With any luck I'll see them being sold on ebay by someone who doesn't know what they are worth. I'm trying not to even think about that.

for KB - being robbed is worse than just losing things. It's a really vile thing to happen to you. I am very sorry to hear about it.


WJH: Local bureaucracy - queued up for my appointment with the National Police ( to obtain a renewed ID ) first in a queue outside, then in the foyer, then finally in the waiting room. I saw the official eventually, who took one look at my papers ( more or less the contents of a small briefcase ) then he 'phoned a friend' - told me to wait again. After about an hour his colleague phoned back to tell me to come back again on Monday. So, all in all a whole morning watching all the other applicants being ID'd. Even the babies get to have their little fingerprints taken.

My problem? Well it's because on one document I have my prior surname, and on my passport I have my married name. This causes the local officials to

Beaurocracy ; one major flaw with any ID system; you make it so difficult, and so hard, and so complicated and so beaurocratic.... it actually becomes easier for non-criminals to just go and get faulse ID (I remembered being offered, albeit a few years ago now, a faulse passport cheaper* than renewing a legal passport and quite good fakes they were too )

Bad news about the tools My toolbox colection is pretty variable built up over the years, but a few nice bits and pieces and I'd certainly be at a loss were it to vanish

WJH?: got up... visited bathroom, got dressed, came down, had coffee and a cigarette, and put the coffee machine on to make some fresh coffee... actually probably oughta go see if its done making proper coffee yet

Even the babies... but not the Lanzababies?

Yarreau, it seemed from the hours I spent in the office watching the applicants that if you were from Europe you just provide ID. But if you're from Africa or South America etc you get fingerprinted as well.

just broke my glasses

WJH?: got up etc.. dressed... visited bathroom... came down...
Had a cup of coffee, a cigarette, made another coffee and checked through twitter from my phone whilst drinking it... had another cigarette, and another coffee... then made lunch
Discovered I only had one bit of bacon left which must mean my ability to count is less good than even I thought it were
so had one slice of bacon, two eggs, fried, and two of the rolls I made yesterday, with just a little butter as they're still pretty fresh
Washed up, after putting away what was on the dryer, didn't wash up lodger's stuff which is still there from last night.. (well I did wash up his stuff from the night before, yesterday after I made bread)
Now not sure what to do... probably oughta put away these clothes and towels from the utility room which I washed and dried a few days back

Slightly less bad news about the tools is that while my friend's lock-up was broken into (where they had been), he'd been using a lot of them last week and they were in his trailer instead. So I lost nowhere near as much as I first thought.

Yay! glad about some of the tools not being lost KB!


and the news from here is that I am now legal. Or exist. Or exist in a legal sense. Or whatever


I went back to the office of high dudgeon. There was lots of shouting and staring at the computer. (The shouting was not at *me*)

Eventually a woman official appeared and told the man to "get a grip" (I paraphrase here) as it was obvious I was the same person as specified on both documents, and also that women are allowed to change their names. Once she had done with berating him publically and giving him the proverbial earbashing, the computer deigned to say "yes" and I am now the proud owner of a little badly-printed green form. Okay, it has two spelling mistakes in it, but the numbers and dates and my name seem fine. gordon bennet. I should blame 2legs for bureaucracy, but that would be rather mean of me.

You mean you won?

WJH: Spent most of the day planning a holiday instead of looking for a new job as intended.

(yep good news about the tools )

; at teh Beurocracy : it would seem that wherever beurocracy exists it is... terrible

WJH?: I went to the loo, and foregot to check the netbook upstairs whilst I was up there, to see if it'd finished copying/moving files over to the PC down here over my WiFi, and instead I came back downstairs... so now I think I'll go to the front room, have a cigarette, and then go back upstairs, and into my bedroom, and probably into bed, stick the radio on and see what the netbook is doing now