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

I think bog is a sort of swamp.

I'm sure there was a conversation on this once before, but no amount of brain-racking has produced it. (Probably in the lost threads of Y!)

I still stick to my pylons, though. There is a lot to know about them, and, like steam engines, it is not a laughing matter if you're involved with the technology.

Anyone involved in detail in any field of anything, though, will have had the experience that others just look at what they know about it, if anything, and crack jokes which, to an insider are, to put it mildly, embarrassing. All of us have, no doubt, been on both sides of this situation, and should really, harbour more understanding for other people's detailed knowledge of something that is, to the rest of the world, quite pointless or they can't imagine that there is more to it. There is always more to it.

For example, many people may still associate "occupational therapy" with basket weaving, but in fact this is now a highly valued branch of medicine, and you can take a doctorate in it.

Or people may laugh at the Marbles Faction wanting their sport included as an Olympic discipline, but this is an ancient pastime requiring great skill and well-developed techniques, the rules of which fill several pages (they will tell you).

Maybe one day bog snorkellers will make some amazing discovery that puts them on the map.

Sorry to put this thread into a serious mood, but tolerance doesn't mean tolerating other races and classes, it should also embrace other mentalities.

*rambles off, brass rubbings under the one arm, wormcharmer and bogsnorkel sticking out of rear pockets, reading a book on "Pylons in the Australian Outback"*

*rushes back* Trainspotting!??? Ewan McGregor - Phwoar!!

I don't think there's really any harm in poking a little gentle humour at some rather odd pastimes. It's not as if we're getting at the people themselves. After all, most of us here have already owned up to one or two marginal pursuits of our own... which is likely enough the reason why we get so fascinated when we hear about people who go pylon spotting, bog snorkelling, etc.

(Incidentally, I'm finding it a little difficult to view the latter as the misunderstood visionaries of our age. What 'amazing discovery' will they make, I wonder? They might, at a pinch, evolve some new method of breathing underwater, which may then facilitate, over the generations, a return to our (probable) acquatic origins... thus contributing significantly to the overall sum of human happiness. But I feel it's unlikely... )

Sorry to be facetious. But I'm a little concerned at the humourlessness than seems to have descended over this site in recent months. I sometimes feel it's hardly worth making a noise here at all anymore. A little gentle fun-poking can actually be a way of *including* people who would otherwise be passed over completely by the ignorant majority. It's more about trying to explain those pursuits and the motivations people might have for pursuing them, than it is about sneering at anyone. It is for me, anyway...

Okay... sociology lecture over. Back to the pylons...

I'm with you on this one, Lear - my drinking buddies all regard me as a trainspotter because I work in the industry and know one train from another - they take the mickey constantly, but I don't mind because they are not sneering.

I think that the world would be an infinitely poorer place without the bog snorkellers, worm charmers, pylon spotters, morris dancers - whatever - but it would also be infinitely poorer if we can't poke a little harmless fun at somebody with a harmless obsession. I have a number of them (I'm not saying what but I'm sure there's evidence in my past postings) - and it doesn't bother me at all.

Hear hear Lear. I love the pylon site, I think some of it is hilarious but I'm not laughing AT it. Its too funny to believe that a lot of it isn't tongue in cheek and intended to brighten up any readers day. As it did mine.

Theres a world of difference between teasing and sneering but its difficult to get over in print I suppose.

Oh no, I'm late round at my parents for tea - in the dog house again.
Waz (rushing off)

I wish to add a confession to my previous post which I had to rush away from unfinished. I like pylons.

I belong to the brigade that would like to see most overhead cables buried so I know I shouldn't admit to this but I've always thought them to be pretty imposing, if not magnificent pieces of work.

That said, the numbers on them don't interest me. In fact I prefer to think of them uncatalogued by numbers.

Going back to bogs I've seen pictures of this. The snorkelling was being done in what were really ditches in the bog. Where the consistency of bog was very liquid, but also very black. Visibility nil.

Waz (now well fed)

If we distill TC's admonition of 'fair play to the freaky' and add a dash of Lear's 'aw g'wan wicha we wuz jus havin fun' we might find ourselves in the untenable position of having-to-laugh only at 'pop culture fads' of less than seven days duration. Any hobby that has enough staying power to become an obsession must have in it some mystery or satisfaction worthy of pursuit. This hidden value will not be discernible to the neophite who is entitled by nature to laugh the nervous-laugh-against-the-unknown. But this same esoteric value, this 'credibilty', if it is 'true', is a strength of character that can easily bear scorn and shrug off comment from the ignorant. eg: h2g2- a truly laughable waste of time and energy which none of us would willingly abandon.

