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

quotes, nah, but the amount of trying to understand how to make the damned thing meant it could have been from sodding IKEA!

Mr D, that's not a petty hate, that sounds more like that guy treats women as objects... and your wording reminds me of Angela’s Ashes (specifically where the father says to the mother when looking for sex that she should “be a good Catholic wife”). Ugh. Moral obligation? Oh, god. Someone should try that trick on him; see how he likes it...

Talking of complicated dinners, I became inexplicably sickened having seen the amount of faffing which goes into 3star Michelin food on Masterchef last night.

I really don't want to eat jelly delicately cast into the shape of barbed wire. I'm such a philistine that I want food that looks like food.

The term "Special relationship" makes me cringe every time I hear it.

It's like little children saying, "Will you be my bestest friend?"

I saw 'demeanour' written as 'dimena' at work the other day.

Admittedly it's not the easiest word to spell but this wasn't some random internet fool writing, it was a police officer in an official document.

PH: Adobe. If you happen upon a new version, you can't search a document with the Ctrl-F shortcut. Ctrl-F does call up the search bar, but you have to take your hands from the keyboard and fiddle about with the mouse, then return your hands to the keyboard and type in the word you're looking for. It's the only thing that makes placid little me scream and shock the girls in the office.

On the upside, you then get a list of all the finds at the side, which sometimes tells you what you want to know without hopping through the whole document.

Absolutely agree on Masterchef last night. If I was presented with any of those dishes in a restaurant and then insulted further by being charged £87 for it I'd walk out in disgust. Wife and I refer to such food as 'w*nk'.

TC are you another old biddy like me who would rather use the keyboard (and can, and does) for everything?

PH: watching someone else type who doesn't do the proper 10 finger thing and then keeps breaking off to use the keypad instead of typing the numbers using the top row. Very petty, I know.

Sho, I shall make sure to never type on a full-sized keyboard in front of you.

It's a data entry thing, usually. If what you're entering is mostly numeric the keypad is a lot faster than the numbers up to as it can be used very quickly one handed.

Yes I am an old biddy in that respect. However, with tapping orders into the system all day, I have got used to using the number keypad. Which of course leads to the next PH: The annoyingness of telephones having the numbers the wrong way up.

I find the numbers on the keypad easier to find. If I'm using the ones on the top row I often miss by one or two and enter the wrong number.

Especially as we now have "new" telephones at work. You can't adjust the angle so, due to the way the light falls on my desk, I can't see the display OR the keys on my phone.

The telephones are also cause for a real PH moan - what used to be a simple short cut (diverting calls, taking calls from other extensions, setting an alarm, leaving a note for callers, etc, etc) now requires you to jab at the phone, going through several complicated menu points, with the most obscure names for the various parts of the menus. So most people don't bother any more. I've had this phone for over a year and still haven't got round to programming any speed dial numbers. It's easier to remember them. And that is VERY unlike me - I like to use shortcuts for everything.

My end of semester Art essay. Should be alright, but we're using whatever means something to us. I have plenty of images both personally taken and professionally taken of friends and bands I like that fit that requirement.

I've happened upon one images that I think is wonderful, it speaks to me of many things, but there are others I have and so it will be a battle for THE image to use. And that's before I get the damn essay started!

ph: not knowing what time your visitors will arive nor how long they will stay,

never knowing where a smelly candle is before your visitors come in the hope that pine freshness will cause them to not realise I can't get the hoover down the stairs at the moment...

thinking that a scented candle solves anything other than embarrassing bathroom smells...

I'm aware with the typing, btw, that I am one of the fastist typists most people have ever seen. I suspect our Mr Whisky is similar since I think we did about the same job at the same time.

For my part: I had to type 5 figure cypher (blocks of 5 figures, alphanumeric) for pages at a time at a high speed with 0 mistakes. I am pretty good - even entering only numbers I still use the top row over a keypad and I'm still faster than our experts on the keypad. But that's just me

So, I think that's awesome! I'm quick but not that quick!Dr Anthea, I sympathise. Especially when you have an early start.

PH: People who think, that one finger typing is not typing, I’ve got the fastest digit in the West,

Yeah, but are you the fastest milkman in the West?

I don't think anyone said that hunt&peck with one finger isn't typing. What I said was that it's a petty hate of me to have to wait for someone to break off all the time... Petty being the watchword.

PH; being unable to swim at your own speed in public swimming pools. The speed of any lane is governed by the slowest swimmer, unless to risk head-on collision by overtaking. Conversely, you don't want to be holding everyone up if they are faster than you. If you try swimming away from the lanes, there will be all sorts of other activity to hamper you, like kids jumping in without looking, groups of people just standing around in the pool playing, or groups swimming very slowly up and down together, heads out, taking up most of the pool width, talking. I even know one pool where they devote half the length of the pool to lessons, leaving the rest of us only 12 metres to swim up and down in. That's barely enough to kick off the wall before surfacing.

Oh - this is so annoying... trying to post and then getting the login page, then logging in and landing on your own PS - unlogged in. Still, Pastey's doing his best with the means available to him, so I'm not complaining - Pastey, please ignore.

I find it most , quotes, that they are cordonning off the pool by lengths?!?!? I've only ever seen the rope stretched along the length of the pool, separating off three whole lanes for faster swimmers or for training purposes.

That's in Germany, though, where jumping in from the side, bombing, petting etc etc, are Verboten.