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

Evening everyone

It's been a slightly less than perfect day. I lost a dog earlier. She put her silly nose on an electric fence (she's done it a few times and doesn't seem to learn) a couple of days ago and it's taken this long for her to decide it was a terrifying experience and she wasn't going near the area where the monster was hiding again. So when I insisted on going that way she took off. She's back now. It's just started to rain again.

I'm not surprised that the shop keepers in Shrewsbury are fed up with the flood publicity. Don't you get the feeling when anything bad happens that the news people just love it and if it's not quite bad enough then they just have to exaggerate it?

I'm fine Case. We live on high ground. There's a bit of a flood down the road a little way but it's far enough away not to cause me to worry.

The little smileys are good (there should be grapes though) and the changes to the search facility are an improvement. I like the way I can get rid of conversations I'm not involved in. The one thing I'm not keen on is the way the system has slowed down. You think 42667 bps (I think that means bits per second) is bad, well BT only gives me about 37000 bps. My old service, which I still use for my email manages nearer 50000 I think. I'm pretty sure the real problem is that h2g2 has slowed right down though. I've been trying to update my bacteriophage article and I keep getting time out messages.

Speaking of which Wazungu, I noticed your message on the artichoke thread that's mysteriously been attached to the bottom of my article. I don't mind it being there. In fact I should go and tell it's author what an interesting piece I think it is. Artichokes are a favourite of mine - especially those antipasto ones you get in oil from Sacla. Great on pizzas.

It sounds as though those poor shearwaters have had a rough time Bran. I wonder if there's any reason they shouldn't cut their losses and stay in Tasmania to breed this year. Birds are strongly driven by instinct though, so they probably won't.

Walter must be off having a good time - hope so anyway. Think I'll go and make myself a g&t now I come to think of Walter having a good time.

Speak to you all later.
Sal

Hello Wazungu, StM and Bran,

I'm BACK! Supercool and in contention for anything remotely resembling life AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT HAVE ANY DIRECT OR INDIRECT CONNECTION with essay-writing. The beast is finished. Its statistics are 5359 words, 109 footnotes with a further 4956 words!! How about that Bran, I nearly did it, nearly wrote an essay of which more than half is footnotes! Actually, if you count the bibliography (856 words)then the essay itself is less than half of the whole. I should get an HD just for that. Wazungu and StM, your suggestions are incorporated in it somewhere, in fact your 'images and perceptions' ideas are the basis of the opus.

StM, I am briefly in at the office, but shortly will collect the beloved and we will be homeward bound. Rest assured a G&T on the terrace is already a priority, and then we have some friends and family over for the beloved's belated birthday dinner. Talk with you all next week, but in the meantime take good care of yourselves and haveagoodweekend.

Walter (free and slightly delerious, but dottily and delightfully so, not a danger to anyone).

Good afertoon from damp Shropshire,

Sorry Bran, the "local town" meant Whitchurch. Its just a mile and a half away. As opposed to the 20 miles to Shrewsbury. Which to many Salopians is still far enough to be "foreign". And the date was 1404. But Whitchurch has been here since the Romans and is almost on the Welsh border, so I'm sure the Welsh sacked it back in 800 too! It was called Westune by the Saxons, Mediolanum by the Romans. Offa's dyke is twenty miles away at its nearest point.

As for Shrewsbury, it was occupied by the Welsh....
Extract from Britannica.com (which you probably know already);
"The Welsh princes of Powys made it their seat, called Pengwern in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was subsequently engulfed in the late 8th century by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. It had a mint during Edward the Elder's reign (899-924)... "
No information on whether the princes sacked it before sitting in it.

