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

Wotcha!

Could be wrong, but I think we're onto 2 whole pages of posts now!

I'm happy to accept the pronunciation of Pingu's vocalisations, it's Roadrunner I was arguing about! And yes so far it's once every 13 years I suppose, but the distribution's a little uneven - I think both episodes were within the space of a month... As for how I can have the audacity to show disgust at your taste in radio, can I just remind you of which station we're talking about here? And I notice that you've progressed from admitting to having listened only very occasionally (which is forgiveable as an exceptional lapse) on to giving me your considered review of their complete daily schedules! *shakes head in bewildered sadness* Mind you when I was a student Steve Wright in the Afternoon was a Radio 1 show... And it's whispering Bob Harris I think (at least I assume so, or the fact that I refer to an acquaintance called Rob Harris as 'whispering' is presumably just being politely humoured by my long suffering friends...)

Anyway I appear to have convinced you that I'm old after all (or at least I don't 'have any juvenile traits'... Although you're the first person ever to claim that the Lotus is *not* a toy! (As an aside, a friend of mine used to work for British Airways, and made up some labels saying 'Not a flying toy' to stick on the aircraft...) But I do watch cartoons sometimes. (I was madly into The Simpsons for over a year, although admittedly that's mostly aimed at adults anyway.) Hey, we have *2* cartoon channels here! (OK, so one's the cartoon network, and the other is the cartoon network on a 1 hour delay in case you missed it first time round, but it's a start.)

£150 travelling expenses? Just how far are you going? I could fly to Edinburgh and back, and then to Dublin and back for less than that! (OK, so Stanstead, my nearest airport, is nice and cheap as these things go, but even so!) Is travel by car not an option?

So the dome advertising has lowered your respect for government? You had some respect for government before now? Wow!

Ah OK, I guess if you were acting as the buffer between an audience and a guest, then a certain amount of direct fielding of the answers was appropriate. I suppose I was thinking more of a traditional debate style, where all sides are given an equal chance to state their case, and it's the job of the chair to make sure that nobody gets more than their fair share of time to speak. Anyway, I think you should stand for election as the new speaker of the house of commons.

Well Fight Club has the specific feature that towards the end of the film you are shown that what you've been seeing is not what all of the other people in the film (with one noteable exception, or possibly two depending on how you elect to count the lead character[s]) - you realise that you've been tricked. Seven doesn't do the same thing, but I thought it was an allegory for hell, in much the same way as a well-known Clint Eastwood film (I think it might be Pale Rider, but I'm not sure; it's the one where 'Hell' is written on the sign on the road into the town...) - there's nothing obviously hellish in a Hieronymous Bosch kind of a way, but it's meant to be allegorical nevertheless. The Game wasn't - it plays with you during the film to make it look like it's all a little bit fantastic, but it turns out that in fact everything you've been shown was literal, and nothing has been hidden from you. Which is why I liked it.

I'm sure there's a successful living to be made analysing chickens. Perhaps you could write a guide entry about it - it would complement the one about hypnotising lobsters nicely.

You *probably* haven't read anything my housemate wrote. The publication which has received the highest profile thus far (it got its own leader in the Times) was one she wrote with her psycho-statistical-political-sociologist hat on. (First degree in socio-policitcal science, next degree in psychology and statistics, and her first publication managed to combine all of that...) It was a study of habits and beliefs of people who were eligible to vote for the first time at the last election (i.e. people aged 18-22). It ended up quite convincingly debunking the persistent myth that young people have a single uniform political view. (Not that this made much difference - you still hear simplistic assumptions about young people's politics all the time.) The only media studies thing she had published was, I think, a study on Blakes 7 viewers. Don't know much about it to be honest. I think it got into one of the journals, but it wasn't published in book form or anything.

And no, I think excessively long papers on the colour blue are not her kind of thing. She also doesn't tend to talk on sexism and feminism a whole lot in public arenas, mostly because she believes that a lot of academic writing in this area has managed to confuse the boundaries between a 'feminist' outlook and certain political assumptions. Her politics don't exactly align with those of most of today's most vocal self-appointed Voices of Feminism, and so she doesn't like to identify herself with that movement.

Hmm... Just realised I'm now answering your last post in the wrong order... Sorry about that, you'd just written about Radio 2 in two different places, and I skipped down a bit to reply to both in one place. Now I'll start jumping all over the place in order to confuse you.

Sorry for doing only 3 pages of reply to your 5, I just thought maybe I was getting a bit too waffly, so I held back a bit. I can probably increase the quantity again if you want though. (The quality I have less control over though...)

I don't particularly want to have to pretend to be out of the country - seems like defeat to me! (By the way, try not cutting chillis and writing email at the same time. ) And now my stalker's starting to say she might move to Cambridge... At that point I think I'll just move to London. That might also be construed as defeat I suppose, although I'm planning to do it anyway, so it's not really!

I can't managed "when I was in Hollywood recently" but I can do this: well I've considered going to Hollywood, since I'm so often in the vicinity, but I gather it's a dump so I really can't be bothered. How was that? I managed to get half way through MI2 before the masks *really* annoyed me because I have a fairly high level of tollerance for stupid films, but I'm afraid it beat me. And as for the kiss at the end of Chicken Run, it was *so* obvious that it was going to happen that it didn't really bother me by the time it happened. (Although I found it moderately amusing that they'd clearly realised that given the shape of the faces there was no way they could actually do the kiss convincingly, so we just got the back of the head...) In fact I went to see Chicken Run again today, mostly because I watched The Great Escape last night... When I admitted to not having seen that, my housemate insisted we watch it last night, because there were so many jokes in Chicken Run that I was just not in a position to appreciate... She was right!

Um...what's wrong with the theatre then?

There's something particularly stylish about being head girl *and* leading a school revolution... Really rubbing their faces in it I suppose! So did the revolution come before or after being made head girl? (Fortunately, although I was in an all-male school, I wasn't in one of the boarding houses, where 'head boy' is an instruction... I'm sorry, I appear to have gone all Graham Norton for a moment there. ) And as for detention, leaving the country is the only way to be sure. (Although maybe The Great Escape is going to my head.)

Glad you're getting a bit better. Are you sure you're taking the medicine at the right time of day? Maybe you should be taking the one that makes you sleepy in the evening, and the one that wakes you up in the morning? (Actually, are you sure he/she didn't just give you coffee and horlicks?)

Hmm... I should probably go to bed - just had an image from Alice in Wonderland with Alice looking confused, holding three bottles, one labeled 'Eat Me', the second 'Drink Me', and the third 'Bite Me'...

Was just wondering whether to drive somewhere dark and look at the aurora tonight - apparently this is the best time for it. (I.e. during the night. But it's a good time of year too.) Sadly I live in Cambridge, home of excessive light pollution, and it also appears to be rather overcast, so I might have to drive a really long way... Shame - it's great driving on a starry night with the roof off in the Elise!

