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

Ooh a board game, like snakes and ladders, I love snakes and ladders, will someone play snakes and ladders with me?, , oh no wait, this is a board game that has Knowledge in it, and I'm on square seven right now, spending time in Antwerp, that's good!

It's better to be in Antwerp than sliding down a snake. I don't have a Dalek keyring , but I do have a glow in the dark chess piece (from my dreams ) that I can move around the squares, virtually of course.

I don't want to scratch my screen with glow in the dark chess pieces from my imagination.



, so that's my progress. Makes perfect sense. .

I'll do the next move later, it's a great game! I love it!

I'd like a Dalek keyring.

Now where am I?

Antwerp!

Yes, but apart from that ....

I just remembered another piece of my dream last night. That curious documentary I was watching, which featured a newborn mythological creature, was so riveting that I forgot I had a lunch date with Tom Petty (he's a rockstar, mmm, dream on kid ) so the creature must have been very charming, although I can't remember it. .



I feel very happy in my life right now.



Last night, before the dream , I was playing my piano keyboards and I made a sequence of just two notes, which led into other sequences, it was really simple, and yet it transported me into those wonder realms, that simple state of seeing and being that is all numinous and luminous and I felt so happy.

You know what I mean, those wonder realms, that feeling .... ?



It would be good to be able to play to an audience, communicate the feeling, but I don't think it would translate, probably have to be a bit more than two notes , which is probably how I am with writing as well, but it's OK, I can talk about the numinous, luminous feeling and that's fine by me.

Sort of thing.

I think I'm off to Square Seven now, have a drink in Antwerp.

Hello Cactuscafé! I know Tom Petty, and like his stuff. Sorry you forgot the lunch date ... but even sorrier you forgot the mythological creature! If you remember please tell me and maybe I could draw a picture of it.

Funny Antwerp story:

The first time we went to Antwerp, we pulled into the train station, walked past the zoo entrance, which was next door, and went on to a cafe which was part of a hotel in a very old building - hundreds of years old, in fact.

I went up to the young man who ran it and started negotiations for a room with a bath in. He said fine. We were chatting away when his partner came by, looked at my passport, and fussed at his friend.

'Why are you being rude/ Speak English.'

The other guy shrugged. 'He speaks Flemish.'

First guy looks at me, annoyed. 'Why? You from Holland, Michigan?' I shook my head. They couldn't believe anybody would learn Dutch/Flemish 'just because'.

We got to the room. It was large, but all we could see was a sink. I called the front and complained. 'We paid for a BATH.'

'You've got one.'

'Where?'

Somebody came up and showed us the bath - actually a shower.

I have never seen anything so cool in my life. When he released the catch, the sink unfolded to become a shower stall. In the middle of a room that was at least 200 years old.

We loved Antwerp.

That's amaaazing! About the unfolding shower. Great story, these are travel writings. I love it. Now I want to go to Antwerp. Square Seven! yay! You speak Flemish? And Dutch?

Apparently some of my ancestors were Flemish weavers, according to the birdie that sits in the family tree. (and family members who research these matters). I don't know what Flemish sounds like, I must find out.



Hullo Willem! You like Tom Petty's music? Yay! I love his music.

Did you ever get into The Travelling Wilburys? They were the band put together by George Harrison, featuring George himself, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne. Roy Orbison sings like an operatic angel. .

They wrote the songs in just a few weeks, a great sound, really magic, they make me smile, good feeling. I always listen to the Wilburys when I am feeling low. There's a DVD docu about them, and some of their videos for the songs, Dylan riding a bike and wearing a straw boater hat, kinda funny. .



That would so cool if you could draw my weird creature. Would help indeed if I could remember. .I can bring to mind the dream ghost of it, if you know what I mean, like the after effect. It was endearing, I know that much. It had no potential or message , but it was friendly and makes me laugh affectionately to think about it. I can remember that it had sticky fur like a newborn calf, in fact it was the size of a calf, big grey eyes, and it was a bit geeky gangly, insecure.

Perhaps you could help it to evolve. I think it might have been a potential genius. .

Sounds like a nice creature, indeed.

My Dutch instructor was really Flemish, so they told me what I learned to speak was really Flemish, not Dutch. Willem might be able to explain it, as his language comes from there, too. I think it's interesting that you have Flemish ancestors.

I like the Flemish. The Germans say of Dutch, 'It isn't a language, it's a throat disease.'

I don't dream of mythological creatures and yours sound so cute.

Went to Glastonbury maybe myths and legends will permeate through to my dream time

I tried to pick up Dutch but my friends would just roll around laughing and revert to their very good English. It is such a shame we teach languages so late.

I had a world music CD with protest and liberation songs from all over, the children picked up a couple very quickly. I find it easier to learn by singing, perhaps it is a more pleasant form of repetition

I agree. We always used songs to learn and teach. Gets the sounds right into your head.

Think about it - can you say 'hakuna matata'? Sure.

I wish I had you as a teacher. My French teacher was a dragon, we used to say that is probably insulting to dragons, sorry dragons

She moved me from the back of the class to the front. She used to throw homework books back to you, only mine used to be delivered with the same amount of force when I was sitting in the front as it was when I was sitting at the back

She was a fantastic shot to give her due, I never saw her miss a table and she also threw chalk stubs if she didn't think you were paying attention...

Once though I had a deep meaningful conversation with her and it changed my understanding of her a person, in other circumstances I think i would have really liked her *shock horror* . There was a thaw in our relationship after that but I still thought of her as harsh as a teacher

Our high school German teacher was a complete dear - Scots irish lady from Boston. The French teachers had a reputation for being temperamental - we'd annoy them by singing German folk songs as loud as we could. Apparently, French teachers thought that our silly hiking songs sounded 'militaristic'.

