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

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35811434

A New York photojournalist writes an open letter to Donald Trump.

The Cornwall Association of Local Historians is at odds with English Heritage who they accuse of 'using fantasy to promote Tintagel's link with the king (Arthur)and boost visitors.' (today's Telegraph.) Apparently English Heritage have had a wizard sculpture carved at the entrance to Merlin's Cave! Cornish historians are saying they are turning Tintagel into a theme park, and considering the absolutely disgraceful and environmentally catastrophic theme park development at Lands End, I would say concerns are quite legitimate. Anyways you'd think they would get around a table and sort it out.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-35870751?SThisFB

I mentioned this sale in post 17390 where they estimated it might fetch £10,000. I thought it would go for more like ten times that. In the event it was seven and three quarters times.

I suggested ten times. You said half a million.

Why so you did, and so I did. Wonderful how selective memory can be. Humblest apologies

Actually, selective isn't the word. False is more like it.

I'm just glad it's not only me who does that.

[Unhiding subject]


I can remember correcting my great grandmother for misremembering some lines from a funny movie we watched the night before. I was maybe 6 years old. I just couldn't understand how she'd get the exact phrasing mixed up.

I completely understand now.

Slightly out of my budget...

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One of those things, the way people scramble their accounts of events, starting with whatever has the greatest emotional impact for them and filling in explanatory remarks in descending order of emotional impact, rather than simply making their account in the actual chronological order of events contributing to the total incident.




Classic case in point, the events leading up to the arrest, trial, conviction and cruxifixion of Jesus. (Just so long as its Easter weekend.)

So the account begins with a donkey being called for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem.

Then remarks are made on 'palm fronds' being spread in his way.

In the Jerusalem of the time, the most probable kind of palm frond, though exact type isn't specified, would be fronds of the date palm.

If you've ever tangled with a date palm, you'll be aware they've got rows of springy and resilient stilleto sharp spines on the sides, about as tough as the better grades of bamboo, that even the leafy part of the frond can deliver a razor like cut, that they are not sound footing, but are extremely slippery underfoot, that in short, spreading them in someone's way is not a friendly act.

I think that the remarks on the spreading of the palm fronds, made in the biblical account after the remarks on the hiring of the donkey were intended to be explanatory.

Later, of course, there's the famous scene in which Mary Magdalene is washing Jesus' feet and annointing them with "an expensive ointment"... -perhaps because his feet had been severely injured.

Finally, Jesus' delay taking flight and his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, if I'd been in his place and physically able, I'd have been on the other side of the river Jordan by that time, (not so far, after all) preaching my message to the nomadic tribals there.

I personally doubt that he was physically capable of making good his escape at that point.




Sorting out questions of causal order of events is a commonplace of police practice with witnesses who've not had specialized training as such.

First let me second your observations about the Date Palm. Having owned one for many years I have never trimmed or disposed of the fronds without several painful stab wounds. The Lemon Tree possibly has even more painful thorns, and I still have one of them in my yard

If there were more common palms available, and the road was muddy they might stabilize the surface enough to provide proper footing.

As for his taking flight, I have always believed he had become reconciled to his fate, and resigned to his capture and execution.

Others are welcome to disagree



F S

This is bad. This is very, very, very bad.
95% of the Northern section of the Great Barrier Reef is bleached. Of 520 reefs aerially surveyed, only 4 showed no bleaching. About half of this bleached coral may die within the month.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-28/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-95-per-cent-north-section/7279338

They're still finding bombs from WW2 in the oddest places. A grenade was discovered yesterday in a tree in Düsseldorf. Can't find anything in English yet.

http://www.wz.de/lokales/duesseldorf/brandgranate-steckt-in-baum-1.2158364

The National Poo Museum opens on the Isle of Wight and is set to become the Island's Number 2 attraction:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-35957829

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BadumpTSH!

The David Cameron / Panama Papers issue explained in simple terms:

http://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/718411951446093824/pu/vid/640x360/k8z4yIDowO7xVfFL.mp4

French wine growers have stopped trucks filled with Spanish wine at the Spanish border and let thousands of liters of it run down the road. They did this to protest aginst Spanish wine being cheaper and Spanish wine being allowed to be mixed with South American wine without it being declared on the bottle.

The wine came from Castilla-La Mancha, the main producer of wine in Spain. It is not as famous as La Rioja or other denominations. This wine is used to "give body" to other wines, French and Spanish ones too.
Spain doesn´t need wine from southamerica, there´s plenty of it. Castilla-La Mancha is a huge plain in the middle of Spain, it´s full of wineyards.
Not all wine from that region is of the stout kind, there´s also production of fine, silky wine. However, the stout one is the most produced.

I got my leaflet today,courtesy of the Government telling my how they think I should vote in the forthcoming referendum. You know I won't even bother to read it, I made my mind up months in fact years ago, what a waste of time and money. The thing is we shouldn't even be having the darn thing, it's a huge distraction through our fool of a Prime Minister making stupid panic fuelled decisions and promises he had no right to make at the General Election, he was all about trying to stop his Tory 'grass roots', that's a laugh, voting UKIP. Now he's bricking it cos there's a real possibility that the out vote will win, honestly we need this hypocritical sleazeball and his Bullingdon Club crony out, hideous people, chuck them out and let them go and count their vast piles of cash that they've accumulated whilst preaching at us to be good tax paying citizens.