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

I briefly posted to this thread a while ago.


What I should have done is linked to my journal entry from last month On the End of BBC h2g2, where I pretty much said it all: F110768?thread=8020389&post=105587975#p105587975

I had forgotten about this thread.

I should add that recently when tentatively asked to do some freelance work I was asked to submit some writing samples. Rather than digging up and scanning some of my academic stuff, I just sent links to some of my Edited Entries...


The first article is in the can and I'll be interviewing a team of surgeons this week for the second one.

h2g2 has been a place for me (while going through life-stuff) to maintain my writing skills and to move from an academic to a more popular (and lucrative) style.

Nobody seems to have mentioned this yet: h2g2 has been a connection to the home country which is very important to me and probably to all the other expats here.

Sometimes the UK-centricity and insularity are frustrating, but that is heavily counterbalanced by the wonderful variety of people on here no matter which country they're from.

Meeting all you people on line and learning how you think has certainly broadened my horizons, too. It goes without saying there are loads of people on h2g2 who I would never have met in RL.

It is very liberating to communicate with people without your opinion of them being influenced by what they look like, how they speak. You learn to respect people for their intelligence and good sense rather than concentrating on their appearance, dialect, choice of clothing, mannerisms, disabilities or idiosyncracies. That's what life should be like.

And, at the end of the day, it shows that, underneath, we all have a lot in common.

A lot of frustration.

Oooh, well said, TC!

Yes you're right TC

Hmmm...

Good question.

It has meant a lot of different things.

Initially just intriguing because it was Hitch Hiker related. Then I started some articles on Skiing, got involved in various threads, found people with similarly (though not necessarily similar) warped perspectives, and got to know some H2G2ers pretty well.

Was an outlet for my occasional itch to publish stuff.

Then Rupert, when everybody was forced to Yahoo Groups for a while, felt the core of the community really came together then.

Not sure things were ever the same afterwards...

Got involved in various postings wars - notably the effort to get to 10,000 posts on Questions Only? thread before the No,No,No,No thread did (I think I went slightly mad for a while then) [IIRC we managed it, but only just]...

H2G2 was a great comfort while my relationship with my GF *almost* broke down, the worst 2 months of my life.

Since then I've only ever been an occasional poster here, dabbling in some of my favourite old threads, reviving some which no-one else will EVER miss. Maybe that will change with the exodus...

Oh, almost forgot, became the proud Keeper of 42isms, and worked very hard at that for a while... (until it crept into RL a BIT too much...).