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

Send us your nominations and entries, people.

Is it possible for you young architects to do drawings on another site, and then give us the links in the conversation? Then we could all visit them. (I would personally love to see this sheep stall!)

Another nomination: the Picasso sculpture in Chicago. It was an engineering nightmare to put up. (I am personally acquainted with one of the US Steel engineers who refused to have anything to do with it.) It's all guy wires. Artists have no sense of scale.

Douglas Adams said, if there's one thing the human race can't afford to have, it's a sense of porportion.

I don't think that statement is true of architects and engineers, do you?

It depends how radical they are.
I'm not an architect and i can't think of anything, except a future project that doesn't make any organisational sense.

in our town there's going to be a major Schools reorginisation. All existing schools to be knocked down and replaced by new ones. Everyone has to reapply for their old jobs. The Catholic's can't have their sixth form. Nobody will want to come to our schools in the next few years, so we will become even less educated than we are now and plus the buildings look like prisons- you knwo with the high corridors above the gorund floor... picture...?

er, try this http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/education/bsf/index.asp

Gotta run!

A truly amazing, appallingly bad idea. Poor pupils. Poor teachers.

Yes, we definitely had to have an awards category for social planning, don't you think?

But there has to be a ground rule: No American schemes can be included, or they will swamp the category, at least as long as the current regime is in power.

However, one category of the Awards should definitely include the US: silly laws. The 50 different states in the USA all have unbelievably complex and antiquated law codes, with extremely idiosyncratic ordinances. Try this site:

http://www.dumb.com/laws.htm

For instance, in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it is illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator, while in Morristown, women require permits to wear cosmetics. Of course, these laws are never enforced.

In Bensalem, PA, persons convicted of felonies may not operate Bingo games. But would Francis Bacon have approved?

Our parameters for the BC Johnson Awards are widening rapidly. Somebody make a list, quickly!

We've got a law, that nobody is allowed to stop on the street (walking!) without a reason. I don't think that anybody know that. The question I ask is also: what is a reason for them, this could be very philosophical...


Ok, we've got so far:
1. award for things we plan ourselves
2. award for social planning
3. award for laws

anything else?

What a strange law! But, since it's Austria, the reason could be that you suddenly thought of a great place to go for coffee with whipped cream, and a piece of Linsertorte.

On the web, I found an English law: It has been illegal, for more than 200 years, for a commoner's dog to sexually assault a pet belonging to the Royal Family. Nobody'd better pick on the Queen's corgies.

Okay, the list so far is:

1. An original design of a structure that would make BS Johnson proud.
2. Nomination of an existing building or landmark that was probably created by a disciple of BS Johnson.
3. The BS Johnson Award for Genius in Social Planning: nomination of a municipal, community or national programme that follows the BS Johnson approved format.
4. A really dumb law.

The laws should be really dumb: no extenuating circumstances allowed. For instance, some people think the German law against wearing masks is dumb, but there's a reason for it.

But the Pennsylvania law against 16 women living in a house together (because that constitutes a brothel), while 120 men are allowed to cohabit (because that constitutes an army) is D-U-M-B.

That rules pout the law on not looking at moose while flying over Alaska, that has a reason too!

Okay, I'll bite. Why can't you look at moose while flying over Alaska?

Knowing you, there's a really bad punch line coming.

You suspect me of joking? No, really, there is a reason: poachers often herd the moose together with small biplanes and then shoot them from the air...


But I found an English law that was never repealed: No taxi may stop anywhere in London if it doesn't have hay on board...

I want to be an inspector!

Do you know that taxi drivers in London are required to have 'The Knowledge', that is, to memorise the streets of London? I believe the law comes from the time of Cromwell. But London has grown exponentially since then.

I wish they had this law in other cities. Taxi drivers can really get you lost, especially in New York and Philadelphia. And they don't speak English very well. Less of a problem for those who are multilingual, but still...

I never had to trust any taxi drivers so far, but I think they know perfectly well what they do. They drive the wrong way - they have to drive longer - you pay more

If you go on google today, oh architecurally-minded friends, you may see something of interest.

I have an excellent contribution to the BS Johnson comp!
Going back to the specification:

1. It must be a grandiose design. No half measures.- er, well, it's brave and it was in the Capital of Culture,

2. The design must utterly fail to do what it is supposed to do.V- I don't know what it is supposed to do. I suppose it completely fails to be a banana or a lamb and must be incredibly confused.

3. The design must contain emergent properties: that is, it must do something utterly unexpected.- did I mention that when there's a full ... Ok, so it doesn't do that, but it is, you have to agree, generally unexpected.

4. The design must illustrate some previously unsuspected, but utterly astonishing, truth about the universe, revealed in the most insulting way possible.- genetic modification completely insulted, as well as the boundaries of human imagination being strateched to the limit, the turht being: Someone exists out there, with a mind that invents bright yellow animal-vegetables. They must be stopped! this astonishes me, anyway

5. The design should be aesthetically pleasing. (The last criterion is open to debate.)- Debate away!

~The entry is called...wait for it... Superlambbanana! It can be found here:http://www.merseyviews.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/l'poolpresent/thumbs/page1/slb.htm
Or here, from behind: http://www.merseyviews.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/l'poolpresent/thumbs/page1/slb.htm

I apologise, it does not fullfill spec 1. "no half measures" The point of it is half measures.

How true! Cousins of CMOT Dibbler, every one!

A friend and I were in a taxi in Munich once, and the driver was a maniac. He cut every corner, ran red lights, the whole thing. We asked him where he learned to drive. He said he was a Messerschmidt pilot in the war!

Oh, yes, they've got Frank Loyd Wright on google today. The 2nd g is the Guggenheim museum and the e is the House of Falling Waters.

Interesting thing you've found... really unexpected.

I had the pleasure of seeing it set up in L'pool...

Not to harp on what appears to be my favourite subject these days, but I do know a funny story about Frank Lloyd Wright and the Cathedral of Learning. It cost about $2 million to build, and he allegedly said he would personally pay $4 million for someone to tear it down.

Granny Weatherwax for me, she has a lot of native wisdom. Also, she and Nanny are so funny together...

<< No taxi may stop anywhere in London if it doesn't have hay on board...>>

That is just completely

Yes, but if fuel prices keep going up, it may make sense again.
The horse may make a comeback as transportation.