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

Fruit flavoured ciders.

I like cider.

I like Cherries.

It seemed like a good idea to try cherry flavoured cider.

What the...........?

Yuk!

PP.

Can't settle to my thesis at all, C. D. I know the pain. Currently pulling all nighter. Don't want to but must be done.

Anna, I hope you only know the pain metaphorically. I woke up this morning with a lot of pain around my right shoulder blade. I've taken ibuprofen, but some movements are still awkward. Typing is do-able if I don't have to stretch too much, but I haven't been able to dress yet. (It's 9:35am and I've been up since 7am!)

Additional PH: fingers that won't do what you want when you're typing. Or maybe it's my brain sending the wrong signals. I've had this problem during MS relapses in the past, but the drugs I'm on have kept me relapse free for more than 2 years. A relapse is the last thing I need right now. My tutor could have given me an extension on any other assignment deadline, but this is the End of Module assignment and I'd have to provide medical proof if I missed the deadline.

PP, I've tried a lot of different ciders, fruit and plain. A lot of the fruit ciders around in the UK at the moment are made with flavourings and sweeteners rather than real fruit, and therefore taste awful.

There are some good ones out there though.

Ciders are for homeless people or (even worse) rural folk. I don't know why so many people are invested in trying to disprove this obvious fact.

If you don't live in a hedge or within eight yards of a cow, cider's not the drink for you.

I thought cider was a stepping stone for youngsters to develop a taste for alcohol. I never used to like lager or ale but I could manage cider. I have sort of moved over to ale nowadays although I don't mind the sweet alcoholic taste of pear cider now and then. I have tried some of these flavoured ciders, but they tend to be just a bit too sweet and you can hardly "taste" the alcohol ... they seem to be mass produced poor quality mixtures of syrup and cider.

@Mr603's post.

I'd agree cider is a kind of 'gateway drug' to proper alcohol. I can happily swig a mouthful or two of someone else's cider, but a whole pint?

The majority of ciders you find in pubs and supermarkets/off licenses are horrible, gassy beverages that don't deserve to be called cider. Proper cider is still and slightly dry. It is definitely not sweet and/or fizzy. I used to enjoy 'proper' cider, but I haven't had any for years 'cos nowhere near me stocks it, AFAIK.

Looking at the two past papers for my exam and seeing that the two easy questions have already come up, and that every question is both very difficult and that they share no similarities

Hang on, this is a rather major hate

haha - driving myself mad at the moment looking at past papers and deciding which topics I can relatively safely ignore. "all of them" not being an option.

I did an 'easy' exam last year and didn't enjoy the experience, even though I sat the exam at home using my laptop to enter the answers. As stress isn't good for my MS, I'm not doing any more exams. This means that I'll have to give up trying for a BA in English Language and Literature - the degree has a compulsory course that ends with an exam.

Back to the assignment. 2100 words done, 900 to go and I don't know where they're coming from.

The "small print" at the bottom of TV adverts. Most seem to have them now - subject to terms and conditions, available in UK only etc. Or have I only just started to notice

And the radio equivalent which goes:-

'gabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabblegabble'.

PP.

Radio ads are paid for according to duration and timeslot. If an advertiser pays for 30 seconds, they don't want 20 of those seconds to be taken up with terms and conditions. But they have to say all that stuff legally, therefore they try to compress it into as little time as possible. At least on TV the T+C can be on-screen at the same time as the advertisers message. On radio you can only listen to one thing at a time. Anyway that's the reason; I still think radio advertisers should be sent off on the first ship, alongside the telephone sanitisers.

I went vegan recently and joined a Facebook group for local vegans for some camaraderie and recipe ideas. Ye gods but the evangelical ones are annoying! I've been called out as a bad parent because I let my daughter eat meat and I'm really getting rather tired of about half the group being really nasty about meat eaters (one lady recently became upset because she saw a picture of the coach of her favourite sports team tucking into a steak). No wonder vegans have such a bad reputation...

Watching a Youtube video last night, for the first time I had ads appearing at irregular intervals during the film - not just at the beginning. The vid carried on in the background, so I missed bits.

Dragon, whereabouts are you? There's a *lot* more cider producers than you'd realise, all over the globe these days. They just don't seem to "get" how marketing works.

Fords, my good lady partner was vegan for quite a few years, was when I met her (now vegetarian) and she used to work in a vegan co-op. Even she says that a lot of the radical ones are just a bit too far gone. The ideals are great in a way, but like a lot of things some people take it too far.
If you want to get them to leave you alone, get them in-fighting. The easiest way is to ask them whether or not honey is acceptable for a vegan to eat. I've never seen such arguments as opposing sides in *that* debate

Honey? What about petrol?

That's just dead dinosaurs, compressed.

interesting point - presumably they'd argue that the animal died naturally - but would that mean vegans could eat, say, roadkill?

Also, I've wondered - how little does an animal have to be before they stop caring - no doubt walking around in your garden would kill a few very small insects

I was actually tempted to comment on a photo one of the more die hard vegans put up where you can clearly see a leather chair in the background