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

When I was four, Les Dawson barged past me and my parents to get in the checkout queue at the Lytham St. Annes branch of B&M Bargains. He was only wearing a string vest and shorts, he looked a right sight and I never liked him ever since.

Manolan:

I didn't mean the Archbishop of Westminster (ie the Cardinal). I never met either Cardinal Hume or Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor. It was Bishop Victor Guazelli. I think he's sort of the Cardinal's second-in-command (like auxilliary bishops in other diocese).

Trillian's Child:

Correction - I didn't walk backwards into just any bishop. I walked backwards into the Archbishop of Glasgow, who was at the time Cardinal Winning of Scotland.

I met Willie Rushdon on a boat coming back from a school trip to Bruges when I was a kid. He was somewhat drunk (to put it mildly) but still put up will all these annoying 9-10 year olds pestering him for autographs, only swearing at us in a good humoured way

That's a good one. He died, didn't he? A good while ago now.

I sort of work with Toyah Wilcox's sister. Well she keeps on hanging around in our office anyway.

My friend Mark's grandmother is friends with the grandmother of Kieth from the Prodigy.
Also, my grandfather was a director of Michelin, so he must have known the Michelin man!

I guess I might start a thread:"are you rich and famous?"

More connections from me - My uncle invented the Jacobs Choice Grain Cracker (or devised the recipe, or did whatever it is that one does with crackers).

And my sister once won a disco dancing competition at Pontins in Morecambe.

If they're not tenuous links to the rich and famous, then at least they're links to the tenuously famous. Or something like that.

A friend has an uncle who is friends with Radiohead.

I live in Nottingham, near Gameworkshop HQ. Therefore I have some very tenuous connections to Warhammer people. Most of my friends have, at some stage talked to various important members of the design group who often appear in a magazine called White Dwarf.

I have a friend who's uncle played major leuge baseball...

I got to meet (kind of, got his autograph) Tim Allen (of Home Improvement, Santa Clause movie, Galexy Quest, ect fame) on the set of the movie For Richer or Poorer...

My a kid I know's uncle is a famous actor, something McDonald, can't remember for sure...

I frequently visit a website that Douglas Adams created... but you already knew that...

peace.

I met Helen Sharman some years ago at the prizegiving ceremony of a national school chemistry club competition which my team had just come second in. She was shaking hands and congratuating us.

As a consequence of coming second, I also got to meet Sir Harry Kroto (head of the team who discovered Buckminsterfullerene and related things). He's nice. He says "I'm just a regular guy. I go to the bathroom like anyone else." At that event I was also interviewed for and later appeared on "Science Now" on BBC Radio 4

I went to a lecture by Dr. Harry Kroto with my school, and it was very good. I've even got his autograph. He got a Nobel prize for that Buckminsterfullerene work, you know.

My Dad also met Angela Rippon and recieved an award from her at the Local Government Finance Awards, on behalf of his office at Brent

Eric Cantona used to live next door to a friend of my mum.

The only connection I can come up with to those above is that he used to kick around a scale model of buckminsterfullerene for some football club whose name temporarily escapes me

I had a maths teacher who had played professional football for Bristol City reserves. His richness and fame are pretty tenuous, but I want to revive the thread.

And a friend of mine lives in a house that used to belong to Peter Scheimchel.

Erm, that would be Peter Schmeichel. Peter Scheimchel isn't famous at all.

Bristol City eh? Well my Grandad could have been famous if he hadn't turned down Bristol Rovers' offer of a contract back in about 1930. This being in the days before Sky's billions he made more money as a carpenter, so stayed in that job instead.

Hmm. I've been to dinner with Stephen Hawking on at least two occasions...

Alright, when I say 'with', there were a good few hundred other people there too, and I wasn't at the same table, but, still

And a friend of mine's uncle has a house so big people pay money to look round it...

My grandfather was the chairman of Plummers, the forerunner of Debenham's about half a century ago.

Jack Charlton was in the same pub as me the other night.

I work on the same project as the wife of the guy who played either Arthur or Ford in the TV Series (I can never remember which). Although I wouldn't know them to say hello to

My friends Mum stood talking to richard Branson at thew airport without a clue as to who he was, whilst said freind stood there making squeky noises and trying to tell her...

I've been to a lecture given by the Prof Heinz Wolfe that did the Egg Run program.