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

ref Icy @ 15773 (...first robotic journalist...)

Predfiction...
Puts me in mind of Roald Dahl's story 'The Great Automatic Grammatizator' (I think?), in which he says on behalf of writers, something like:
"may God give us the strength to let our children starve".

The (Tory) budget gives a boost to this man and his campaign:-

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00410/127250192__410198b.jpg

Using this measure:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26644768

PP

Of course, it could be a deliberate ploy in an attempt to make sure that he is plastered and talks rubbish.

Oh. Er, hang on.....

PP.

Couldn't you just said who it was, that photo puts me off my breakfast

Lost poems of Douglas Adams and Griff Rhys Jones found in school cupboard

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/19/lost-school-poems-douglas-adams-griff-rhys-jones


Here's the important bit:



"A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining"

by Douglas Adams, January 1970

I resisted temptation for this declamation
To reach out to literary height
For high aspiration in such an oration
Would seem quite remarkably trite:
So I thought something pithy and succinct and clever
Was exactly the right thing to write.

For nights I sat musing
And musing ... and musing
Whilst burning the midnight oil;
My scratchings seemed futile
My muse seemed quite mute, while
My work proved to be barren toil.

I puzzled and thought and wrestled and fought
'Till my midnight oil was exhausted,
So I furthered my writing by dim candle lighting,
And found, to my joy, this of course did
The trick, for I flowered,
My work - candle-powered –
Was inspired, both witty and slick.

Pithy and polished, my writing demolished
Much paper, as I beguiled
Myself with some punning,
(My word play was stunning,)
I wrote with the wit of a Wilde.

At length it was finished, the candle diminished,
I pondered and let my pride burn
At the great acclamation, the standing ovation
Its first public reading would earn.

But lost in the rapture of anticipation
And thinking how great was my brilliant creation
I quite failed to note as I gazed into space
That incendiary things were about to take place:
That which had ignited my literary passion,
Was about to ignite what my passion had fashion'd.

And - oh! - all was lost in a great conflagration
And I just sat there and said 'Hell and damnation',
For the rest of the night and the following day.
(My muse in the meantime had flitted away
Alarmed, no doubt, at the ornamentation
My language acquired with increased consternation.

So unhaply the fruits of my priceless endeavour
Are lost to the literary world forever.
For now I offer this poem instead,
Which explains in itself why the other's unsaid.

I have to wonder if the unclosed parenthesis and the word "unhaply" are errors in the original or just from the editor.

Unhaply I can accept as a poetic choice, but the missing ) distracts me.

AH but..
Adv. 1. haply - by accident; "betrayed by a word haply overheard". by luck, by chance.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hap

Ooh... that works.

I was just thinking it should be "unhappily" or maybe "unhap'ly".

Another newspaper printed "unhappy". I think this is likely wrong.

But it also had that unclosed parenthesis.

this is people behaving as people should,
this an example, close to you, of what I and many
consider the only way to change this denigrating system.

In spain we have the PAH ( plataform of people affected by the mortage) you couldn´t believe the amount of things they have achieved.
the reason of their success is the same that fuel the people in this video, a very basic principle, the innate need of empathy and solidarity.

http://youtu.be/cOUhThMG1mQ

Lowlife scum

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-26696724

"A woman with epilepsy had her purse stolen by a bogus Good Samaritan while she lay unconscious in a city centre street, West Midlands Police has said."

There's been a few more incidents of bogus good Samaritans recently.

It's an old, and annoying phrase that my parents used to use, but "these people need to take a good hard look at themselves."

"Vivienne Westwood claims being vegetarian can cure the disabled: 'People in wheelchairs have recovered from this diet'"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/vivienne-westwood-claims-being-vegetarian-can-cure-the-disabled-people-in-wheelchairs-have-recovered-from-this-diet-9207273.html

I assume V. Westwood spent many years at medical school to discover that and has the trial results available.

or maybe she should do before opening her gob.

Puts her in the same league as Glen Hoddle and David Icke.

What position did she used to play?

Dunno - inside leg?

'People in wheelchairs have recovered from this diet'

There's a huge difference between recovering from a diet and recovering from a disability that requires a wheelchair.

Under the name of Marches for dignity, a few weeks ago, people from every corner of Spain started to walk towards Madrid. Yesterday was the day for the gathering, for the demostration. People from everywhere asking for dignity. The neofascist or neoliberal policies have wiped out ordinary people-s dignity.

About 30 minutes before all the tv news programmes started, the police, very timely, charged against some people . Guess what was the topic to be talked about, well not the reasons why so many people have marched along spain and were at the demostration in Madrid yesterday, instead, it was "the violent incidents , provoqued by a groupuscule of anti-system that attacked violently the police, blah, blah, far left, blah, radicals, blah, poor police, blah...
The demostration was about to end, just at the same time the tv news prog. would start.

A massive and peaceful demostration that started in Atocha station at 17hrs. In the video there´s the ending act, a choir singing a popular song for freedom and fight.
Too much lyricism for fascists.

http://youtu.be/e3drN2K1hls

This strikes me as a bit of an odd one in the middle of a bigger story.

The relatives of Chinese passengers on MH370 march to the embassy of Malaysia in Beijing.

And they appear to have professionally made stiff, well printed, shiny, placards to carry. Orchestrated?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26727742

PP.