I like artichokes the messy way Sal. Leaf by leaf, dripping in melted butter and salt. I grew some from seed. None survived winter, except the spare plant I gave my mother. It's been producing artichokes for her for three years now. Last year it gave up waiting for her to split it, and replant it and managed to divide itself. It's obviously a survivor.
I'm glad the dog came back. It's odd what animals associate with things they don't like. It sounds as if she doesn't connect the wire with the pain. I had a budgie once that I had to catch regularly to give medicine. I always wore gloves and the sight of the gloves sent him into hysterics, but he never connected me with the whole unpleasant business. It was the same with the aviary birds and the net. Walk in with the net and you walked into a whirlwind of feathers. Walk in without it and you might be invisible.

Congratulations Walter on the safe arrival of your 109 foot monster! I would love to see an h2g2's editor's reaction to 109 footnotes.

Enjoy your G&Ts everyone, I'm out this evening with the friends I went to France with, we'll be having wine instead.
Wz

Evening all

Pleased to hear your magnum opus is finished Walter. What a relief for you! All those footnotes - good grief. I wonder if there's an rsi you can get like "magnum opus readers' eye strain" from having to keep scanning rapidly to the foot of the page to check out the footnotes. Anyway, congratulations and I hope it earns you an HD (hard disk? higher degree? huge diploma? hot date?) or whatever you were aiming for. I've had a G&T and felt celebrational for you.

I had some artichokes with butter for tea Saturday Wazungu. They were canned and just needed to be heated for 3 minutes. I think they were probably quite nice but it's hard to say. I've had a bit of a virus for the past few days, so haven't been quite with it. I expect fresh ones would have been nicer but I live a long way from any big shops. Cabbages, spuds and turnips are in plentiful supply in my local shop, but not much else. I wonder why your mother's artichoke plant survived and yours all died. Is your garden more exposed to the elements or more slug infested? It doesn't sound as though your ma gave the plant lots of tlc.

You're right about my daft dogs. They don't ever seem to associate strands of wire along the edges of fields with electric shocks. One of my last dogs used to think some animal had attacked him if he got a shock and would run around growling and looking for his sneaky assailant. Your birds sound about as bright as my dogs - love 'em.

I must just tell you this - at the risk of exposing myself as a twit, if everyone else already knew and thought everybody else knew too. I went over to the h2g2 forum where you can suggest useful features that might be added to the site and said it would be handy if we could have a window to view footnotes in articles because it was a drag to have to scroll to the bottom of the page to read the footnotes, especially on long articles because you lose your flow and lose your place. The very nice person who replied to the message said that if you use IE5 (which I do by the way) you could read a pop-out footnote just by hovering your mouse pointer over the footnote number. Also, if you click on the footnote number, it takes you straight to the footnote and if you click on the footnote number at the bottom of the page, it takes you straight back to the text it relates to. I was so pleased and wondered if I was the only person who hadn't worked it out. On that confessional note I shall sign off for now.

Speak to you all later.
Sal

Hiya everybody. Here in SA we're having nice rains - not too little, not too much, and the world is looking wonderful. I'm developing some new online habits - going from about half past three to seven o'clock the morning. It's now four o'clock the morning and I'm still a bit sleepy - been in bed since ten. Net access is much faster during this period, and I get to sleep two times a day! Life is fun if you get to determine your own working hours!

Must say I like the extended range of smileys we have now! I saved the smiley page to my hard disk so I can view it quick and easy anytime.

!!!

One of our cats also experienced a nasty surprise this weekend. We have four cats at this time - my sister is getting married soon and she and her hubby-to-be are still figuring out where to stay, and in the meantime her cat has been staying with us and riling our other three. But the one who experienced the nasty surprise was one of the originals, Poplap. I was in the garden admiring some of our new resident insects, and she was around, rubbing up against my legs and investigating the vegetation up close. All at once she was acting weird - shaking her head, squinting her one eye, licking her face, and running off whenever I tried to approach her. At last I caught up with her but I couldn't easily figure what was wrong. She would lick her cheek and then shake her head furiously, seemingly very upset. I soon smelled it. She had been blasted by a stink bug! In Afrikaans we also call them "pumpkin bugs" and the smell is one that I know very well. Very early in my life I had learnt never to handle a pumpkin bug. I hope Poplap has now also learnt that lesson! But in her case it was worse, because humans can use soap and water to try and wash off the smell, but she has to use her tongue! Knowing how bad it smells, I can only imagine how awful it must taste! And it seems to be more irritating to cats than to humans, because the side of her face swelled up after the incident, whereas my fingers never did. The swelling has subsided by now, thankfully. I wonder if dogs will make such a mistake - I would think their better sense of smell would warn them very early that that particular kind of creature is something to stay away from. I can smell a pumpkin bug from a distance of about a meter even before it has squirted any of its juice.