Hi, this is just me sending you a small cartoon penguin to let you know that I'm going to write tomorrow as today there was barbecueing (how do you spell bbqing?), hill walking and pub and yesterday there was probably just pub but I can't remember so I haven't had time to write my four pages of random trash yet
Bye!

Thanks!

Well I'm back to being a man of leisure again, so volumes of garbage are even easier for me than usual! (This lifestyle is too easy to get used to - I was only working for one week, and it was more than enough. )

Hiya!
I did consider finding a new and more relevant greeting but then I realised that I'd have to work out how Pingu greets people and I think I've missed that episode so I gave up...much like I've given up trying to condense my writing so you're stuck with excessive trash

Hmmm, O.K what's the stance (left foot raised, right arm circled) on arguments when we're both talking about something completely different? Does it count as giving in if I point out that I was arguing for Pingu phonetics as opposed to your Road runner phonetics? Darn, I think it does doesn't it because I thought meep meep was quite a good road runner, aaah well I guess I'll just have to disagree on principle

Oh wait, seen as how you changed the order I'm going to muddle it further by requesting a moments consideration for the distress caused by my failed scam which should have took place today but didn't. As it has now failed (If I ever meet the bloke who privatised trains I'll fwop him on the head with a halibut - thats me angry by the way ) I can tell you how wonderous it would've been had it have not been buggered up by stoopid, stoopid train companies...
*goes to find white chocolate in order to calm down*
...And do you know what else, I've reverted to munching on chocolate in order to mask my sorrow which means that when the time comes to wear my ballgown I'll be too hefty to fit in it and as it's tight enough already (It is the smallest size 10 I have ever seen, and I'm sure has had the labels switched just to allow shop assistants to laugh, in fact I'd hazard a guess that if I was a real fairy I'd have to use magic to fit in it and it'd still be a struggle) I'll not be able to breathe and then I'll collapse and it'll be all the stoopid, stoopid train companies fault... O.k so the chocolate was less than effective
The scam, which was the greatest scam ever...well for me, was that through several contacts within F1 teams we managed to obtain a select number of security type passes which would be accepted within Silverstone paddock on Tuesday the 18th of July (i.e TODAY ). The testing session which had hero bloke Dario Franchetti driving for Jaguar could therefore not only be viewed from the Autosport tower which tickets had been wangled for which not only contained journalist type reporters in order to engage in pleas for jobs after my degree but also contained a Formula 1 driver (suspected to be Jenson Button) who would be engaging in conversation, signings etc, before buffet lunch which was being provided for residents of Autosport grandstand. Following said drivers departure, sneaking ability and fluttering of eyelashes allowed us to collect passes, sneak past guards, enter the paddock where many more F1 drivers would be waiting before calmly strolling into hospitality areas via a certain friendly mechanics garage/pit and straight into the arms of much champagne, drivers etc. (An extra to this plan was to show Jenson my amazing charm and then run off with him but that was abandoned on the basis of being classified as screaming girly fan ) Anyway, that was the scam, all was arranged and in place before stoopid train companies failed to grasp the importance of tickets and thus buggered the whole operation...GRRRRRRRRR!!!

*and breathe*

Anyway...now I've got my moan out the way I shall write a nice civilised reply only interspersed with a few select moans rather than many long rants.

I still think that not having seen Pingu is a tragedy, how can you not watch it? Seen as how you're a man of leisure you can view it on CBBC2 at 10.50am tomorrow right before The Land Before Time 4 which I have to admit that having seen 1,2 and 3 I doubt the story will be much of a suprise for me but I also doubt that you'll have seen any of them as they're cartoons Are you SURE you have no juvenile traits? maybe that's why you're having a mid 20's crisis, perhaps if you allowed yourself one immature act a week you'd feel better.

And on a similar subject (well it's not but you wrote about it in the same paragraph as Pingu so technically you failed to make the distinction first ) I am feeling in a particularly assertive mood having just fed Zarniroop to a cat so I'd like to continue my run and point out that Radio Two is high quality broadcasting and should not be mocked. Lynn Parsons and Janis Long after midnight are both highly entertaining and Janis Long always has really famous legends on her show because she is the original music type person. Richard Allinson is equally brilliant and I am no longer ashamed (well ok, I am but I'm not at the minute because no one else is reading this) to admit that I won the What, When, Where competition and was on air for 20 minutes talking about Formula 1, Monaco and my brilliance (oh yeah and I managed to inadvertantly insult his agedness as well) and consequently I am the proud owner of the Radio Two album of the week from May the 3rd (You're right to remain doubtful but I'm not that sad I only remember the date because it was the day before my birthday) and more importantly a Radio Two round thing So I will now shout from the roof tops that "I AM A RADIO TWO LISTENER AND COULD EVEN BE A FAN!"...besides it's not like that's all I listen to and I bet you secretly listen to radio 4 which is a lot worse

Oh and by the way I never said you were old but I think that either I act younger than I am on occasion or you act older than you are, either way you need to go and buy some toys and develop a juvenile trait or else before long you'll be listening to radio two...oh, never mind

And as for your defense of cartoon viewing, come on, I'm 18 not stupid, you honestly expect me to believe that a) the Simpsons is aimed at children and b) you actually watch the cartoon channels? hmmmm And no the Lotus doesn't count as a toy because it's still an adult toy, how many ten year olds do you know who own a cool car like that? It's very unlikely that your average school kid would wake up on Christmas morning to find a note from Santa saying that whilst he did consider giving him a Pokemon action figure he changed his mind and bought a Ferrari instead. Hence, unless it's a diky car your Lotus is not a toy, and if you have a dinky car unless it no-longer has a box and has at one stage been pushed around with vrooming noises made, it too, is not a toy

Am I being viscious today? hmmm, I sound quite stroppy I think, sorry about that,I'll try and be more flowery from now on

I don't know about being a politician (or Betty number two), whilst the pointless ones around the edge don't do anything and get paid lots there's always the danger of being good at it and actually getting a real position in the government and before you know it I'd be Tony blair and how would that be a good thing? Actually this is beginning to worry me now as at our leaving assembly I was voted most likely to successfully rule Britain so maybe I ought to consider being more feeble...actually maybe I am feeble which is why I'd be a good politician...I'm going to leave that topic now as it's too scary to consider

Aaaah Clint Eastwood films...that would be the western genre which would be the thing I studied for two years and know everything about...yes wellI think it shows something that after an entire A-Level course I still have no knowledge of the thing I was supposed to have studied. The only thing I learnt was that I don't like westerns and that Stagecoach is one of the dullest films ever produced other than Blade Runner...which was also studied for two years so I guess I should credit them for consistency

Sadly, I can't actually share your vision about psychotherapy for chickens I can't help but feel that it would be somewhat limited and quite pointless considering that the chickens would be eaten before they'd been cured of their phobias...although I guess they'd have a good reason to be neurotic

Also, can you thank your housemate for never having written anything on feminism within the media as she provided us with one less essay...if it's possible to provide less of something without having given something more substantial previously...errr...

