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

I concur. Just used a spreadsheet to work it out.


Geggs

Your turn, Sheep.

Note to self: next time, something besides a Chinese Remainder problem.

Complete the following (i.e. what is the question mark):
yyyy u r, yyyyy u b, i c u r y+y 4 ?

Is it me?

I doubt it. But I think there are too many ys.

I mean 'For wise you are, for wise you be, I see you are too wise for me' doesn't scan quite as well as 'Too wise you are, too wise you be...' and so forth.


Geggs

Icy North is correct.
It is 'wise you are, wise yo be, you are too wise for me'. Note the original had 4 y's then 5 y's.

Q. Which two 8-letter words, both common in English, are palindromes of each other?

You know, I thought you were saying "Is it me?" in a "I'm really confused and don't understand" kind of way, rather than giving the answer, which now realise you were.

Me so dense sometimes?

Oh, and if it's 8 letter words it can't be Notlob can it? Something drawkcab though. Hmmmmm.


Geggs

need a clue?

No, Icy, just a decent encyclopaedia.

STRESSED/DESSERTS


Which of the following sports is the odd man out and why:

Baseball, cricket, golf, hockey, snooker, squash.

I'll go for snooker for a couple of reasons: each player uses more than one ball; and you strike the ball with an implement which is narrower than the ball itself (if that makes sense)

I hadn't thought of that, so let's remove snooker from the list:

Baseball
Cricket
Golf
Hockey
Squash

I'll try to check in tomorrow.

Squash as the ball is 'squashy'.

The other obvious snooker one would be that the ball moves longitudinally in the direction of the motion of the bat/cue/stick/club/whatever, whereas in the other sports it's hit tangentially.

But you've removed it now.

Still thinking (good question)

That's a point, sheep. Do squash balls contain pressurised gas? I'm wondering whether any of the balls are homogeneous (ie the same consistency all the way through the ball) - hockey, maybe?

Alternatively, golf as the ball is not handled as part of normal play (only between holes).

Surely it is in baseball, too?

Ah, I think I misread you there, didn't I.

Well, squash is the only one played with a racket. For the rest it's pretty much a glorified stick....


Geggs

Good points all, but nothing to do with the ball or the bat/club/stick/racket/etc.

I'll look in again tomorrow (or maybe sooner if you respond promptly - I've got 30 mins left here in the library).