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

People who set off the fire alarm by smoking in the toilets.

Also, moving office at work (in this case, moving to the 5th floor in a building whose lift stopped working last summer).

<BB<

Being asked if I need help filling out forms at the bank just because I am old; 81 is not old as far as I am concerned

Being in pain after something as simple as loading the washing machine. I can forget my plans for a general tidy-up today.

Not being able to find the kind of top I want in the right fabric. I want a deep v-neck top in cotton (like a t-shirt, but a deeper v). I've found some in viscose, but I don't want to have to iron the top. I've found scoop necked tops and tops with spaghetti straps, neither of which is right for me. I've found a few v-neck tops, but the neckline hasn't been low enough. Why do the designers/buyers think that all women want scoop necked tops and/or are happy to iron casual clothes?

That's odd, I was looking for a suitable scoop (but not too low) neck the other day, in linen/cotton & most tops seemed to be V neck.

My PH today - our guided busway, supposed to be fast and efficient. Then don't route it on the road through town which means lengthy delays. Had to wait over 25 mins for what is supposed to be 15 min service.

Ground elder, Lord how I hate ground elder. I've given up trying to poison it, now I just decapitate it as soon as it appears, out of pure sadism, but I know for sure in a couple of months it will be strangling my tomatoes and beans and everything else that grows more than an inch above the ground, they never mention that on the Chelsea Flower show.

Ground elder? Is that like soylent green?

True to your handle SA, too smart for me, I had to look it up! I use bone meal quite a bit as a fertilizer, I'm starting to worry now!

Waste not, want not

Brambles are my weedy enemy, because they bite back.

And ivy. Too much of it, too difficult to eliminate. Just keeping it at bay is a struggle.

Horsetails here, with their ridiculously long roots.

Why would you want to? Ivy covered walls look GREAT!!

Because the ivy works into the mortar and makes the walls unstable.

Get some tressles and overlay them over the wall. The vine will grow on the tressles and leave the wall alone.

It still grows into the wall. I had this problem with a house I was renting years ago.

A topical gardening PH; the amount of time and money spent in making certain Chelsea show gardens look like they've been there for years. That overgrown look can be had for free by just leaving the ground untended, so it feels a bit perverse to put so much labour into achieving it.

People who assume you know everything about history. I did a history degree, I still like doing history courses, but the world is a large place and all of time before this point is a lot of time, so I don't pretend to know a great deal about history in general, other than a general overview of some main events. I have a particular interest in the Isle of Wight. The more I research Isle of Wight history, the more I realise I don't know that much. And that's fine, it means I won't run out of things to learn.

Yesterday I went to my wife's uncle's 60th birthday celebration just outside Newark - a part of the country that I've never been to before. And I was asked what I know about Newark Castle - even though I'd never been there before. Although I suspected it was quite involved in the Civil War I don't know anything concrete, and said I knew nothing, which apparently was a big surprise. (I did pop by the castle later).

Surely we all expect people not to know everything? I wouldn't expect a scientist to know all science, just stuff in their chosen field. Doctors specialise as they can't know all medicine. I wouldn't expect a cartographer to know the location of every tree in the world, so why can't I simply know nothing about a place I've never been to?

<BB<

In a similar vein -- I also majored in history, and I do go on about it a lot, but what annoys me is the presumption that I'm automatically interested in *anything* history-related. For instance:


"Hey X, did you know that this city's name is derived from the fact that they settled the area to grow cotton?"

"Uh... No, I can't say I ever really cared..."

"WHAT?! But X, it's HISTORY! Aren't you always making a big deal out of HISTORY?!"



I mean, yeah, sure, it did happen in the past and it does affect us now in the present, so technically it does fall under the purview of history, but SO FREAKIN' WHAT?

It isn't a world-encompassing war that claimed the lives of tens-of-millions of people and shifted the fate of everyone else left on the planet besides. It's just the name of a fairly unremarkable city. So why should I care?

It's not even really a name, it's just a nickname, for cryin' out loud...