I have just realised that I seemed to have answered the whole of your page two within the first bit of mine so all I can do is *grin* and wish you the best of luck in understanding whats going on (ooh, song, "hey, whats wrong with you..." oh wait it's not that similar actually is it )

Aaaah, so your stalker doesn't actually live in Cambridge then? That would definitely make her easier to avoid If she's persistant enough to harass you from a different county I guess you should be flattered in some strange kinda way...possibly

As for the chillis, I wasn't eating them whilst I was writing e-mails for that would be a foolish thing to do as any ediot knows that if you do that you're likely to get chilli in your eye...hmmmm, no really though I'd just cooked and eaten the chillis but I didn't actually think I'd touched them so when I rubbed my eye I neglected to realise that small eyelash causes considerably less pain than chilli seed

Errr, I appreciate that they couldn't mould a chicken kiss from the side but is it really any more convincing from the back? I don't know why but for some reason I accepted the fact that the chickens could talk, dance and build planes but I couldn't cope with the ending...maybe it's because the cheesy hollywood endings always really annoy me so I have less tolerance for them even when they are blatantly obvious. As for seeing it twice, I saw the Great Escape billions of years ago (give or take a few hours) so probably missed half the jokes but I'd refuse to sit through the chickens again!

I think I'm one of those annoying people who, unless they really like a film, sit and pick faults with it throughout. Like why didn't they just walk out the gate because it was left open so many times, and if they coped with mugging the farmer at the end why didn't they just do that to start with? It was much like Blair Witch (I'll just assume you've either seen it or you're not going to) with that boy weeing in the corner at the end, why? And why didn't they just follow the river out of the woods, it would have took them towards the sea and away from the witch. Why didn't they use their mobile phones which they'd already been shown with and the whole of the US has anyway. Why didn't they set fire to the woods and burn the witch down whilst standing in the river so they didn't burn too? Why did they get in the stupid tent, why did they go in the stupid house? Why did they not just stand with their backs to each other in a huddle outside in the river with all the torches on so they could see exactly what was happening, all 3 of them could have taken on the witch easily. And if the witch was alledged to be an old woman/man why wasn't the huge american football player able to take out the witch in the first place? And why didn't they just leave the woods in one of the many helicopters which were audible throughout or by walking towards the open space which was visible whilst they were stood squealing by edge? In fact, just Why to the whole film?

How come you recall that it's not alright for an 18 year old to listen to radio two but think it's alright to go to the theatre? Do you not think that if people knew theatres were visited there would be much amusement Likewise with the art galleries, anything vaguely educational is out, hence the fact that if I'd have ever mentioned I'd read a book it would have been an instant cause of laughter. I reckon it's something to do with going to school in Sheffield

The head girl thing is really not that stylish, it mainly involved standing on stages presenting gifts to people and giving speeches about how wonderful the school was. As for the revolution, it wasn't really, just more of a strike and I didn't actually expect for so many people to listen, I just thought it'd explain why I wasn't attending...anyway that happened once I was head girl and they couldn't really sack me over that, especially as the head of year found it funny and it was just all the subject teachers who got annoyed.

Hmmmmm, all this time I've been polite and respectable thinking you were serious cambridge graduate type (O.K so that's a slight lie on the serious part)and then you go and start innuendo which would've made Frank Skinner proud...*considers pretending to be shocked and appalled decides to just laugh instead*

BTW, as a dedicated person I looked for the potato waffles advert (and evidence to prove I was right ) and whilst I didn't find anything of relevance I did find a stunning game of vegetable Tetris on the Birdseye website which is actually great fun I also found the worlds worst potato joke which I shall now share. "Why didn't the mother potato want her daughter to marry the famous tv presenter? Because he was a Common-tater!" ahahahaha....yes well.

The doctors a he and he only gave me one type of medicine which I am still munching, it just seems to send me to sleep all day which then leaves me wide awake all night hence it being 1am and me sat typing...the only downside to this is that my mates don't have the same problem and so keep appearing to wake me up at 9am or worst still attempt to make me be ready for 9am

Hmmmmm, Alice...there's no response to that really except that I have an image of a cow in a tutu piroueting along behind a wall to the sugar plum fairy tune ready to pounce on an unsuspecting human...I'll get my coat

Hmmmmm again, starry nights and Lotus's. You can have one of three possible responses, the first being that you're trying to make me jealous with the fact that you can drive, you can drive a Lotus and that you can drive an open topped Lotus whilst watching the stars. The second being that you are drunk, unlikely considering the logic of the rest of your message.And the third being that you have gone strangely poetic and are considering packing in computers and becoming a Byron type person instead...obviously there would be the fourth option that you were just commenting on how beautiful the nights have been recently but that's too simple Anyway, where I live there are very few street lights, my window looks directly to the south so I can watch the moon rising and falling in beautifully clear skies whilst lying in bed (listening to Janis Long of courseand viewing the stars as well...although I don't have a lotus but I think a duvet's probably warmer

Anyway, I shall now leave as there is no cloud cover at all tonight so I can sit and stare at the moon until I start to realise that my room is so bright due to lack of cloud cover over the moon, that I can't actually get to sleep, anyhow, good night

Hi!

And there you were telling me that you were a Pingu expert. Tchah!

The phrase I've usually heard to describe people arguing vigorously without realising that each thought the other was saying the opposite of what they really were is 'violent agreement'.

*holds minute's silence for passing of scam*

Shame - sounds like it would have given you years worth of material for dropping into conversation in a casual yet devastating fashion. So what happened? Did the train companies screw up in some exceptional way, or was it the usual systemic thing of just making it impossible to get from point (a) to point (b) either in a sensible amount of time or for a plausible amount of cash?

And I have to ask, how do you cope if you need to get angry but have foolishly forgotten to pack your halibut?

Hmm, I know all too well about eating chocolate in order to deal with stress. (Although usually not white chocolate. Ideally dark Belgian chocolate with some kind of fruit fondant, although that's been harder to come by ever since I moved back to the UK from Belgium...) It's the principal reason I'm on a diet. (Lost 4lb so far. Yay! Still got about another 10lb to go. Boo!)

So what sort of jobs were you aiming to angle for with the F1 types in the Autosport tower? Motorsport journalism?

Seeing as how I'm a man of leisure I have absolutely no intention of being awake at 10:50am! So Pingu will just have to wait until they can schedule it at some more sensible time.

So the conversion is complete - you've gone from telling me that no self-respecting 18 year old would ever listen to Radio 2, to saying that you (and I quote here) "COULD EVEN BE A FAN". Or are you just saying you have no self respect? Actually I think you're just trying to trick me into listening to it - another of your evil ploys just like when you tried to get me to read a boring book. What on earth features on the Radio 2 Album Of The Week, may I ask?