Have any of you seen the footage of South African police dogs being used to torture illegal Mozambican immigrants? That has been the really hot topic over here the last week or so. I've written something about it on the Noticeboard in the Utopia Cafébar if any of you would like to know more. But it has been speculated that this video is going to make dogs very unpopular over here. Dogs have long been implicated in racism - many are trained to bark at and bite black people but not whites. This may also be the reason why lots of dogs were tortured and killed in Zimbabwe during the farm invasions. Dogs are often used as a means of crowd control here; they are typically very savage. They are also very popular as a cheap domestic security system. It happens regularly that children and even adults are bitten severely and "accidentally" by their own or friends' dogs: I know at least three people who still carry extensive scars and are lucky to have gotten off with their lives. But of course the dogs are not the ones to blame. Dogs do what they are taught. In this respect cats have it better - they do what they damnwell please, and while they may seem aloof and distant, at least they cannot be abused easily.

As for teaching the HUMANS, that is a problem that we will probably need to devote lots of time and effort to.

Be well, everybody!
Case

In case anyone of you haven't done so yet, or in case you know about anybody who hasn't done so yet, please sign or ask them to sign the Amnesty International Petition against Torture:
http://www.h2g2.com/A455528

And I also invite you all to come and have a chat and a drink and a good meal of healthy, tasty, organic, GM-free and BSE-free food at the Utopia Cafébar: http://www.h2g2.com/A465842

See ya!

Hi Wazungu, StM and Bran,

The news reports are that the weather is still atrocious in Britain, so I won't dwell on local conditions (23 degrees and sunny).

StM, your discovery about how easy it is to view footnotes will be very handy indeed if I ever put up something for consideration as an edited guide entry. But have you noticed how Bran, the acknowledged footnote king, has gone quiet? If I know my old cobber, he will not easily let this challenge to his proficiency stand unrebutted. Bran is the only person I know who has actually footnoted footnotes. And an HD is High Distinction, the mark Bran achieves as a matter of routine and the rest of us aspire to get every once in a while.

Electric fences and dogs. My late but so fondly remembered Prince once came to grief on an electric fence down a road that we used to walk. From that day forward, for about six months, I had to literally pick him up and carry him past the spot, and for maybe the next two or so years as we approached the shock area he would cringe in between my legs and shuffle along there until we had safely passed. A friend of mine who maintains an electric fence to keep his dogs in swears that they know when the juice is off; he figures that they can sense it. Wouldn't surprise me at all, just like ants know when it's going to rain, or butterflies 'smelling' each other from up to a mile away. Talking of smelling, do you think it really is true that dogs' sense of smell is one thousand times more acute than ours?

Well, must do some work, but will sustain myself with thoughts of a G&T with Beloved after work in the glorious late afternoon sunshine. And some fresh strawberries. Take care y'all,

Walter.

Hi All

Well, Walter! You have without a doubt passed me in the footnote race! I have been desparately looking for an essay or paper that surpasses you, but no. The best that I can offer is a 5296 word paper with 111 footnotes containing 4774 words. On balance, I think that your paper clearly trumps this. You are the new Footnote King! What a great effort to get it all done and be able to relax with the Beloved and the Vandal. What a relief.

Waz, thanks so much for all that info about Shrewsbury and the Welsh. I will look up the link. If I find anything else about the area in my searches I shall let you know.

What a great day it is here today - sunny and warm. Too bad that I am inside all day with The Tome. Still it is great to see it all out the window.

