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

This is a really Petty (and probably pedantic) Hate. I receive the Kindle Daily Deal alert email every day. This tells me I can save money on 'Fiction, Romance and Nonfiction'. When did Romance become a category of its own? If it's neither Fiction nor Nonfiction, what is it?

I remember seeing it as a category in my local library as a kid, before they even put a Science Fiction shelve in

"If it's neither Fiction nor Nonfiction, what is it?"

In my house it's probably classed as mythology.

Or 'please, if I have an accident, delete my browser history'.



PP.

the sun

not the paper thing that pretends to be news
the celestial body

its too bright and too hot...
i'm Scottish we like clouds and rain.... all this sun stuff is unnatural

Try living in a desert.

Picnic today in Cardiff. Forecast is for rain.

"Try living in a desert."

I recommend the Dry Valley in Antarctica. It's the dryest place on Earth but it doesn't have the disadvantage of excessive heat.

Heh Heh!

I wonder how many of us looked up 'Dry Valley in Antarctica', thought about a post re lakes (persistent over millennia?) then read a bit more & decided to keep mouth closed ...?

PHoD: bra sizes. I know my bra size and bought myself some new bras yesterday. It was nearly closing time, so I didn't bother to try them on. I tried them on today. Most of them are OK, but one seems to be a cup size too small. If they were different brands I could understand it, but they are all M&S own brand and should be the same fit.

PH So-called contemporary garden design, which is now so often just another convention being followed.

the modern trend of trying to get people to celebrate things like Mothers' and Fathers' days quietly so as not to offend those who couldn't be mothers, or don't have a father or who had a rubbish father.

I totally get that it's sucky, but as far as I know people don't go round on Fathers' day going "yeah, I rock because I'm a dad - suck on that!" or similar. And trying to guilt trip into feeling bad about something that's nice in their life.

Had a rather unedifying convo today elsewhere which ended in children being referred to as something quite nasty - even after I'd said that I'm sympathetic and how much it must suck.

The thing I don't like about it is just that it's another bunch of marketing being thrown at me. But I don't think it's ever directed against me as a non-parent, no.

I personally dislike the concept altogether.

well I know Hallmark and so on but I'd also say, as a good feminist, that if Mothers can have a day, Fathers can have one too.

As Barry Norman would say: and why not?

PH today: idiots on trains who are going on holiday to Majorca who find it necessary to be drunk already on the 6:45 and swigging cheap plonk from bottles and putting their feet on seats and playing godawful "music" on commuter trains (until -ladies [not me this time] tell them to behave - and being good Germans they did, to be fair)

But then staggering all over the escalator and not standing on the right leaving those of us running for the bus to be stuck behind them and thus having to wait for the next one

"the modern trend of trying to get people to celebrate things like Mothers' and Fathers' days quietly so as not to offend those who couldn't be mothers, or don't have a father or who had a rubbish father."

"well I know Hallmark and so on but I'd also say, as a good feminist, that if Mothers can have a day, Fathers can have one too."

Very much these things!

So how come kids don't get a Children's Day? What, every day is Children's Day? They totally aren't.

I say we just get rid of both of them.

Re: Fathers Day. As a father, what would make me happiest would be if my kids would mark this day by *not* buying into the whole commercial thing;and while hand-made cards are fine, it should be noticed that quite a few men(who here is amongst them?) don't have any interest in receiving cards on such occasions, regardless of how cute they might be.

I think the problem is people conflating Fathers' day with the necessity of actually buying stuff

Stupid and ill thought through answer phone messages.

I have just called a mental health team in London.

'We are busy right now. Please call us back later.' There is no option to leave a message.

So I'll call you back later when you might still be too busy to answer the phone then? THEY know when they aren't busy. Let people leave a message and call them back when you aren't to busy.

This really doesn't encourage people to engage with a service.

I have spoken to one of the workers there and get the distinct impression that they have absolutely no grasp of what I am saying to them about their message.

PP.