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

Worth sitting up for? Would lying flat out in a pleasantly intoxicated state do?

Hi Walter,
I have my tickets for the soccer for the 1/4 finals, took me two hours on the Internet to work out their web site. Would you like to book a spot on my floor. Now I know how to do it anyone with money in a Visa Card can get a ticket.

Then we might be able to talk about some ancients over a glass of red wine.

Ouzo might be more in keeping with the Hellenistic spirit (so to speak ).

Somehow the Olympics lost their excitement when they split the Winter and Summer Olympics up over two years, thus giving us some form of Olympics every two years. Any event held too regularly looses its special appeal.

Also, being English, one has to face up to the fact that if we get one less gold medal than last time - we'll have none. And no-one else seems to applaud the looser as we do in England.....

Love the Hellenistic spirit and a bottle of Ouzo or three would go down very well.

Four or five would come up equally well.

Wizards of Oz v Italy at football? You enjoy seeing yourselves getting slaughtered, do you?

Granted, Inzaghi et al won't be playing (unless they've got a REALLY fast jet and they don't suffer from jet lag), but without Harry (injured) all you've got is Fat Boz and Viduka. Hardly the stuff to have Serie A's finest quaking in their boots.

I love watching the Olympic football because we don't enter for fear that FIFA make us play as GB in the World Cup too

The problem with the Olympic sports is that they are sports which are constantly seen all the time. Why not have sports which are unique to the Olympics? Even better, lets have sports that WE are good at, for instance,- beer drinking, choclate eating (I could give those East German women a run for their money - steroids or no steroids!!), queuing - the English would win hands down, lawn-mowing, car cleaning, dog walking ...... the list is endless.

Any more suggestions?

sleeping - I am world class at that.

Can I just say that a mate of mine is in the opening ceremony. He is a deep sea diver at the beginning of the cultural section (apparently...)

Surely, won't he look a bit like a 'fish out of water' parading around the stadium in a diver's outfit?

Justin knows no shame! :0)

A good olympic sport would be changing into your swimming costume on the beach without anyone seeing your bits. Noone could beat the british at that!!

Yes, especially on a nudist beach abroad, they go to massive lengths to cover up what everyone else is showing!!

On the same theme - what about sand-castle building, the Brits are brilliant at that (basically because it's always too cold to go in the sea).

Sandcastles! Yes!

I remember being on a beach on the Atlantic coast of France and building a sandcastle with my son. On day 1 we were the only ones doing it. By day 5, the whole beach was covered with the most amazing constructions. It's like any sport we introduce to the world - they start taking it too seriously and practising (which, as all Flanders & Swann fans know, ruins the fun)

Hello everyone,

What a nice surprise to see all the posts: thank you.

Mustapha, stop chatting up Moondancer and bribing her with Ouzo and diverting her away from our medieval studies, and Moondancer stop encouraging him.

Gooday Dinsdale: well, it wasn't exactly a slaughter against Italy, I thought we were a bit stiff not to get a point.

Niz, I seem to recall that Rowan Atkinson once did a skit in which he did change into his bathers without exposing his bits, and very clever it was too. Slug and Dinsdale: I think you have hit upon one of the best suggestions yet for a new Olympic event - sandcastle building. It could be staged at half-time in the beach volleyball. One for the cogniscenti I think.

DON'T FORGET: OPENING CEREMONY FROM SIX-ISH TONIGHT LOCAL TIME. Shed a tear with me, and thousands more, as the true Golden Girl, Betty Cuthbert, lights the cauldron. Come on, admit it, it's a gas.

Walter.

Hello everyone,

What a nice surprise to see all the posts: thank you.

Mustapha, stop chatting up Moondancer and bribing her with Ouzo and diverting her away from our medieval studies, and Moondancer stop encouraging him.

Gooday Dinsdale: well, it wasn't exactly a slaughter against Italy, I thought we were a bit stiff not to get a point.

Niz, I seem to recall that Rowan Atkinson once did a skit in which he did change into his bathers without exposing his bits, and very clever it was too. Slug and Dinsdale: I think you have hit upon one of the best suggestions yet for a new Olympic event - sandcastle building. It could be staged at half-time in the beach volleyball. One for the cogniscenti I think.

DON'T FORGET: OPENING CEREMONY FROM SIX-ISH TONIGHT LOCAL TIME. Shed a tear with me, and thousands more, as the true Golden Girl, Betty Cuthbert, lights the cauldron. Come on, admit it, it's a gas.

Walter.

Sorry about the double posting everyone, but I guess it's worth saying twice if you really care.

Hi Walter and a good morning to all,

Thank you for your report on the Aussie v Italy match, I was unable to watch as I was wandering around in here. But my son watch and informed me we was robbed.

Now about that rendezvous with Mustapha, if you would like to bring a couple of bottles of ouzo or even a barrels of retsina (that I don't know how to spell, fortunately it was in my word spell check)you are more than welcome to join us.

I drank retsina on the roof of a hotel in the Plaka (I'm not sure about the spelling of this either) in Athens overlooking the acropolis, which is lit up like a beacon. It tasted amazing, I tried it when I came home and it tasted like turps. Do you think it might have had something to do with the atmosphere


Now back to the Olympics, stop bagging the Olympians. Any one who spends 8 years training and preparing themselves for something they might never get the chance to get to has got to have some consideration from us. Otherwise they will do something productive and flood the unemployment market.

Well there is one fellow out there who has been doing this olympic shebang and winning for the last four games and is thought to be in with a good chance for his fifth gold. Not bad for an englishman.