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

For some reason I keep thinking you're a woman; it's probably the "Lucinda" persona.

Oh - is Cambridge nice?...

Some of my friends would probably hint darkly that there was a better reason.... but they're mostly wrong...

Cambridge is nice, but a little quiet now - most students have gone home...

Only mostly wrong? More "hmmm"s...

Oh well. I think I shall be applying to Oxford, myself.

well... yeah... I *do* wear nailpolish from time to time, which is dangerously close as far as most of them are concerned...

Good luck in getting in, I guess - even if you are applying to an inferior university...

It's funny how many Cambridge people say that...

Nail polish? I know people with worse vices. You aren't a Rocky Horror Show person, are you? (The correct answer is "no"...)

no...

It's probably just as well, anyway - I don't think I'd make a terribly attractive woman...

What are you going to study at Oxford?

I suppose what I would *like* to study might be a more accurate way of putting it... English. I intend to take on the dramatic establishment and knock 'em dead with my marvellous tragic plays.

If the BBC wanted to give me a sitcom commission though, I wouldn't say no.

(The BBC Talent competition results for the sitcom category come out tomorrow. I'm not getting me hopes up...)

congratulations if you make it... commiserations if you don't...

What was your entry?

*starts looking impatient*

ok, ok, - so I've got no appreciation for time...

*sorry!* I'm deeply unreliable; I got moaned at recently by a friend who I was supp... to whom I was supposed to write. I wrote the letter, I just never sent it...

Okay, that was deeply irrelevant, but what the hell. My entry was "Suffering for your Art" - a sitcom for radio in six parts, as it said at the top; it was about a commercial artist called Morgan Green who was leaving commercial graphic design to become 'a real artist'. It was rather crap, but the beeb might have had the courtesy to send me a rejection slip/post the results on the promised day (which they haven't).

So there you go.

Why are you still in Cambridge, out of interest?

heh, I do the same thing... that's why I like email...

Oh well - I guess no news is bad news in this case...

I'm still in cambridge cos I'm working at the engineering dept. this holiday - they pay me well, and it should be good experience, so...

Hmmm... lovely. I am sitting at my computer, quite literally at the midnight hour, attempting to write my 4500 word English coursework essay. Irrelevant, but I'm feeling sorry for myself right now. , followed by a wry

Eeeeee...engineering. Lovely. Lovely.

Now a foolish question: can you ice-skate?

yuck! That's why comp-sci is so much better - a 500 word answer is an "essay"..

Yep - reasonably well, though I'm not a natural. I can happily go forwards at a reasonable speed, and on a good day I can stop without running into the side... (on a bad day I try to, and fall over in a heap...) I've never managed to skate backwards at all well, though, which is annoying...

Aha.

What IS computer science, exactly? It was never explained to me...

Lovely. Well, I would invite you to my huge communal virtual skating-rink, but unfortunately the resurfacing machine is having a little trouble at present...

It's basically programming, with a bit of theory of programming (yes, it does exist) mixed in for fun...

You'll be needing to return it to the virtual manufacturers I guess...
I take it you are a keen skater yourself then? won any medals?

Well, keenish. No, I've never won any medals, sadly but I did get a nicely sprained ankle once...

If you're a programming person, what are you doing in the engineering department? Okay, so there are about 5,436 different sorts of engineering, but I'm just uninformed...

Well - it's the part of the engineering department that does programming and communication and suchlike... there' a bit of an overlap, in practice...

Fair enough

Hey - you updated your homepage... closet necrophile, eh?

Hey... I've never quite got the chance...

I think I just have this morbid romantic idea of death; all the best literature is tragedy. However, my boyfriend is a little worried...