Best get back to it (I am a man obsessed at the moment).
Cheers
Bran.

Evening, from Britain, 7 degrees and dank, but not to dwell on it; Sal, my garden is much more slug infested and maybe more exposed but the ground also holds water longer and I think that may have made the difference. The artichoke does get SOME tlc, it got a fleece last winter!
I did know about the pop up footnotes, I think they came in the last but one h2g2 revision and I read something about them then. But I didn't know about going up and down the page. Did you know that if you click on a smilie it takes you to the smilies page? Only came across that in a forum yesterday.
Case, I'm not too sure about that sleep pattern. I've heard people need six hours at a stretch, or memory and concentration can suffer. But everyone's different. Mrs Thatcher is said to have needed very little sleep, whether that is a recommendation or not I guess depends on your view of Mrs. T.

Sometimes the only news I see in a day is the local paper, it doesn't even cover national news, never mind international news. So I hadn't seen those stories. I do remember that in Zimbabwe most dogs were as much guard dogs as pets. I'm not sure you can expect people who are not themselves treated with humanity to have much humanity for animals. It's one of the issues East Africa needs to deal with with the people who live in and around the conservation areas and game parks there. On occasion they've been treated with rather less care than the animals. It's worrying for the long term future of the reserves that the visitors to these places are almost entirely tourists. Local people don't relate to them.

I went on a really good safari in Tanzania, thanks to Adam, the guide we had. He knew the parks and wildlife back to front - but it didn't interest him at all. He was fascinated by the tourists however! Part of his safari was to take us to view the tourists in the lodges, (we were budget camping), to see how most tourists (not budget ones) carried on and what incredible prices were happily paid by them. He had a wonderful fund of stories too about all the different nationalities that he'd taken on trips. The Swedes who insisted on cooking their own food, and on his trying it, and the Japanese, that he had obviously found it very easy to wind up, being favourites.

On the WorldProfessionalWritersFootnoteFeat competition it looks as if we need a footnote performance ratio for an objective appraisal. How about Words in Paper divided by the average number of Words in Footnote per Footnote. The WPWFF ratio, in which zero counts high and infinity is a complete washout. Scoring Bran 123 and Walter 118. Why is this beginning to remind me of Government grant distribution formulas and Eric Bristow?

I think I've been on the computer too long,
Til later
Wz

Good Morning Everyone

A great ratio Waz! It still places Walter out in front, and I am glad to have relinquished my crown to worthy succcessor, and great bloke to boot. We could also offer prizes for the WTWP award - words in a thread divided by the number of words per post, or something.

We also used to have dogs for "guarding" our property in Papua New Guinea, though I mudt admit that ours were more like pets. They just made a lot of noise, and the poor local people were terrified of dogs on the whole (for good reason). Other people that we knew had more vicious animals trained to differentiate between black people and white people. Pretty scary in retrospect. The footage from SA was indeed troubling Case. It made the news a few times here, and was in the papers.

Well Gang ... I have put my application in for the medieval lecturer job here in Tas. So, we'll see what happens. Competition is fierce, so I'm not wildly confident. But, must be in it to win it, as they say. I'll keep you all posted.

Best off to porridge.
Cheers
Bran.

Afternoon everyone

I've been experiencing some difficulties getting through to h2g2 between 18:00 and 23:00 gmt so I'm going to have a go a bit earlier. Trouble is, if you spend most of the evening trying to get through and don't get through until almost bed time, you're too tired and fed up to read and send messages. I'm doing this message off-line in an Outlook Express "new mail" window, so, if necessary, it can stay here till I get through - whenever that may be.