And I utterly deny your accusation that I secretly listen to Radio 4. I make no secret of the fact that I've listened to it for years! It will happen to you too. (Actually the main reason I started listening to it was for the comedy, back when I was 16, so I don't think it's an age thing especially... Anyway I defy you to claim that I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is sheer comedy genius.)

Well the Simpsons isn't *just* aimed at children, but I don't think it's aimed just at adults either... And anyway, I just went back and read what I wrote, which was to say that it was basically aimed at adults, so accusing me of thinking that you might think it was for children seems a little random! I may not be the most avid fan of the cartoon channel, but Dexter's Laboratory, Johnie (sp?) Bravo, and Cow & Chicken I watch semi-regularly... Depends what kind of mood I'm in.

Just because it's expensive doesn't mean the Lotus isn't a toy... One of the few compensating features of having to earn a living is that you get to go out and buy whatever toys you want (within reason). Given the early age from which I was obsessed with toys, the only reason for *not* having a Lotus would be because my parents wouldn't get me one. (Oh and not being allowed to drive it legally either, but if I thought there was even the faintest chance of success, I'd have angled for that and a race track for Christmas!) Actually my first Lotus was a model one of the Esprit from the Bond films, complete with pop-out fins for underwater operation!

But then maybe I was just an odd kid.

*sneezes at pollen from sudden floweryness*

Somebody else in Tony Blair's position a good thing? Could hardly be a worse thing. I have the utmost faith in your ability to do a better job...

So after studying westerns for two years the conclusion you were able to draw was that you don't like westerns much? Do you feel this was two years well spent? So do you know the film I'm talking about? (Clint Eastwood in Hell. Figuratively speaking.) I'm afraid I can never remember which one's which because the titles rarely seem to bear any resemblance to what the film's about... And how can you not like Blade Runner?

I thought the entire psychotherapy industry was built around trying to make sure your patients were never actually cured, so from what you say chickens should be the ideal patients!

No, fortunately my stalker currently lives in a different part of the country entirely (although one friend of mine lives very near to her, so I'm always a a little bit edgy when I go to see him). She mostly telestalks at the moment - a combination of obsessive letter writing, phone calls, text messages on the phone, both to me and my friends and family... (Not everyone's idea of stalking. Depends whether you emphasise the obsessive deluded possessiveness aspect of it, or the actually following someone around bit. Definitely the former, but not much of the latter right now.)

Cheesy Hollywood endings are a bit annoying, but since I just quite like going to the cinema, I've learnt to ignore them. Anyway, Chicken Run was a pastiche, so it the cheesiness was inevitable, but had the redeeming feature of not actually being especially sincere. And for some bizarre reason the idea of chickens kissing didn't seem to require a greater effort to suspend my disbelief than accepting chickens performing analytical aerodynamics or knitting.

Since I'm sure most of your questions about the film were rhetorical, being an awkward sod I'll now attempt to answer them. (1) They didn't walk out of the door because most of the cast were running around like, well, headless chickens - the challenge for Ginger was, as the only vaguely sensible chicken, to coordinate a mass escape with a bunch of hens with an attention span too short to watch MTV. As she said, the fences weren't just around the edge of the farm, they were in their heads - the reason they hadn't escaped wasn't because they couldn't but because they didn't believe they could. (2) The boy was weeing at the end of the Blair Witch Project because if he didn't he'd explode. (3) They didn't follow the river because it wouldn't have made a very good movie. (4) Whilst cell phones are pretty popular in the US, people in the UK are so used to national self-deprecation that they assume that any technology will inevitably be superior in the US. In fact this is not the case with cellphones - since we have a lot less space than the Americans, it has been possible to build cellphone networks with much better coverage than the US ones. Also the US has a bizarre arrangement where you just can't get a cellphone that will work everywhere - no single network covers everything, and the only phones that can roam onto all networks are ones registered outside of the US! (So for example a friend of mine who took his triple band phone out to the US when he went to work there gets *much* better service than any of the natives. Of course it costs him about 10 times as much...) So it's entirely plausible that their phones wouldn't have been working. (5) the witch had already demonstrated an ability to utterly confound everything else they had done, setting fire to the forest is something it could probably have dealt with. (6) They didn't stand in a huddle with their backs together because they were stupid americans. (7) American footballers are too used to having enough armour to shame a tank when they play, and are clearly powerless without it. Had the guy been a rugby player, it would have been a very different film. (8) Helicopters? I must have watched a different version... (9) Why to the whole film? Well it enabled the fabulous Scooby Doo trailers parodying it on the Cartoon Network to be created, which I think is justification enough.

Clear?

Hmm... Possibly the fact that I mostly did techie stuff at A level (with the exception of music) meant that if I was in a theatre or art gallery or reading a book, it was unlikely to be anything to do with work...

I wasn't trying to say that there's anything intrinsically stylish about being a head girl. It was that in combination with fostering massive dissent amongst the pupils that appealed to me.

As for the innuendo, maybe I should have stuck with the original wording. Where I wrote "I appear to have gone all Graham Norton for a moment there", this was my second draft - the first version was "I appear to have come over all Graham Norton there" (what, *all* of him?)

Vegetable Tetris? How...um...singular. Ever played 3D Tetris?

If they're making you wake up at 9am are you *sure* they're friends? Possibly I've just spent longer training my friends - they now know that the best way to make sure I'm awake at 9am is to prevent me from going to bed any earlier than that. Did I mention that I overslept for work on Friday, and didn't manage to call in to apologise before 3pm?..

I'm pretty sure I wasn't drunk when I was considering going out for a starlit drive - if I were drunk, I don't think I'd have been considering it. (Whether I *can* drive a Lotus and watch the stars at the same time is debateable - it consists of either stopping a lot, or getting more of an impression of the stars than an actual view. Still good fun though. I suspect it's better as a passenger, but I've only ever been driven in an Elise in daylight hours. Reminds me of one slightly strange occasion - I was taking my Elise from the UK to Antwerp so I could have it with me for the summer last year, and a friend was visiting me for that weekend, so I drove her down there. We were driving along a motorway somewhere in Wallonia, and they suddenly turned off *all* of the lights on the motorway at once. Since we were the only car around for miles, this came as a bit of a shock to the senses. Definitely a scarey experience!) Me being Byronic... Well I don't know about poetic, but I did consider a career as a musician once, but whilst I'd probably just about have scraped a living, I'm better at what I actually do... But I'm not a complete anaesthete! (By which I mean the opposite of an aesthete, rather than someone you're likely to find in an operating theatre.) Anyway, I have to go outside if I want to see the moon and stars at the moment - where I sleep doesn't have windows as such. (Well it kind of does - there's this sliding door thing that partitions off the bit with the bed in, so the room as a whole has windows, I just end up getting assaulted by sunlight far too early in the morning if I leave things in a position where I can see out of any windows...)

