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

>Skunk

Careful, the manouver you are most vulnerable to when bombed is the 'I'm your freind, here have a joint, oh dear you have fallen asleep. My name is leslie let me introduce you to my freind the Bathtub'<

Give over. The worst that is *really* likely to happen to you is that you develop a tatse for bad reggae and trip hop. As I recall Neilsen's intoxicant of choice was alcohol.

True re Nielson, though I think he claimed to have used other things on occasion, including cannabis, and prescription pain killers.

But

My point is it doesn't matter what the intoxicant, the fact you are intoxicated and relaxed, and attracting a partner of the gender of your choice is in the forefront of your mind, rather than unexpected attacks, leaves us all rather more vulnerable to attacks of the slow and methodical variety than we would like to admit to ourselves. Though most would tend to be agrieved associates rather than the lone hunter variety. To be honest I was really having a gentle go at the 'cat like reflexes no matter what' type comments because the purring cat sitting on my lap whilst I stroke it, has always managed to sink it's teeth further into me than the average stray tom digging in my dustbin, Familiarity breeds contempt and all that.

And

Theres nowt wrong with a bit of reggae,

Re Dwarfs, female Dwarfs, and Beards

I had always wondered where Pratchet got that idea from, to be honest I didn't remember it from the LOTR book, though I did pick up on it in the films.

Textual error in biblical texts,

All the themes mentioned except that Literacy wasnt as far as I can tell a paricular issue, Judea at least was a literate part of the empire mostly because they were obsessed with their OT texts.

The biggest difficulty to my mind seemed to be the miss translations from Aramaic into Greek and from there into other language. My favourite oddities include.

English Translation of a Greek Text, 'Christ Messiah' how this is achieved I dont know, since Messiah is either Hebrew or Aramaic for 'The anointed one' The greek Translation of which is 'Christ'. So Literaly it translates as, 'The anointed one the anointed one.'

One of my other favourites is 'Jesus from the city of Nazareth.' Now all the evidence I have heard is that Nazareth doesn't appear on any map until the third Century CE and was probably settled by a group of early Judean Christians called the Nazoreans. 'Nazorean' means keeper of the covenant. Jesus keeper of the covenent, has a much more likely feel to it than Jesus from an obscure little villiage.

Sorry if you have read my posts on this before but it did seem relevant.

Strontium Dog - regarding what you were saying about anarchy, would the hobbits qualify as an anarchic society? It just struck me that they don't have any obvious form of government; there clearly is some kind of class system in place, but there's no kind of obvious 'leadership' beyond consensus decisions in each small community (so anarcho-syndicalism).

I don't have enough fingertip detail in LOTR to be sure, but I wondered what you thought.

One of my favourites is the King James "on earth peace, good will toward men" becomes "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests" in the New International Version. Seems to imply "war to men God doesn't like. I guess that's the version George W. Bush reads.

Found the passage about Dwarven women, it towards the end of Appendix A, it reads:
" It was said by Gimli that there are few Dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to Dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other people cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men, that there are no Dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves 'grow out of stone.' "

Trin:

The Hobbits do have a number of government officials. Specifically mentioned are the Mayor of Michel Delving and the sherrifs. As well, the Hobbits of the Shire seem to remember that they owe allegience to the King.

Oh, poo. All right - forget that one, then

Having thought about Hobbits for a bit I think that there are certainly Anarchic Elements to them, Frodo accepting the task of destroying the ring for instance is an act of personal responsibility and so is Sams decision to follow him.

I am a bit wary of attacing to much anarchic interpretation to LOTR as it has been done before, and JRRT wasn't too pleased about it.

>> The anointed one the anointed one

The River Ravensbourne = The River River River

For anyone who doubts or dismisses my second-coming theory, here is a select quote from the recent testament (Post 686) of GiGaBaNe:

"yes i do define my life with an end purpose.
the abolition of all human ailments.
my particular skew on things might not be to the liking of many.
but the goal itself is as noble a cause in this life as any other.."

Anyone familiar with the New Testament would probably have to agree that this sounds very much like the words, ideas and sentiments reported by the Apostles of old to have been spoken by HayZeus when challenged by the Romans and their puppet rabbis from the unholy temple.

~jwf~

GiGa in post #720:

" ...anyone mentions the canabis at this point i would like to point out...(that) i have exelent marksmanship AND aoutomatic unarmed parry manuver down to a tee and i smoke over 10 gramms of the finest skunk just about every day of my life."

A man of peace!

~jwf~

Oops.
My bad.

I finally caught up the backlog enough to see that you had long ago come to some majority agreement that the GiGaBaNe off topic bits should no longer interupt this otherwise interesting and intelligent thread.

I am in full agreement and will comply. I will take my bemusements elsewhere and leave you to argue about how many bearded lady dwarfs can dance on the head of a pin.

Oh, has anyone mentioned the anal symbolism of the 'rings'?
Surely there's a hemorhoid sufferer amongst you who'd like to give his/her opinion on that. Yes, circumcised foreskin (done properly) also creates a 'ring'. Then of course there's Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire', the classic 3 ring circus and the brass rings on merry-go-rounds (carousels). And let's not forget the red white and blue rings of the RAF that would have been prominent symbols in the 40s and 50s. The circle is itself a perfectly good symbol for self. And center.
peace
jwf

No.

There is no such word as "racialist." Now stop making up words.

Its a fantasy story. PC does not apply.

Now have another pint.

>> ...the fact that one day i have to suffer death 'disturbs' me, but the fact that gandalf isnt a rastafarian, dosent. <<

Me too and me neither.

~jwf~

Actually, there is: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=racialist

Stop making up knowledge.

Yes, it's a fantasy story. If you'd actually read the initial question and a tiny bit of the backlog, you'd be aware that we all know that.

Also, please don't insult me with the PC label. It makes you look like a reactionary twit.

Thanks. I'll have that pint.

Oh, and ~jwf~. Neither disturbs me.

>> Actually, there is:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=racialist
<<

Yes, but it's "chiefly British". Another example of the British ability to make a meal out of a word. They have a tendency to add a few extra useless syllables to create nothing more than a synonym of a perfectly good word already in use.

If there is some subtle or meaningful distinction between racist and racialist it eludes me and I would be ever so grateful if you would inform me so that I might glory in this subtlety whenever I encounter either in the future.

Enjoy your pint.
You've earned it.
Great thread.

~jwf~

I think I did try to make a bit of a distinction, as did a few others before me, back around post #834,567,235. Forgive me if I don't go searching at this hour.

(and, I don't know about you as a Canadian, but I as a Canadian, when given the choice between what seem to be the only two alternatives when it comes to English usage, would prefer to be "chiefly British" rather than the other.)

For me, as a Canadian, being Canadian is to NOT make that choice.

We must of course be cautiously and constantly aware of the extremus and be able understand and deal with both sides, while finding a nice comfortable compromise in the middle that is neither fishy nor fouled up.

British - windscreen
American - windshield
Canadian - the fragile glass which a 2-ton, 6-foot tall moose crashes thru when you cut off his long skinny legs with your car at sixty mph


~jwf~

c'mon! no moose really weighs 2 tons! (do they?)