I'm very glad we don't have stink bugs here Case. If we did, my dogs would definitely invite the little blunderbusses to blast away at them. My dogs at least, are very silly indeed and cats are usually a bit smarter than dogs (in my limited experience of cats). After her recent run in with the electric fence, I have to walk this daft little dog on a lead. She's gone completely neurotic. She's 4 years old and was pretty well behaved. She would come back when called - even if she was in hot pursuit of a rabbit when called. Now she bolts if I let her off the lead when we're out and I usually find her hanging around outside the house when I've worn myself out trying to find her. The nuttiest part of the story is that she's had about 3 or 4 nasty experiences with electric fences and this is the first time she's completely lost her marbles because of it. It must be horrible to put your nose on an electric fence. I really sympathise with the poor little devil but you'd think something that unpleasant would make her very cautious about where she sticks her nose in future. If dogs in Tasmania can tell when electric fences are on then they must have developed a sense that British dogs haven't yet managed to hone.

One of my previous dogs had a funny turn (probably a small fit) down the lane and he refused to pass the spot for a few months so I had to go another way or carry him past the place. As the days passed he would demand to be picked up sooner, that is, farther away from the point where the incident occurred so I had to carry him a greater distance. He was almost the size of a Labrador so I can identify with you having to carry Prince, Walter. I must have been a lot stronger then because I don't think I could carry a Jack Russell that far now. That same dog wasn't frightened of fireworks or thunder storms until he was 5 years old, then he was suddenly terrified of both. Makes you wonder how dogs' minds work, doesn't it?

I saw the thing about the South African police beating up those Mozambican men and setting the dogs on them. What a bunch of monsters! I also saw the mobs in Zimbabwe beating dogs (who weren't showing any sign of aggression) to death. Both of those incidents upset me very badly. I don't know what to say about either really. The problem for me with incidents like that, is that they make it clear to me how people can feel murderous - because that's how I feel when I see things like that. It's very difficult for me to get all sort of liberal and understanding and try to take a balanced view when I'm thinking how very satisfying it would be to ... well, you get the picture. Watching other people being irrational and violent makes me feel irrational and violent (not that I've ever actually been violent, let me assure you) so I can quite see how ordinary people can get that way. It's worrying. We're animals just like any other animals but with frightening technology - technologically advanced but emotionally primitive. I've seen programmes about chimpanzees making war on their neighbours. We share a lot in common with our cousins and we're not as nice or as civilised as some of us would like to think. I wonder whether it's possible to educate that unreasoned aggression out of our species - I hope it is. I hope it can and will be done.

It's been pouring with rain here today Walter. Glad you're enjoying such clement weather, late afternoon sunshine and fresh strawberries. We only have another 6 or 7 months to wait until we can sip our G&Ts in the garden again. I can hardly wait.

I've seen footnoted footnotes here at h2g2. I'll keep my eyes skinned for footnoted footnote footnotes.

Your mother obviously has an unfair advantage if she has fewer slugs, a more sheltered garden and well drained soil. Was the fleece one of those thin, white, man-made fibre sort of web things? Not the sort of thing you need to evict a sheep from first? Could you prepare some soil in the least exposed part of your garden by introducing some sharp sand (good for drainage and slugs hate it) and then kidnap a bit of the artichoke plant now growing happily in your mother's garden? It might work.

I tried clicking on a smiley to see what would happen. How exciting! What ever next? Now there's no need to scratch your head and wonder what someone's trying to say when some odd little icon pops up in the conversation, like or

Good luck with your medieval lecturer job application Bran! Here's some magic from the good fairy I'm sure that should work.

Now, I wonder if I'll manage to get through to post this ...

Bye for now.
Sal

Hi All

A quick weekend post before I get to work - yes it never ends. I have to make some pretty fast progress these next few months, in the event that I get the job, as after that it will be on for young and old. Thanks for the well-wishes Sal. I'm sure that the magic will do the trick (get it?!). The applications close tomorrow and they have to short-lost pretty quickly as the head of department is off the following week on a jaunt to the UK. That means the decision will be made within two weeks ... almost unheard of in academic positions, which can take many months if not years. I hear done story of an applicant not hearing about a job they had applied for for 18 months! (Admittedly that was in the bad old days when "Human Resources" was still called "personnel", but still).