Anyway, probably better go to bed before I manage to completely invert my circadian rhythms... Bye.

*waggles a fish in the air*
Ha see, I am once more Pingu expert and as such greet you in a penguiny fashion...however, this may cause slight confusion as it's remarkably similar to my angry greeting but never mind

I didn't think you were saying the opposite of what you really were I was just arguing about a different topic...(I refuse to conceede )

Thankyou for your moment of respect, it was greatly appreciated during my hour of need You agree then that it was a good scam. To make matters worse/better some people I know had corporate passes to go today and having heard that I was so gutted about missing yesterday they rang me ('nother wonderous use of the mobile, still haven't used the laptop ) from their box (BRDC building case you wondered) to let me hear the engines. However, in order to aid my sorrow they were all moaning about how dull it was and how there was nothing happening which was really nice of them. Unfortunately all the cars chose this precise moment to come out onto the track and so were zooming past to their cries of "ooh there's your boy Button" Having heard the engines I was then somewhat happier so bravely asked them if they'd got into the paddock to which there was much muttering and a dubious response of "we did but it was really dull and there wasn't anyone of interest". I eventually found out that they'd met Fischichella, had walked into Button without recognising him and had met many others too...so I'm going to use that as my name dropping instead

Talking of name dropping I think you reached new levels of impressiveness with your last message having managed to get in Antwerp and Belgium whilst repeatedly referring to your Lotus

Anyway, the scam has been rearranged for after I've passed my driving test so that I don't actually have to give Mr Branson any of my money and will actually be able to get to the right destination at the right time using the right tickets rather than the wrong ones at absurdly expensive prices...

As for my anger, I never forget my halibut which is why I always have my bag with me in which is stored my mobile, lip balm, purse and spare fish for anger purposes Surely everyone has this? I bet you have a halibut in your briefcase, it'll be right between your laptop and mobile...y'know that was way more effective when you didn't know I had them as well

Mmmmm, white chocolate...*chants bananas are nice too, bananas are nice too* I think I need to stop talking about chocolate because it makes it too hard not to eat it...maybe we should discuss apples Btw congrats on your loss of 4lb it's highly commendable and as a reward I'll not tell you any more of the potato jokes I found

Jobs...hmmmm PR for Ferrari would be an ideal job but only so I could live in Italy otherwise I'm working at Autosport for 3 years, progressing to F1Racing before moving into PR where I'll work for Jordan before moving to Williams and finally I'll steal Louise Goodmans job whilst working on Top Gear as a replacement for Vicky Butler Henderson ...well you asked

Aha, so it's not just me who thinks that waking up sometime around noon is perfectly acceptable It's beginnning to get a bit annoying though because it means that I'm then awake til 2 or 3 am so my entire timetable has gone screwy or as you so eloquently put it, my circadian rhythms will be out of sync...although personally I think it'd be the ultradian cycles which would be at fault because by the time you'd got to stage 5 of the third 90 minute cycle it'd be time to wake up again and you'd never even reach the REM stage thus causing REM rebound as shown by Dement in 1957 resulting in decreased alertness, increased levels of mistakes and higher irritability

O.K I have a request now will you please just listen to Radio Two, I assume you'll read this at some absurd time of night as you seem to be replying around 3am so put it on and Janis Long will be on. The music is good and whilst it might not be Carl Cox, Judge Jules or Danny Rampling they do play modern stuff too and err...they play 'classics' like the Kinks Waterloo Sunset and singable stuff to O.k so that doesn't make it sound that much better but unless you listen to it at one of the good times I suggested (i.e Steve Wright, Richard Allinson, Janis Long or Lynn Parsons) then I'll hold my breath again and you know what happened last time, surely you don't want to be held accountable for me fainting again

AND, and this is like the biggest most capitalised 'and' anywhere, ever, you listen to Radio 4! Honestly if I could spell that hippo-critter word then I'd call it you I would never, repeat never, listen to Radio 4 and to laugh at me at 18 listening to 2, you at 16 listening to 4 must surely be worse And seen as how you're in the habit of quoting my little mistakes I'd like to point out that in response to "I defy you to claim that Sorry I Haven't A Clue is sheer comedy genius", for once I'm not going to argue, I too defy anyone to say that it's good

You watch Johnnie Bravo and Cow and Chicken? O.K slightly more respectable but you still say semi-regularly so I'm not sure how much I forgive you for not watching Pingu Does that mean you watch 'CatDog' as well ("Cat dog, cat dog, alone in the world was a little cat DOG") and you must have seen 'Angry Beavers' (please restrain your alter ego of Graham Norton, it's a childrens cartoon so just NO )

Hmmmm, the Lotus is still not a toy, it's a status symbol/executive novelty item so it doesn't count Do you actually own any other real 'toys', I know you don't have a lightsabre or a miniature kite but surely you must have something...how about something like a Lava lamp or a Playstation they count as toys? Please work with me here, I'm going to have to start sitting at my computer in a high chair at this rate

Hmmmmm, admittedly there are many people who would be better at Tony Blairs job but then there also many who wouldn't such as William Hague or Geri Halliwell

The fact that I don't like westerns wasn't the only thing I worked out, I also found that Stagecoach is very dull and that the thing with the camels (possibly 'Guns In The Afternoon') is a bricolage of genres fitting into the pattern of eclectic irony...Now that's all I learnt Blade Runner, let me think, how could I possibly tell you just one of the 100 reasons why I don't like Blade Runner and believe it should be banned from all tv screens everywhere...try the fact that the first time I watched it I actually fell asleep and that after studying for two years I took my exam and two weeks afterwards there was a Blade Runner night on C4? I wasn't annoyed in the slightest

Errr, why don't you just change your phone number or get one of those second numbers with a different tone. I demanded one of those which means that I never have to do phone surveys, listen to sales reps or speak to certain people who I don't like so all in all it's a genius idea and who ever thought of it should be given a medal...much like the bloke who first thought of cheese but that's an entirely different matter...it is good though isn't it, it can be used with just about anything and it's always the only thing left in the fridge so it's very handy...that's cheese btw not the phone

Anyway, for a change, I disagree with you, to believe that the chickens would kiss required so much more effort than to believe that they could knit jumpers, I mean have you ever seen a cold chicken, no because they're all wearing little chicken jumpers that their grans have knitted, hence you didn't even need to try to accept that bit as it was true