At university, one of our professors was an ironic Austrian of advanced years. She never threw anything but words at you, but she was infamous for commenting on everybody's papers and exams in front of the group. Mostly she accused us of writing 'den reinen Unsinn'. (Pure nonsense.)

We got a chuckle out of her.

Fascinating! Yes! I wish I had all you folks as my teachers! Well, I do, now, but I mean then, at school. It's good to have you all as my teachers, now. Hullo teachers of life! I offer you the fragments of my absurdity.

Interesting about learning languages, I always felt it was about hearing the sounds, before even understanding the sense. I could yet be a linguist, but I'd better get a move on. .

Of course! Willem's language will be linked with Dutch.

The teachers in my school, ladies mainly, were sad rather than cruel, except for one, but we won't go into that because I will get itchy skin and have a panic and eat all my notebooks. .

My second school was a boarding school, and I think for some of the teachers it was a safe community, a live-in place to be, they were escaping from a troubled past perhaps?, broken love affairs, , things like that.

I wish I could meet them all now, as an adult, talk to them.

Hmm. Interesting.

Do you think we can go back into our past and talk to people?

I think we can, it can be healing, even though it might just be an exercise of the imagination.

In my school, the cookery teacher had quite a sense of humour. She said I rushed around like a nymph that's been stung by a gadfly.

The English teacher got me interested in writing (though I hadn't got a clue about characterisation in those days) and presided over the school play.

that is great picture, rushing around like a nymph stung by a gadfly

for some reason I am imagining you cooking meringue, I think because for reason pullng off a good meringue was the pinnacle of achievements in Home Ec

although to be fair, you could get a good grade with a decent quiche or shepherds pie

heheh, yes, great expression, mvp. .

I did geography, just to get out of cookery. . Too much ash in the pie. The cookery teacher used to smoke a lot.



Talking of geography, I wrote some borderline notes, a strange travel piece, just for here right now, because I wrote them stream, and later they will make me feel all shy and sensitive, I know they will, awwww, I'm a wuss I know I am.

Notes From The Borderline


I have attempted many journeys in my life, dancing and stumbling along those curious borderlines which run like veins between psychology and geography.



I have crossed the borderlines of my brain, by train, just because it rhymes. I am a fool, a traveller in the guise of a failed poet.



I have flown in my dreams over bloodzone borders, all barbed wire and searchlights, keep out! only crazy dreamers cross at their peril.

Ah if I could fly for real I would free the fearful ones, hovering as if I was a silver angelic spaceship, room inside for all.



I have traversed my own and ancient land with a map in hand, crossing county lines on road and walkway, marvelling at architecture, dialect, the heritage of landscape, charting the progress of rivers as they flow over boundaries with the ease of water.



I have panicked in airports at 3 am, my passport photo haunting and taunting me,'they will never let you through, I am not you'!

They always do, though, and before I know it my bones are hurtling across timezones, to eventually lie out on hot rocks where lizards lurk, to plunge naked and joyous into warm wild saltsea waves, washing away the stress and the mess of my life.



And one day, beyond all this, I will cross that final line, the one we all cross, no passport needed, no map. How absurd will seem these borderline ramblings of this fool, this traveller in the guise of a failed poet.

How I wish you would shed that guise of yours, and have the self belief to step out in your true colours


I think I might cry, because you are beautiful, and unique and poignant

and your words move me, I can feel them and they makes pictures that sometimes blow my mind

and I ache, that you would go disguise

awww thanks Peanut luv , I love to share my images, I appreciate what you say. This piece took me far into somewhere surprising.

It's the price I pay I think, living with this nervous temperament of mine that is held together with paper clips, moss and pink ribbons. .

I talk with a friend of mine about this. I have to figure it. She's doing a course in healing, and I do sessions with her so she can practice, and we do these guided journeys, it's so great, and it heals me and surprises me.

I travel into magical dimensions, but later I feel spent out, almost ill for hours, like I've travelled for ten thousand years, with only a cheese sandwich and a grumpy unicorn for company, , and I have no skin left, because the journeys are so intense.

She's a good healer though, she advises me to protect myself, and I can't blame the grumpy unicorn on her. . That's my daft imagination.



It's all a prayer to spirit though, in the end, that's what keeps me right.



You been to Glastonbury? Envious, must get there, how's it looking? ah, the Tor! the Abbey, the Blue Note Cafe! . Is there still a shop there called The Psychic Piglet?

Well, having got up this morning at what passes for the crack of dawn with me, I was tired this afternoon and took a nap. Intended to be a short one. Hah!

Various spirits had other plans. I must say, the journey they took me on wasn't tiring in the least - it was jolly, full of pleasant possibilities. I hope this keeps up, it made me feel optimistic.

Also, it pushed memory buttons I had forgotten about.

mmm sounds interesting! Curious now.

Feel free to describe the spirits, and the journey they took you on, and what memory buttons did they push, not that I'm curious or anything, haha, and you don't have to tell me, but are they dream spirits? and ...

I'm reading this really interesting book right now, called The Secret History of Consciousness. It's written by this fellow named Gary Lachman, who was the bass player and songwriter for the band named Blondie, now turned writer.

He's really clever and I don't understand hardly a word , but there's this bit about this dude named William James who everyone in the world has heard of except for me , who, under the influence of nitrous oxide wrote some really mystical texts where he experienced the reconciliation of opposites.

Writing it took him so far into it, that when he returned he was a bit tired and said 'what was that all about then James mate', well, words to that effect. .

I can relate to the tired feeling, but it's a good tired, except he didn't see any grumpy unicorns, and I think William James was more mystical than me.