How is that weather going in the UK? Saw a snippet on the news last night of Charlie meeting and greeting flood-victims (if that is the right term) in York. We had a glorious 23 celcius yesterday with blue sky all day (no gloating, honest), which sent me off into a burst of gardening. We are about to plant a small vegie patch, which for us mostly means tomatoes and lettuces. We would like to do more of this, but really have trouble finding the time. Walter, how do you fit everything in having a real job and studying? I am very impressed.

Well, back to it. Enjoy the rest of the weekend Folks. (Trying my first new smiley).
Bran.

Evening all,
Bran, all the best for the job application. .
BTW h2g2 keep stats on postings. They are watching! As at 22.54 GMT, 18/12/00 Case was heading their list with 5 posts average 3484 words. Are you volunteering to count the words in the thread?

Sal, are you sure that dog didn't just want a lift? My sister stayed with family who owned an afghan hound once. She started taking him with her, for a walk, to the phone box to ring home. He quickly developed "sudden extreme exhaustion" whenever the phone box came into sight. (She used to spend quite some time on the phone.)
He was too heavy to lift, have you ever tried to move an afghan which was sitting firmly on its haunches?
He also developed extreme thirst and weariness as you went in through the front door, however sprightly and full of energy he'd been, going down the garden path. The result of which was that the little girls who lived there would fall all over him with sympathy and fetch his water bowl. I think I know how his mind worked. He was a beautiful dog though, watching him run was quite something - made a rather nice hearth rug too.

You've got the right fleece - no sheep were involved. I think I'll try the sharp sand idea but on my own seeds. Kidnapping might not be wise! I don't want to spoil my source of roast dinners.

On what you were saying in reply to Case, I have once, just once, been provoked to the point of reacting to a form of aggression instinctively, without thought, and it was quite scary. Not that any physical violence was involved! On either side that is. It was just a minor thing but I surprised myself and it made me wonder just how well we really know what we're capable of.

I've been having problems being timed out on h2g2 too, particularly last Thursday. Very frustrating. Tonight has been ok so far, touch wood.
Til later,
Wz.

Hello Wazungu, StM and Bran,

This is the first time in about four days that I have been able to get through without the screen just freezing up. Figured it must have been my machine, but it seems as if the h2g2 site has been playing up a bit since the last upgrade.

In the front garden this morning, a wood duck and five now not so small quacklings; she has done well, having started with six. And no boasting, but a gorgeous weekend. Didn't see the TV or listen to a radio, so no official temperatures, but fine, sunny, warm to hot. And this morning, it is raining; excellent. We spent almost the entire weekend in the garden, and were to have planted all the 'trees in waiting' last evening when it became cooler. Got the three Alder trees down okay, but couldn't quite work out where the crab apples are to go, or the Bruny Pines and bottlebrushes, so we had a glass of reisling instead and will sort it out later in the week.

Bran, lot's of luck with the job. Since I know the school of History and Classics, and the academic staff, you are the most competent and respected candidate and patently the best-suited person for the job. Wazungu and StM, I have a few of Bran's written pieces by me. One is entitled "On the authenticity of the 'British Charter' in William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie." This is of 5255 words with 109 footnotes; an average of a footnote for each 48 words. On the other hand my 109 footnotes (coincidentally the same number as Bran's) in 5441 words only averages a footnote per fifty words. Bran, cobber, tell the interview panel that you retain the distinction of being Mr Footnote.

I have to go, someone has arranged an early-morning meeting. Take care, y'all,

Walter

G'day all,
Glad you got through in the end Walter, I think it's Smilies in the h2g2 works.
I've never met a wood duck, sounds nice. How did the spur winged plover get on and HOW are you planning to keep Ben off the new trees?

This morning everything here was covered in frost. Very cold but very pretty driving to work in the sun. Yellow trees, blue skies, (in patches), and white fields. I'll get some food out for the birds tomorrow. I have a robin that spends a great deal of time outside the backdoor and a wren paying regular visits to the house martin nests. A couple of winters ago seven or eight wrens were spending the nights in one the nests. I used to count them in as it got dark. I counted them on several evenings to be sure, because it didn't seem possible to get that many in one nest. I haven't worked out if that's what's happening again.

