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

A311301 - Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA (June 2000)

Yawn. 1/5

A6560714 - Antonin Artaud and Absurdist Theatre (Jan 2006)

Very interesting, and I could easily read a longer piece on the subject. 4/5

A289451 - Alfred the Great - King of the West Saxons (April 2000)

I've been listening to a podcast about Alfred actually, and how his actual calm, intelligent, pious personality isn't as well represented as it should be. This entry doesn't mention any of that. We get a line about him burning cakes.

2/5

A505775 - 'Bagpuss' - the TV Series (January 2001)

A proper labour of love piece this. The researcher really knows their stuff, and it's in-depth. But it's about a TV show that ran for 13 episodes, so how does it manage to be longer than the entry on Alfred the Great?

4.5/5

A271748 - War - the Game (March 2000)

One of my favourite entries, and something that's 100% h2g2. Nowhere else on the net would come up with this. Love it.

5/5

I've just spent the last half hour surfing the Drive, read every single entry. The one on Doytevski ( can't remember how to spell it ) was superb!

Don't mention Dostoyevski. I once referred to Dostoyevski in an essay when I meant Solzhenitsyn. I fretted about that for weeks.

Didn't affect my mark in the end, but my lecturer took the piss mercilessly.

At least you didn't refer to him as Ivan Denisovitch. (Solzhenitsyn that is.)

Two of my all time favourite novels.

One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Sol

Crime and Punishment - Dos

A281594 Tractor pulls - the last line is the only one worth reading.
1/5

A266924 Porters and Stouts - one of the typical early entries but told me something I didn't know.
2/5

A537671 Potosi and the Mines Cerro Rico, Bolivia - Nice little entry - and I now know where to go to buy dynamite.
3/5

A708266 Nine Inch Nails - The Band ~ In need of an update, especially since a certain Mr Cash covered one of their songs.
2/5

A653276 The Enigma Cipher Machine - Purely about the use and look of the machine, but interesting and well written.
3/5

Yup, Porters & Stouts is one of mine. Certainly needs a refresh.

A540532 'Hillbilly Hollywood' - Country Music Movies - Nice entry, concise and witty.

A784091 The Bow Drill - Fire without Matches! Too technical for me.

A83865711 John Updike - a Character Study - Note to self: never read an Updike book

A2263484 - The Nikon F3 Camera - Didn't read this one

A190090 Brussels, Belgium - If ever I should go to Brussels I'll make sure to print this entry and take the copy with me!

Nobody's done this for AGES. Here goes:

The Society Mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, A16890375 :
Felt a bit like a disjointed collection of facts, and I noticed at least one grammatical error, but full of nice little nuggets of info and the sort of entry you probably won't find anywhere else. 3/5


British Mammals - Pinnipeds, A13391075:
Nicely broken up so it read well, and flowed nicely. If you want to know a little about seals, read this. 4/5



Ron Black's Dawson Lounge, Dawson Street, Dublin, Ireland A430057,
Shortest entry I've ever read. Rather unwisely cites a price for a pint (which must surely have changed in six years) but it's just the sort of entry DNA would have wanted. 4/5

Vagina Dentata A2316016,
I like this one. Starts with a nice joke about the lion king, and makes a neat and obscure little H2G2 gem. 5/5

How To Understand Statistics A1091350,
This entry was rather too long, but well written and neatly broken up with quotes,examples and anecdotes. 4/5

How to keep your legs warm - very apt for me on this chilly evening

Pizza Delivery Cars in Southern California, USA

Synaesthesia - a fascinating topic

World Population - a very short entry, so I read it

Church Tales: Part Two - not sure what that was about, and even Part One didn't help!

3/5

A3342593 - History of St Pauls - looked and sounded dull, didn't read

A653771 - Places to Eat in Nunhead - short, and I read it, but rather dull (not having relevance) - would have been a good entry had I actually searched for it

A882876 - Migraines - interesting, with a decent amount of detail - I'd have preferred more, but that's merely because it was interesting and well written

A218350 - Reading, berkshire - again, dull, only read a little - would have benefited from better (any) breakdown or heading

A31367856 - Constellations: Eridanus - sorry, I know they are very well written, and I recognise it as the biggest project, but I not a fan of constellations

1.5/5 - extremely rare for me to have that low a score, in fact, I'm going to have another go

A25323527 - The Boot (a pub) - decent entry, hoped for a little more about its haunted nature

A301032 - Doll's houses - could have used a few headings, but reading it was far more interesting than I might have guessed from the title (being a stereotypical male only lately out of teenagerhood)

A3073655 - Polos - an excellent entry, with fun facts and history, as well as being enjoyable to read

A447815 - The Astoria - outside my area of interest, with not much in it to excite me

A2334106 - Tourism in Jersey - I had in fact read all of this entry yesterday, and enjoyed what combined a good amount of history with a good set of facts and interesting comments

3.5/5

A635889 - Perfect Vegetarian Pasta. It's what it says, a pasta recipe. Just skimmed it.


A352874 - Lampeter, Dyfed, Wales - Places to Eat. An old one (2000), and it shows. It's just a list of cafés which might be closed down now, for all I know. I don't have any plans to go to Dyfed, but I don't think this we be much help to me if I did.

A3224701 - Famous Horses at the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Ok. Again, nothing gripping, but capably written and fairly knowledgeable. Probably best if you happen to be an American Civil War fan, but if you aren't it won't be the thing to get you hooked on the subject.

A751718 - Once Brewed or Twice Brewed - the Story of an English Pub. This is disappointing, because it could be so much better. The humour is a bit forced, and I was halfway down the page (or more) before the writer actually got to the subject.