O.K seen as how you were pedantic enough to answer all my questions and turn it into a test I shall now proceed to comment on them all as a test and give you a mark out of 10 for how well you did...but I warn you now that you'll probably have got considerably more wrong than right just because it's me that's marking them
Right then, No1, I am far too shocked at the fact that you could quote the chickens to be able to mark this one so it's just wrong on principleAlso does that mean you consider MTV a worthy channel because I get bored after about 5 minutes of watching that (however, I could write you a fairly substantial essay on the rise of the music video and it's synergistic intentions within the media industry...) so does that mean I have the same attention span as a chicken?
No2, well this one wasn't even answered so again you get the dong and no points
No3, (so your answer no.2) valid point, taken well, 1 point to you although still dubious as they were in a wood and he was male...
No4, Equally good point, far too sensible but you get a mark anyway.
No5, Whilst I'm sure that's right it was far too well thought out and scientific so I can't give you a mark just for the fact that's it's vaguely related to science and therefore physics
No6, They didn't actually do anything else, they just stood and whined to each other and then ran about in the darkness whilst sniffling in cameras...which is probably a lot more restrained than I would have been (not that I was scared of course...my friend had already planned to sleep over because my parents were away and the hockey stick always lives beside my bed ) so you do actually get a point there
No7, Highly valid, no arguments, clever use of Clarkson quotes so 1 point
No8, I know many rugby players...o.k 1...and he's not that hard just thinks he is so your point fails as rugby players would've been too busy downing pints to even notice there was something wrong
No9, Helicopters were definitely audible when they were stood looking at the brown stick men so no points due to poor observation
No10, ha so you do like cartoons, scooby Doo is a cartoon so you must have a juvenile trait Oh wait, I guess it enabled Dawson's creek to do a parody so that's a good point.
Right then, having added them up you got...darn it, 5 out of 10 and as the pass rate is normally 50% you pass...but I'm still only giving you an E just because you did actually answer them

Nope, even if you did computers going to the theatre or reading is still too educational even thogh it's not directly linked, sorry

I didn't actually mean that you'd said there was anything stylish about head girl as there blatantly isn't it's more of a thing to mumble quietly about and stick on your CV than actually be joyful about...and I'd also like to state for the record I never intended for quite so many people to stay off school I only thought there'd be two maybe three of us so it doesn't count as a rebellion

Talking of innuendo does this mean that you'd agree that the phrase "I was in the bar last night and this guy kept coming on to me" is a very bad choice of wordingI will spare you from my whale joke as even if you did start it with head boy thing I can't tell you that

I don't actually enjoy Tetris, I just thought that vegetable tetris was quite a novel idea...besides 3D tetris sounds too complex

*gives round of applause at impressive lateness* Well done, I'm proud

Hmmmm, you've never been a night passenger in a Lotus? Well you know my driving tests soon it could be arranged, if you just lent it to me for the day...

As for your scary experience it's not the same but my old school (that sounds so good ) backed onto the woods and so in our sixth form induction week me and a mate went for a walk in the woods leaving everyone else in school. When we came back at lunchtime we walked into the building and it was completely silent there was no-one at all there. Bear in mind that the school has 1500 pupils, 200 more in the sixth form and about 150 teachers and this was lunchtime then it seems very strange. No-one was in the classrooms but then no-one was in the halls or on the courts either. We wandered over to the garage across a main road which you'd normally have to wait 10 minutes to cross and there was no cars, then when we were in the garage there was only the cashier there and no-one else at all. To this day we still have no idea where everyone was, my mate thought that there must've been a fire drill or something but if there was we would have heard about it and would have seen them all as we came back from the woods. As it was for about 30 minutes there was only me and him in the whole sixthform building and for no apparant reason. It was all very bizarre but it does sound quite far fetched so I'll shut up now

Btw, I'm glad you explained your definition of anaesthete as I was wondering what relevance anasthetic had to your poetic talents

How does sun light wake you up? I can understand if you were already half awake but my pillow is right next to the window and my curtains are always open at that end and I'm never woken up by it...admittedly that's because my cat normally wakes me up by jumping on my head at about 6.30 in order to be fed but that's not the point

Oh I've finished, do you know that you almost wrote 4 pages, admittedly it was 3 pages and 2 lines but still,
anyway, goodnight

*waggles Pingu in the air*

Ah, the old faithful fallback in any argument - change the parameters of the debate. It's effectively an admission on your part that you'd lost the argument, but you changed the subject so as not to lose face.

If they didn't recognise Button, how did they know it was him they'd walked into? Clearly the whole experience was wasted on them, so you should just hurry up and pass your driving test. (Then you can get plagued by things like your car breaking down instead of an recalcitrant rail network. With my first car, it was something of an event if the car actually completed a journey without some kind of mechanical malfunction...)

Getting Antwerp and Belgium into the same sentence isn't hard - Antwerp's in Belgium after all... Was reminiscing about Belgium last night with a friend who ended up working at the same place there I did (Agfa; entirely independently and at different times). We both reckon there's definitely a market opportunity for Belgian-style bars in the UK. (Although it would be best to wait until the licensing laws are relaxed, which sounds like it may finally be on the cards, in order to get the right layed back feel to it.) Mmm... Belgian beer...Belgian food...Belgian chocolate... *drifts off into reverie*

*snaps out of it*

As I'm sure I've told you before, I don't have a briefcase. My mobile phone lives in my pocket, my laptop has a special-purpose laptop bag, and you're quite wrong, I am sans-halibut. (Also without lip balm or purse for that matter.) How do you keep it fresh?

Bananas are indeed great. Actually I gather they have a similar kind of effect to chocolate - either they contain some of the same stimulants, or proke your body into producing the same feel-good chemicals. Of course they're one of the few fruits which are fattening, which is how they're able to be so nice. Apples on the other hand are somewhat worthy, which makes them a good deal less nice.

Still prefer dark chocolate though.

Sounds like an excellent career plan. Hmm... might have trouble keeping up with ability to drop things like Lotus-ownership, track driving and so on if you did that.

Waking up around noon is really the only civilised option. Occasionally I do wonder about just getting up later and later until I end up getting up early again as a means of dealing with the problem of never going to sleep before 3am. In fact I've done this once - when I came back from Hawaii . Works a treat!

Didn't really follow the stuff on ultradian rhythms - I don't know much about how that's all supposed to work. What's the story?

See, I was right! It is all just a trick to try and get me to listen to Radio 2. Anyway, I'll only do it if you listen to Radio 4! I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue in particular. (Pesky typos - I missed that when I read my reply though - I saw 'defy', and thought I'd written 'deny'... Duh. Anyway, (a) you know what I meant and (b) you didn't quite quote me right as you got the name of the program wrong, so ) It is comedy incarnate, Humphry Littleton is a god, and anyone who says otherwise clearly has no soul.

I am aware of CatDog's work, but haven't studied it. I take it you recommend it?

Um, I've got some Playstation games if that helps. Don't actually own my own Playstation - the guy I shared a flat with last time I lived in London had one, so I got myself some games. (It's great being able to learn the F1 tracks by driving them yourself in advance of the race!) I plan to get a Playstation 2 just as soon as they become available here. Um, what about cuddly toys, do they count? And a Lava Lamp is not a toy, it's a thing of pure beauty!