Bran, have you got Walter down for a reference? I'd think he'd make a good job of it.
Til later
Wz

Afternoon all

Eighteen months to let an applicant know whether s/he'd got the job, Bran? Why does it take so long? Is it because the people on the boards of selectors (or whatever they're called) are so old that some have died without anyone noticing and they're all sitting round waiting for some dead person to make a decision? What a way to go on. Glad you won't have so long to wait, in any case.

It poured with rain here last night and there was a howling gale. Country-wide the floods are subsiding. I heard yesterday that my brother in Brighton was flooded out after all. I thought he'd be ok because, although his office is in the valley, there's a huge tunnel under the valley (I think it carries a subterranean river) and I don't think there's been a flood there for 100 years or more. Anyway, he's coming up to visit at the weekend and he and my other brother are going on a walking holiday in Snowdonia, so I guess that must be a good indication that he didn't drown.

I saw on the news that there are currently floods in Australia. They said lots of cattle had died and there's the problem of disease from contaminated water and mosquitoes to sort out. They interviewed a man outside his house, waist-deep in water, saying he'd always wanted a home on the water front. You can't beat that of stoicism and a sense of humour, can you?

You might be right about dogs in general Wazungu, but Tom was really frightened after his turn. Poppy (the one who electrocuted her hooter last week) isn't "swinging the lead" either - she's genuinely terrified now, but my other dog, Jenny, gets little thorns in her feet quite often and she's learned that she gets fussed over and spoilt if she limps a bit. A couple of years ago I noticed that whenever the farmer put down fresh aggregates (because the lane deteriorates into a pot-holed quagmire in the winter) to fill in the holes, she didn't want to go that way. When she reached a rough bit, she would start limping before even setting foot on the stones. I'd inspect her paws and there was nothing wrong with them. I'd carry her to the other side of the rough bit then put her down and she'd trot off - nothing wrong with her. Little bitch. Just wanted a lift over the rough bit. Quite endearing really. You wouldn't think they could be so sly, would you? She wouldn't get away with it if she was the size of an Afghan hound though.

It's funny the way we can surprise ourselves with our own anger. If we live in a relatively aggression-free environment it's easy to think that people in war zones must just be a bunch of maniacs who should calm down and be nice to each other. It's hard to understand until we, personally, are sorely provoked, how easy it is to lose it and want to have a go. When my brother's business partner blows his top, he explains "I spat out my dummy and threw all my toys out of the pram". He views it as a childish lack of self control - which, in my opinion, shows just how grown up he is. Letting rip like that from time to time over minor things, is probably a useful safety valve.

It's a bit up and down at h2g2 lately isn't it. I could get through ok last night but I was too tired to do much and couldn't sit long after a longer than usual day at work. This afternoon it's hard work again. I keep getting the "page cannot be displayed" message.

Walter, when your crab apple tree is producing fruit, go and have a look at http://www.brewery.org/ where you can find a great recipe for a crab apple liqueur. They also have loads of other recipes - sloe gin for example.

Wrens are tiny aren't they? There were loads of them in my garden a few years ago. A couple nested and raised a family in one of my trees. A couple got killed flying into my front living room window. It looked as though they could fly straight through the front and out of the back. I've let my windows get dirty since then so they can tell that they're solid - only there aren't many birds in my garden anymore. I have seen a robin and a black bird while I've been writing this though.

It's martins that get those huge, horrible lice all over them isn't it? If they get too many they can die from blood loss. They pass them on to their young and the lice can kill the baby martins even quicker because they're so little. I wonder if the wrens get the same lice from occupying old martin nests. Hope not.

