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

Sorry but to come back to "Mystery Men". I was talking about this with hubbie and just wish to point out that The Blue Rajah is none other than Hank Azaria who some may not realise but who the most famous characters he portrays are actually ones who he just provides voices for - their names are Clancy Wiggum, Moe Sizlack and Apu (sorry can't remember full name). He's also got a new sitcom about a shrink on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Apostrophe's in the wrong place.

Its really annoying, is'nt it??

People who think speed camera fines are a 'sealth tax'.

People who think speed cameras are an infringment of their human rights.

I'm not joking about that second one, I used to w*rk with a guy who thought that. My response was "Yeah? Well, you'd better not f**king whinge about human rights when you kill some poor kid because you're going too fast."

I'm afraid I have to be devil's advocate here but I can see why people hate speed cameras. Yes they are a good thing in accident black spots and near schools and other places where children are likely to run out in the road and be killed by speeding idiots BUT there ARE often used as a stealth tax on motorists and are placed in places like major A roads and motorways where there is not much danger of pedestrians of any sort wondering across. Speeding is a contentious issue but I see the point of the crusade against speeding far more in built up urban areas than on motorways and other major roads devoid of the child (or indeed the pre-occupied pedestrian in general) factor.

There is also no logical consideration of the time for example why not switch off speed cameras after a certain time in the evening when the little uns are in bed or after the pub crowds have gone home. It used to drive me nuts having to drive slowly past speed cameras on roadworks on a motorway at midnight when there was almost no traffic on the road, the workmen had gone home hours ago and ergo there was no logical reason for enforcing a speed limit except for the sake of it.

So what you're saying is that it doesn't matter if people speed where there are no pedestrians? I remember being stuck on the M4 for three hours because there had been a multi car pile up caused by people going too fast. There were a couple of deaths if I remember correctly but because there were no schoolkids nearby that's okay I suppose?

People who call a PC's base unit 'the hard drive' or (even worse) 'the CPU'.

People who refer to disk space as 'memory' (as in "Oh no! My computer's running out of memory, what do I do?!").

Sorry Mr Dreadful - but with no offence.

You don't know that the car pile up you witnessed was anything to do with speed. Ok it's related to speed but pile ups tend to be the result of people driving too close to the car in front. It's a question of degrees too - someone driving at 80 mph (which is from my experience most people) is different to someone doing 100mph.

I think people just get over-zealous about speeding if pedestrians are not involved. There is actually behaviour in cars such as cutting up other drivers which I think is more dangerous than just driving too fast. Also by the same rationale multi-car pile ups don't tend to happen in the small hours (as there is not enough cars on the road) of the morning so my arguement about time still stands.

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Still possible to lose control and smack into the barrier. All it takes is one lapse of concentration or slippery patch or whatever and regardless of the time of day it could all go to Hell in a hand basket. Bear in mind that I'm aware that most people speed, and that most of the time nothing happens for whatever reason; be it good driving or sheer dumb luck but what my original rant was about was people who think it is their *God-given right* to go over the speed limit for no other reason than because they can.

Speed humps in a 30 mile an hour zone that you can't go over at more than 15mph without destroying your suspension and/or exhaust.

I saw a boy racer go over a speed bump waaaaaay too fast a couple of weeks ago... destroyed a fair portion of his idiot-mobile's body work... cheered me up no end that did!

postcards. they *always* arrive after the person who sent them is home. kinda defeats the purpose.

I saw the name of Maria Carey within the first ten posts on this thread...(I didn't read them all, just the first page, then cut to the end, so forgive me if this has been said before in 3,000 postings).

Maria Carey.

She is the epitome, nay, the godmother, of all those women singers who consider it to be "soulful" to drag a musical line through every conceivable note, tone and semitone on the way up the scale, and then again on the way back down, in case she missed any the first time around.

This is done unde the mistaken belief that it's "soulful".

It isn't - it just sounds forced, laborious and tortured. It's not compulsory to hit every note, ladies, just because it's there doesn't mean you have to sing it in every blessed line!