A1066529 - Tips for a Visitor to Tangiers, Morocco - probably the best of the haul for today. I'd be more interested if the intro told me less about Pepys and the Beats and more about Moroccan culture, but it was still interesting and readable.

On average, then, about 2.5 or 3 out of five for today's selection.

A61513427 - The Other Side Of Roald Dahl, Part 3. My heart sank at what looked like a long and boring biography of a writer. But when I gave it a chance, it was well-written, well-researched, and pulled me along with it. 4/5. Judging by the comments, other readers enjoyed it too.

A801613 - Long-distance Romantic Relationships - A Survival Guide. Ok, not too taxing, readable if a tad long. Quaint to see talk of ICQ and NetMeeting rather than Skype. let's say 3/5.

A38083601 - Steampunk - again, not bad at all. The entry serves as a good point of departure for anyone who wants to read further, which I always like to see. 3/5

A702848 - Football - a Matter of Life and Death. Utter crap about how those crazy foreigners take football too seriously. The Wikipedia article about the 100-Hour War is much better. 1/5

A18066116 - British Burial Barrows: Disc Barrows. Interesting subject, good research, but it is part of a series. Every entry should read well as a standalone entry, even when it is part of a series. This one, however, reads as though I plunged into an Entry halfway through, so I can only give 2/5. That is possibly slightly unfair, but it felt like I was reading something unfinished.

So not a bad haul.

[subscribes to conversation]

This is a really interesting thread from my point of view. I wish I'd known about it earlier!

I use the IID lots of times per day, especially to find interesting Entries to tweet/ share on FB etc. And I do a lot of curating when I find something that needs it.

It's really good to read some feedback on random entries. I know which entries feature highly by our reading visitors, but I don't know what people think of the obscure stuff that the IID turns up.

Here's my 5

The Nautilus - A Creature of the Deep A58372176

One I knew quite well, and I enjoyed reading when it first was in Peer Review. Factual, written in the sort of style that h2g2 does well. Scientific but interesting. Told me something I didn't already know without boring me. 5 but then I am a scientist at heart.

Radiohead - the Band A590889

The sort of Entry that makes my eyes glaze over. Maybe because I was married to a music journo for many years I am biased. I think I may be harsh though as there are quite a few comments at the foot of this entry, so other people must have enjoyed it. I kinda liked the funky graphic though.

It needs updating, it has no internal links. There are no dates specified for the bands formation or releases of albums/songs etc.
The text is written in single paragraphs for each section. I hope our sub editing has improved in the last decade.

I am afraid that this is so poor I would never promote it. Zero stars.


Nottingham Trent University, UK A241985

A stub of an Entry, probably dated. If we have any Nottingham students or recent graduates, this would be a suitable entry for updating. 1 if I am being generous.

Milton S Hershey A378047

A new discovery! This Entry links to a set of entries all surrounding Hershey. Author jimiX grabbed me with this sentence..."He was fired from that job when his hat fell into the printing press."

I am so pleased to have discovered this one, I shall give it a bit of tlc tomorrow. Add a few more cross links and so forth. Maybe talk to the artists about some illustrations etc. 5 ++

( this is why I love the IID button)


Jordan A472691

Maybe if I was interested in reading about Jordan I'd have invested the time to read it. I just skimmed it and thought it needed a link to our much newer Entry on Petra. So I added a link. It's another one that needs someone who's been there recently to update it for us. 2.5

It started off with this statement 'Jordan is a relatively small country in Asia.'
I've rephrased the opening sentence to be a little less technical inasmuch as using the term 'Middle East' instead of Asia.
I also fixed the title to give it the official title of the country. 'Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan'

I've not got time to research any further, I don't think it is desperately in need of assistance, else I'd put a plea into EF for help.

so out of those 5, I guess 2 were worthwhile discoveries, and one was so so, the other two were disappointing.

Yes, it's a good thread, this - but for some reason I keep forgetting that it even exists, and rediscovering it a few months later!

Nilometer - A3151982 - an entry I hadn't seen before, and an interesting set of facts nevertheless - relatively short, but telling all it can 4/5

The "Shoes" books - A908985 - a rather boring entry - helpful perhaps if I was looking for summaries about them, but either the writing or the topic didn't enthrall me - 2/5

Travelling light - A87709387 - an entry I've read before - well written and helpful - much of it common sense but worth repeating, along with a few new things - 4/5

Polenta - A304219 - while it tells what it is, and what's in it, a rather biased, short and unhelpful piece 1/5

The Attempted Kidnap of Princess Anne - an entry I have read recently but at the time told me something that i knew nothing about - which I found surprising. An excellent history, providing infomation both about those involved, what happened and a little aftermath
5/5

average - 3/5

Just for handiness <./>RandomEditedEntry</.> - I'll need to do that again when we hit a new page, but anyway...

Berlin by Car - A580998 - a tongue in cheek comment on Berlin's driving style, but not either brilliantly funny or successful at using the tongue in cheek style to provide some information. 2/5

The Italian Job - A500509 - a good entry on the film, with a nice dash of humour - 4/5

The Pareto Analysis A164675 - while not officially classed as such, this is a mostly harmless, very short entry, despite that it told me something I didn't know about, and would have liked to see in a proper entry - 2/5

E-Hoaxes - A593129 - a helpful, detailed entry for those that don't know that much about the topic, while providing a couple of new things that I hadn't heard about before - helpful examples and advice also given - 4/5

Blue Mountain Coffee - A466283 - a very short and sweet entry, providing a few basic facts, although well written in need of significantly more information to be a good short entry - 2/5

Sorry for a negative set - 2.8/5

All.