Time to walk the dogs. Speak to you later.
Sal

Hi All
Yes 18 months to hear about a job is insane - but that's universities for you. They are traditionally terrible at making hiring decisions. The people on the committes are OK, as they are usually the ones who need the staff, and so they get their bit done quickly. Then the decision has to go through the "heirarchy" and be approved at higher levels. This is where it can take time as bottlenecks can occur. In the last uni I worked at, at all had to go through one guy (thr deputy vice-chancellor), and he only looked at the hiring for the whole uni on one afternoon a week. So, if you didn't get it one week, or the next, or the next, you knew why. And he had the view that any applicant would just be dying to work at his uni, and so was not moved by pleases that the applicants would just look elsewhere if they had not heard ... as they often did. Craxy ... and he was a psychologist who was also a colonel in the psych corp of the army reserve. Brrrr!

Floods in northern New South Wales. Apparently about a third of the state inundated. Looks pretty serious, as that is also a wheat-growing region and crops are, needless to say, not going well under water. Hope that there is some let up soon. For some reason just before Christmas there is often some disaster - floods, bushfires, cyclones, etc. Wonder why.

Walking in Snowdonia sounds like a lot of fun for you siblings Sal. Do you join them on such jaunts?

I would love to have Walter as a referee Waz. I am thinking of hiring himas my PR agent ... all calls to be directed to Walter, that sort of thing.

Walter, I reckon you have too easily relinquished you claim on the Footnote Crown. I think you are up there. I am happy to enter into a crown-sharing arrangement!

Best get back to it. Take care all.
Cheerio
Bran.

Please ignore this. Just testing something.

Good evening,
(I've tried to post this once but I don't think it worked, so trying again.)
18 months to make an appointment is no way to run anything, except perhaps a dental surgery. Do you think the US President will take 18 months? It's not just Australian Universities, my brother, (if I've got the facts straight, it's hard to get facts out of him), got a one year appointment at a university over here which finished in September. He's still there but hasn't heard officially that he's still there. When I asked, he said he thought you'd hear if the appointment wasn't extended, if you don't hear you just carry on. Apparently.

Sorry to hear about more flooding, I suppose our winter floods are preferable from the point of not spreading diseases. We've had a couple more flood warnings here, but not for Shrewsbury.

Wrens may be tiny but their voices aren't. Right little scolds they are. The bluetits go into the martins nests in winter too. I've wondered if they were going after insects there. I hope it's not lice - I didn't know about those, Sal. Years ago, in my parents house, I found fleas in the bedroom. They came from the bluetits that were nesting inside the window frame. They got in where the sash window cords were.

Letting rip is an excellent safety valve, if it's not at anyone else's expense. I think it's better for you to get angry about something than to get down about it. Provided the anger doesn't turn bitter in any way. They say you shouldn't bottle it up. I usually get rid of mine by sending up whatever caused it, belting up and down the swimming pool, or "letting rip" on the clarinet. I try not to do the latter when the neighbours are in . Another, excellent way is to go to your nearest deserted Scottish island beach and charge over a sand dune cliff yelling "Geronimo" as loudly as possible.

BTW the spell checker has just suggested "Geranium" instead of Geronimo. That wouldn't work for me, but everyone to their own.

You know I don't think I'll ever be able to do that again without thinking of geraniums, which entirely ruins the effect.

It's getting late so goodnight/good morning,
Wz

Hi guys. I've been a bit quiet over here lately. My sister is getting married on Saturday, and all of us have been quite busy with preparations. From next week onwards I'll try to be in more regularly. But I'm also doing lots of things here on h2g2, busy with many different conversations and trying to write a few guide entries in the meantime.

Here in South Africa we are again having floods, this time in northern Kwazulu-Natal. There has been widespread damage of infrastructure. So far there hasn't been great loss of life, except for a few guys who were swept away on a bridge; they haven't been found yet but the chances are slim that they're still alive. Let's hope this doesn't turn into a disaster as big as last year's.

But here in Pietersburg the rain is gentle and invigorating. Slightly above average so far, the countryside is looking marvellously green.

I'll be off now. Take care, all!