I mean, Harry Nillson did a far better take on "Without you" with maybe one-tenth of the vocal range Maria C used in her version...

I know she's not the only culprit (I'm listening to the excruciating Micah Parrish doing the weekly soul show on Radio 2 as I write - and Micah has an abominable habit of her own, too). But as far as I'm concerned - Maria Carey started it.

And Micah Parris, who presents the weekly "Soul Solutions" thing on Radio Two.

For a BBC presenter, her spoken English is... well, it grates.

I hope this isn't taken as a racist thing. This is not a dig at the way Black British people speak, the voice I hear on the radio might just as well be coming from a white woman.

It's just that as far as she's concerned, there are only twenty-five letters in the alphabet. (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSUVWXYZ)

Or, as she would pronounce the word, "le'ers"

This disregard of the letter "t" when it falls in the middle of a word really grates, like fingers on a blackboard.

Micah Parris is the Queen of the glottal stop replacing the intermediate "t".

Is this what people call Estuary English? dear BBC - you use her as a presenter, it's clear she knows her stuff about soul music even if she does get too "lovey" with the people she interviews - but for goodness sake, give the lady a few enunciation lessons and remind her the letter "t" exists!

Thankfully, not up MY estuary.... (the river Dee, as you ask, the one that makes the south bank of the Wirral and marks the border between England and Wales. Spent some time on the Mersey too, now THERE's an Estuary English!)

Mr Dreadful,

I gotta ask if you are a motorist yourself because you don't seem to very symphathetic to motorists.

To come back to the point of losing control and hitting the barrier. If doesn't hurt anyone else than what's the problem you won't be driving with kids in the car in the small hours.

It brings me to another pet peeve - crusades to save people from themselves? If you know the risks and want to take them, then people should reckonise that you are grown up enough to do so (of course if you are a grown-up - children and possibly teenagers is a whole different issue). Tell someone the full risks of what they are doing and then leave them to get on with it if they so desire - all contininually nagging them about it ever does is get their back up.

No, I'm not a motorist (the very thought terrifies me, simply because of all the speeding combined with bad driving I see) and yes I am sympathetic to motorists but I'm not sympathetic to stupidity.

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What if the driver dies? What about their family? THAT's the problem. There are more people who speed than there are good drivers, trust me I live in Swindon which I think may be the bad driving capital of the world.

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I suppose you have proof that this never happens?

And I'm not on a crusade. As I said before if speeding is illegal why do people think they have the right to do it?

I have to admit to totally argeeing with you - I detest Whitney Houston's version of "Iiiii will always love you-oooo" for that very reason. It's also interesting that everyone insists in singing Stephen Sondheim's "Bring in the Clowns" by holding the notes at every stage even though it was written for someone who couldn't hold their notes and so is supposed to be sung in kind of short phrases with no note holdage at all - i.e "it's it rich" - stop - "are we a pair" - stop. Although I have to say I hate Celine Dion more - at least Maria Carey can actually sing - unlike Celine who sings in the same annoying way but without any talent to back it up.

What's even worse in my opinion are the rappers who have to spend the whole intro to a 'song' going "Uh uh, yeah" and repeating their name over and over again.

AgProv I applaud your comments about Mariah Carey (I think the post you referred to may be mine about people calling her by her first name only). However, as far as annoying habits of singers go, she's a distant second (in my book) to Ronan Keating who insists on singing every 'S' as 'Shhhh' as though it adds something to the song. Take that away and he still sounds like a goose in pain making its final distress call.

While on the subject of singers...

Paul Mcartney has claimed that George Harrison helped him write a song 'from the grave'. Is PM taking something again? Or did he just realise this was an easy way to get publicity for his next album?

Is there a clever marketing scam going on regarding Mariah Carey? Her songs are not memorable. The only one I can name is the Nilson one. Just why do people buy her stuff? Is there anyone out there who actually buys the music based on what they hear or are they all gullibles who will buy music by anyone in a short skirt who the record companies promote as 'good'?