*reaches for dictionary* 'bricolage' eh? I need a bigger dictionary... *reaches for www.dictionary.com* OK. Well having not seen the film I'm afraid I'm none the wiser... And falling asleep during a film is not necessarily a reliable indicator of quality - you have to factor in things like how knackered you may be - I think that LA Confidential is a great film, despite the fact that I fell asleep first time I watched it. Anyway, not convinced.

I could change my number, but again, I don't want to give in to that kind of hassle - too many people have the number. (Although in some ways it would be nice - I get 4 or 5 phone calls a day from agencies trying to get me to do contract work. It would make a change to get a little peace...)

I shall have to assume that the bald chicken is common around your neck of the woods then. All the chickens I've seen have had feathers. (Apart from the ones that have been plucked.)

In response to your marking my answers: (1) so providing relevant factual information to back up my answer gets me marked down does it? I see... (2) the main reason I didn't provide an answer was that you didn't really provide a question, more a sentence with an inexplicable question mark on the end. (Actually I think you may be numbering these differently from me though. I think I was doing yours a sentence at a time; if your 1 and 2 were both in the first sentence, I believe I answered both with my first answer.) (3) (4) (5) So I'm right but you just can't bring yourself to give me another point (still, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am right) (6) (7) (8) Well I only know one rugby player and she's pretty hard, but you've missed the point - you were asking why the well-built american football player didn't just beat the witch up, and I pointed out that american football players are basically wusses, especially in comparison to rugby players; the fact that you think rugby players are a bit soft just *reinforces* my point, so (9) I think you have tinnitus (10)

So morally I got 10/10, you're just petty.

Why is going to the theatre educational. Since you did meeja studies, doesn't that mean it's educational whenever you watch the TV or go to the cinema?

"this guy kept coming onto me" *shudder*. American turn of phrase I think, and double entendre isn't quite so deeply ingrained in their culture, so I guess that's why they don't think it sounds odd.

So you want to take your driving test in my Lotus? I can hear the derisive laughter from my insurance brokers even now, so I don't think so somehow... Although it would be worth it just to see the look on the examiner's face.

Sounds like your entire school was abducted by aliens. It's the only possible explanation.

The other possible relevance of anaesthetic to my poetic 'talents' is that it's advisible to get drugged up, preferably unconscious, before listening to any of my poetry...

Sunlight wakes me up by being unnecessarily bright at me. If I leave my curtains open (on those occasions when I'm sleeping somewhere with curtains) it definitely wakes me up earlier. (Ignoring other external rousing agents such as alarm clocks and cats.)

How are you measuring pages by the way? Doesn't it depend on stuff like size of window, size of screen, size of font, whether you arrange to get the forum thread list out of the way, etc.?

Anyway, I'm 'working' at home today. Really should do some actual work now!

Oy don't waggle Pingu, poor Pingu *hugs Pingu better* Now look you've upset him!

I never changed the parameters I think you'll find that you've changed the subject entirely...you realised you were losing on the Pingu phonetics and so declared you'd been arguing for Road Runner so in actual fact I win

They worked out it was Button after they'd walked into him because he turned round to find out who'd trampled him...If you think the experience was wasted on them it's probably because they've been to just about every Grand Prix race at least once and have met all the drivers billions of times. I think they were just trying to be nice because they know that I'd have sobbed down the phone had they revealed they'd met him 'properly' ...Still they didn't get their photo on the Williams website with him ...admittedly that was highly embarrasing due to the entirely inaccurate caption of "Jenson delights his screaming teenage fans" but that's beside the point

As for your name dropping you didn't have Antwerp and Belgium in the same sentence, they were both used in entirely different contexts so you were just showing off again Agfa as in the rival to "Koni, Konica, Colours are calling you"?

What's a Belgian bar like? I have a mate in France (who's even older than you ) who swears by Belgian beer which caused me to drink some at a local beer festival (which was on at the same time as the Ferret racing (I kid ye not)) and it was actually really nice considering I don't like most beers I was in a really cool bar on Friday night (I can't remember if I told you so I'll just carry on regardless) where all the bar men were dressed in black and at random times they turned off all the lights, set fire to the bar and then juggled with flaming bacardi bottles whilst dancing to Dire Straits 'money for nothing' (which was in fact a satirical attack on MTV and the rising importance of music videos however, it was also the first video to use computer generated graphics and so ironically was sent straight to the top of the charts and thus set a precedence for all future videos...). Hmmm, I've just remembered that I did tell you that but I'm going to pretend I didn't and you're just psychic

I know you've told me you don't have a briefcase but that doesn't mean I have to believe you, I'm quite sure that somewhere you have one ready to use at a moments notice You don't have a fish or a lipbalm? Just how do you cope in the world...I bet you don't carry a spare hair scrunchie either

Bananas may be fattening but it's such a good word isn't it? 'anana' it's just so high quality you have to love it Besides I wouldn't use the intensifier 'so' in relation to bananas because they're only useful when you're attempting to stop eating chocolate (I lasted 7 months and then caved ) other than that they're just pleasant rather than exceptionally nice...unless your cooking them in rum and brown sugar and then serving with homemade vanilla icecream... mmmmmmm, Jamaican bananas, nummmmmmmm

Nein!!! White chocolate is far superior to dark chocolate as evidenced by the fact that I will readily turn down dark chocolate (unless in B&J's Phish food...mmmmm)but if you walk within ten metres of me whilst holding a milkybar you'd be dazed and chocolateless within seconds

What do you mean 'if' I did that? Of course I'll do that...well maybe not exactly that but I'll be doing PR for an F1 team at some stage and then I'll drive past you in my TVR and laugh as I leave your Lotus in a cloud of dust (You didn't think I'd accepted that the Lotus was quicker just because I'd stopped talking about it did you )

*I will not rise to the Hawaii mention, I will remain calm...think Richard Burns, Richard Burns, Richard Burns, Richard Burns...*
Most impressed that you can spell said place actually as I've never been able to understand the random i's