(pause, go have yourselves a cuppa - this is gonna be a long one)

I used to be quite scornful of philateti ..philacte... stampcollectors, until I discovered those wonderful propoganda ones produced by every country during WW2.
It began with a stunned realisation that 'the enemy' had a postal system. I had, suddenly, to imagine these people writing to each other! My fascination progressed until I found myself writing a grand WW2 novel just so I could use my collection of period stamps from Germany and Japan as illustrations. Illustrations of planes, trains, tanks, warships, warriors, sailors, airmen, civilians, factories...
flowers, mountains, birds and fish and all the symbols of families, friends and nations, emblazoned with Rising Suns, Swastikas, Maple Leafs, Stars and Stripes, Fleur d'lis and Union Jacks. The novel was called "To Whom It May Concern".
Then my home, my manuscripts and my stamp collection were destroyed by fire. I blame Viking raiders. It could also have been a meteor strike, a deliberate act of god or just my carelessness. Now I only buy stamps when I need them. But I do not mock the phila..philacte .. serious hobbyist. Nor will I deny the existence of a wrathful and vengeful god. Or the lessons I learned about humanity, from the little bits of paper backed with horse-glue, which their leaders wanted them to lick.

so, i have a reasonably unamusing trainspotter anecdote, and even though the conversation has moved on from there, i'm going to stick it in here anyhow. so there.

at somewhere i used to work, we employed a professional trainspotter. yes, really. we were a computer games company working on a train simulator (don't ask), and this guy was employed to ensure all our points were in the right order, and so on.

as far as i recall, and i apologise to him in the extremely unlikely event that he's reading, he was famous for 2 things:

1. Always eating soggy microwave cheese pizza at his desk, every lunchtime, without fail.

2. More amusingly, making the networking guy poke his computer servers frantically for ages, hearing a horrible crunking sound and thinking that all his hard drives were about to blow up, only to poke his head around the corner and discover that the buzzing noise of impending doom was in fact said trainspotter, shaving himself noisily with an electric razor. sitting at his desk. at work. in the middle of the day.

actually, the funniest thing about that was that the networking guy made a formal complaint, so some poor manager had to go to speak with him about it

heehee.
h0l :P

Dunno about "unamusing" - it made me laugh!

I suppose I did go over the top a bit, Lear, but jwf put it back smack on track. Doncha just lurve the guy?

And there is a difference, too, in having people laugh and making silly ignorant jokes about your job (e.g. designing pylons, which you need an engineering degree to do) and ridiculing your bog snorkelling, which you do as a hobby (unless you're a police frogman, and that probably takes some serious training, too). Sometime's it's just the sound of the words ... "Worm charming" indeed!

My point was simply that we shouldn't ridicule things we don't know about. Listen to people before you offend them. Saves embarrassment all round. But jwf has explained that to you already.

People laugh at you if you sing in a choir, or, where I live, people laugh at you for being English. But it hasn't stopped me doing either. I just feel sorry for their ignorance.

*back, smack on track*
I feel like I've just killed a spider and it's gonna rain and everybody's gonna blame me ..again.

Back to the bogs

>Maybe one day bog snorkellers will make some amazing discovery that puts them on the map.<

dunno if the actual snorkellers have found anything but hasn't there been quite a lot of ancient bodies preserved pretty well in the bogs? I know that wonderful poet Seamus Heaney has written quite a few poems about bodies found in bogs...

One famous preserved corpse was affectinately knicknamed 'Pete'

I find other people's unusual obsessions strangely interesting, that's why I always end up watching programs about them. I once watched an entire program about someone who collected different types of walking sticks - it was intrugueing if somewhat bewildering - however I came away slightly more educated about woods types etc.

I suppose all these people are no more odd than those who put marmite on their black pudding....!! - it takes all sorts.

I would think it rather odd someone eating black pudding in the first place

It was Pete Moss, to give him his full name.

... and jwf, I don't know what you thought I meant, but I was being grateful to you for connecting my admittedly over-serious comments with the rest of the thread. It's people like you that make this place the great place it is.

As for amazing obsessions, back on the Y! thread, Wumbeevil pointed me at the site created by some Aussie devoted entirely to navel lint. A search should show it up. This guy even had photos of his collections. It was quite revolting, but must be fascinating for some. The original link is probably buried in some ancient conversation which will emerge from the bogs of H2G2 backlog when the snorkellers have dredged it up.

There is whole Yahoo group dedicated to 'crap sites' called 'Xolin 2001' - there are more than 100 entries (mostly put there by Wumbeevil). I can't post the URL to the navel-fluff-collector-site here of course but it has one of those dot net instead of dot com urly thingys and the keyword is feargod. A backstroke, after the net, and fluff.html will get you there. To access the entire Xolin 2001 collection of crap sites you should join us at n2g2 through the links at Doctor Goof's n2g2 dot com webpage.

Thanks TC for the wonderful endorsement. Which is what I thought you meant first time round but I have never been able to take compliments gracefully or easily and I was trying to explain how I really do get twinges of internet paranoia anytime anyone draws attention to me .
I sometimes wonder if I'm too much a bully to play in the sandbox. 'I can be a right pedant', he said, falling into the bad english accent and false humility that permeates his speech and writing since discovering h2g2.
Worse, I get vague and ambiguous when I'm 'trying too hard' (as Menza once said) or even obtuse, perhaps oblique, as SPINY often suggests when he asks "What's jwf been smoking?"
Best course of action is to garner what ye may, and ignore the rest. But know ye this, I never mean to do more than amuse or elucidate.

But I hang on your every word!

Ouch!

I just want to tell Mycroft that I enjoyed the 'Pete Moss' reference!