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

Entry: The Ooze: Mind out of Matter - A30277578
Author: Tibley Bobley - U170471

About a sinister slick slithering slyly through the slimy darkness.

If you read it, comment or make any helpful suggestions, thank you very much

This story provides a genuine intellectual guffaw.

You started with the opposite of anthropomorphism - cool move - and then went somewhere interesting with it.

Poor bats.

It's kind of a shame the sentient slime mould didn't make it out of the cave: one imagines classically-trained actors standing before it and muttering, 'For *this* I studied with the Royal Shakespeare Company'.

Thanks Dmitri. If it made you laugh, my work is done! And let me assure you that not one single bat was harmed in the making of this story. No bat was even worried or annoyed. I promise

I didn't want to bring it to the surface because I thought it would have too much competition up aloft. You can well imagine the reaction of the classically-trained lovies, but just remember the more down to earth performances of the likes of Leonard Nemoy, who would merely raise an eyebrow, waggle his ears (in the "Spitting Image" version at least) and say something like: "It's life Jim, but not as we know it." Or Reginald Tate (UK version) and Brian Donlevy (US version) in The Quatermass Experiment. I can't remember exactly what they said about their particular heaving lump, but I know they weren't standoffish about it. Even Steve McQueen managed to take The Blob seriously

Made me laugh too - at the point where it grew a sense of satisfaction. And at that we should be grateful. So we should.

Thanks .

Yes, I was thinking of Patrick Stewart, faced with the sentient oil slick. He apparently murmured something about his Shakespearean training at that point.

The moral is obvious: Vulcans have far more poise than Yorkshire Frenchmen.

I remember seeing an episode of Doctor Who (the original version) in which our heroes are threatened by a slimy mass - and it spoke perfect English! Your intelligent slime obviously belongs to the same tradition. .

Actually, I'm sure your story raises all sorts of interesting questions. Like can you have a sense before you have an entity?

Do you mean the sentience-vs-sapience argument?

This actually, at some point during it's evolution, covers the hydra p.o.v.

Oh, it was Patrick Stewart being all sniffy about working with sentient goo, was it? You'd think he'd welcome the challenge, wouldn't you?

I don't know if you can have a sense before you have an entity. In reality, it seems unlikely. In this imaginary case though, the thing giving rise to the sense was just a collection of detritus that, if you lifted it on a shovel with the surrounding muck, would have been indistinguishable. It was just some improbable chemistry bubbling and fuming away that generated the sense. Who knows how life first got started? Perhaps it was just some improbable chemistry hissing away in a nasty sulphurous pit

When I read 'hydra' I thought of that song (was it by T Rex?) - something about "you got the teeth of the hydra upon you". Sounds nasty, but aren't they just tiny little things that live in water with whip-like tentacles round one end? The point of view of the ooze and the hydra would probably have been similar at the early stage

I think it's the problem that there's a hydra in mythology (big monster with lots of heads) and a hydra in bio lab - which, as I well know, does not always do what the textbooks say it does.

Proving that biology is more unpredictable than They Would Have You Believe.

I firmly believe that sense can exist without the feeling of 'I, I, I, I, I...'

'ello there folks!

We've been out and about looking for the very best P&F for our birthday issue this week, and chanced upon this little gem. So congratulations, Tibley - you're booked for Thursday!

Rich

I've been told we've already run this one, as Tibley submitted it to us as well as AWW

But I don't care, and we're running it again

Rich

Oh dear Wasn't I supposed to do that? I didn't know. Ah well. It's nice that you want to dust this one off and give it another airing I've noticed that you're out actively hunting for Post material these days. It's packed with great stuff. Well done!

It was entirely my fault, in fact. I'm supposed to check just in case we've already run it, but this issue is particularly busy and I didn't. There's no reason why you can't submit to AWW and The Post, but I should have noticed that we'd already run it (in my defence, I was in The Gambia last time we ran it!) Still, it shows how much we enjoyed it for EMR and I to have both wanted to run it, and for the rest of the Post Team to remember it from last time

We are taking a more proactive approach, yes, and I'm glad to hear that we're looking good as a result

Thanks again,

Rich