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

interesting they can come out of ANY oriface? tell me more im interested
whats the effects of tapeworm-human symbiosis apart from weight loss?

Well....any orifice, basically. Mouth, nose, ears (via, presumably, the Euston Station tubes), tear ducts, anus, urethra, vagina.

As for the symbiotic effects - the parasite gets food and the host an attractive figure. I'm not sure It'd be worth it, though. Apart from the embarassing social consequences (imagine one popping out of your eye during a conversation!), some species can grow many up to feet in length and can thus 'wriggle and tiggle and ticke' inside. So you'd have to swallow a bird, cat, dog and goat, presumably. Perhaps you'd die.

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More eeeeuuuuuwwwwwwwww!!!!!!

YUMMY

Himurasky I'm gonna put you in the category of researchers marked 'odd'.

There are 19 (presumably British) veterans of WWI still alive.

thanks spinksy what have i dont to deserve this honour?

Could be Brtish, could be total, I heard there's only one German veteran left with us

I should've put a after that.

I hope I can compensate and restore our friendship with these:

It will be interesting when there's only one left. I suppose that person will kinda become famous overnight?

This was on the London News last night. They had a 108 year old veteran there (he's the oldest survivor).

I quick frenzy with the calculator has shown me that there's a reasonable chance that a handful of WWII veterans may still be around in 2039.

To be a veteran they cannot have been born any later than about 1900. Any younger and they would have been too young to serve. Even being born in 1900 would make them 18 when the war ended, so would have only just joined up. Plus a few over-zealous 15 and 16-year-olds who lied about their age and volunteered.

I think IIRC there was a case of a 14yo fighting in WWI.

Did they let you into wars any earlier in them days? You can join the Army at 16 today, so presumably you can join in the fun straight away (or after a short period of basic training). So, you could be born up to 1902.

RF

Speed Racer's Mach 5 used a V12 engine... It's speedometer pegged at only 250 km/h.

Some boys lied about their age to join up, and the recruiters turned a blind eye. There was an anti-war MP (I forget his name) who took on many of their cases and tried to get them discharged.

I know a guy who was orphaned at 14 and joined the RAF to survive. He was a bandsman. This was just pre-WWII.

Adolf Hitler was taking 92 drugs towards the end of his life.

When the Soviet troops reached Berlin, and located the "Führerbunker", the body of a man was found amid the rubble. He had died from a gunshot to the forehead, and resembled Hitler so closely, he was mistakenly identified as him. His body was even filmed by newsreel photographers with the Soviet soldiers who found the body. While a coroner's examination verified that the man was NOT Hitler, his resemblance to him was eerily uncanny. His true identity, however, remains a mystery.

Was the first child of his mothers to survive past infancy

There's a Roald Dahl short story about the birth of Hitler, which reflects the fact that all Frau Hitler's previous children had died. it ends with her entreaty: "Please God, let this one live."

Sorry, that's probably too useful for this thread. Please don't read the above paragraph.

RF

cf 'Earthly Powers' by Anthony Burgess, in which the narrator provides evidence on a miracle attributed to a dead pope (his brother-in-law). The miracle was the healing of a child who later grows up to lead a cult which he leads in a Jonestown-like mass suicide.

Great opeming lines:
"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."

>>>>>>>When the Soviet troops reached Berlin, and located the "Führerbunker", the body of a man was found amid the rubble. He had died from a gunshot to the forehead, and resembled Hitler so closely, he was mistakenly identified as him. His body was even filmed by newsreel photographers with the Soviet soldiers who found the body. While a coroner's examination verified that the man was NOT Hitler, his resemblance to him was eerily uncanny. His true identity, however, remains a mystery<<<<<

i always thought the guy was found face down in a pool


and apparently the reason people know it was not hitler was because he was wearing tweed (or some similar matterial) socks, which hitler was allergic to

Are you saying that the Fuhrerbunker contained two bodies, one the body of Hitler, dead of a gunshot wound to his head, and another looking remarkably like Hitler, also dead of a gunshot wound to his head?

Or are you saying that Hitler's body was not found?