Hmmmm, I don't think you really want to know about Ultradian cycles, it's kind of a psychological/freudian/Biological thing so it can't be good. Basically Dement (1957,a) stuck 7 (limited subject sample poor validity)people in a laboratory (lack of ecological validity, poor attempt), attached electrodes and then monitored their eye movement, and EEG results (objective data, raises validity). He used three hypotheses and wanted to show a significant association between REMs and dreaming and that non REM sleep was indicative of non-dreaming stages. The second was to show a significant positive correlation (maths...AAAAAAAAAAARGH!)between subjects estimates of dream duration and the actual length of REM's prior to awakening. The final one was to show a significant association between the pattern of REM's and the context of the dream such that REM's reflect the visual experience of a dream. He based his hypotheses on the idea that humans show a Circadian rhythm (which you knew) synchronised to the 24 hour cycle of light and dark. As part of the cycle a typical nights sleep consists of a number of Ultradian cycles which are on average 90 minutes long and go through nine stages. The first four are non-REM stages and are Slow relaxation, Deeper sleep but easy to wake, Deep sleep and unresponsive to external stimuli, Deepest sleep which lasts 30 minutes and then the fifth stage of REM sleep. This was alledged to last 15 minutes, was indicative of sleep paralysis and lengthenes as the cycle goes on. The cycle then reverts and goes back through stages four to one in reverse order. Dements study showed that REM sleep occurs every night and is linked to an active brain but in between REM's the brain is relaxed and provides slow EEG readings. The average length of REM sleep is 12 minutes not 15 but it can last anywhere between 3 and 50 minutes depending on the amount had the previous night. All three hypothesis were proved but he also showed that REM sleep is vital for well being and if it is repeatedly missed then our bodies become physically ill even if the other stages of sleep are experienced suggesting that dreaming is vital for our well being. Oooh talking of REM, 'Everybody Hurts' is playing... *goes silent for the wonder that is REM*...O.k it's finished now, I told you it wasn't that interesting, Sperrys Hemisphere deconnection is much more fun but isn't actually relevant to anything and it won a Nobel Prize so you probably already know about it anyway

Alright then *holds hands behind her back and crosses fingers* I'll listen to radio 4 if you listen to Janis Long or Richard Allinson tonight on radio 2! And it isn't a trick I do actually listen to Radio 2, if I didn't I would never pretend to as it's far too shameful ...Hmmmm, so now I have the attention span of a chicken and I also have no soul, cheers

"One fine day with a woof and a purr, A baby was born and it caused a little stir. No green body, no three eyed frog, It was a feline canine little cat dog. Cat DOOOOOG, cat doooog, Alone in the world was a little Catdog"

O.K...you have games that's a start...now you just need the Playstation in order to gain the objective word 'play' and then you'll be sorted How about a fibre optic lamp, other than providing physics flashbacks that surely must be a toy because it serves no purpose? I guess cuddly toys could possibly count, it just depends what sort they are. If they're the gifty ones that hold hearts, friendship tokens or anything which could possibly be construed as an ornamental cuddly toy then no but if they're fun ones like my HUGE Spike (I'd better mention that Spike's a dog from the Rugrats rather than a vicious vampire or a metal poking device...actually whilst that assumes you don't watch Rugrats it also supposes that you watch Buffy which may not be the case...) or a laughing cow then yes...but I still think you'd be better with an actual real toy

I wouldn't expect you to have seen the camel/cowboy film because it's not like I ever watched it and I was alleged to have studied it, I just watched select clips and then read the synopsis As for Blade Runner, I was not in the slightest bit tired it was just immensely dull and it is the only film I have ever fallen asleep in...It could also have something to do with having visited and read over 100 websites and a book which was as thick as the (East) London Yellow Pages all about the rampant eye symbolism, the religious connotations, parallels with Miltons 'Paradise Lost', chess sets and subliminal messages all of which lead you to have no interest whatsoever in whether or not Deckard is a replicant and whether or not it's reflective of the production processes of it's era... Other than that it's just the dullest film in the world...oh wait other than A Life Less Ordinary

If you have the second number you can just let the machine pick it up if it's not your new tone, that way if it's anyone you want to talk to then they'll start to leave a message and you can pick it up, if it's anyone annoying they'll just hang up...it also means that if anyone rings up absurdly early in the morning (O.K so just in the morning generally) you can tell whether it's worth rolling out of bed just by the tone you get

Whilst I don't spend that much time observing chickens the ones I see do all tend to have feathers attached but then so does Tara-Palmer Tompkinson *has a drink to get rid of nasty taste* and she wears jumpers

O.K in response to you marking my marking of your answers to my rhetorical questions:
1) It wasn't the fact that you were using relevant information because normally I might view that as commendable it was just that you'd memorised quotes from chickens and fake chickens at that
2) Don't be difficult, question2 was why they didn't just mug the farmer to start with and you know it
3) He still would've just weed behind a tree...actually that could have put the witch off
4) Acceptable
5) It wasn't that I couldn't bring myself to give you another mark it was just that you almost mentioned physics so infact you should be pleased I didn't deduct marks as punishment
6) hmmm
7) Don't be too pleased, you only got a point because you quoted Clarkson
8) You missed my point more, I was pointing out that US footballers are considerably stronger than English footballers who collapse on the ground screaming at every available opportunity and rugby players who just grunt and then wander off to the pub
9) There's nothing wrong with my hearing, evidently you were too scared to be focusing on such foolish details
10) Through lack of denial you accept that you watch cartoons, good good

O.k lets just have a recap here, I ask rhetorical questions, you, (purely out of awkwardness lest you forgot) proceed to answer them all and then once I mark them you then mark my marking...and this brings you to the conclusion that I'm the petty one how?

Nope TV and cinema is acceptable..you must really (so need italics on this) understand that theatre is sort of in line with radio 2, reading books and visiting art exhibitions (1 week til I get to see a real live Jackson Pollock painting, *bounce bounce*, much excitement ) ? It's just not the done thing by 18 year olds...maybe it classes as culture I don't know but it's almost an intellectual activity and is therefore a bad thing. Put it this way, in our school you'd get laughed at if you ever handed in a piece of work on time so anything that didn't involve getting completely drunk was right out

Hey, I didn't say I wanted to take my test in your Lotus that'd just be madness...my suggestion was much more reasonable which was that once I've passed my test I borrow the Lotus

Your poetic talents can't be that lacking surely...can they?

Hmmm, you must be a really light sleeper, the only time sunlight wakes me up is when I'm camping...unless I am actually being woken up earlier than I should do and if my curtains were left shut I'd stay asleep til about 3pm...

Pages are being measured by printing the posts as it's far too complex for me to have more than one window open at a time so I have to have the printed sheet at one side so that I can cope Actually, that reminds me of my General Studies exam when we had a full size map, two answer booklets, a data booklet, a question paper and a huge key sheet on a very small desk and just about every 5 minutes someone knocked it all on the floor

Wow it's only 10.20 and I've finished typing thats amazing! oooh that provides me with an opportunity to tell you about the nail varnish I found that's the same colour as my TVR, chromoflair purple Now aren't you glad I finished early, how ever would you have been able to sleep if you'd not have known that
Speak to you tomorrow...oh wait unless you reply before noon it's unlikely I will as I'm living at a mates house tomorrow night...err, so I suppose I'll speak to you on Saturday, anyway,
good night

Did you know you managed to appear as the person to post the largest message in the last 24 hours on h2g2?

*looks indignant* Me!??! Since I never claimed to know anything much about Pingu in the first place, it should be perfectly clear that I was talking about Road Runner from the outset. You lose! Twice: once for being plain wrong and again for trying to wriggle your way out of it.

Ah, the ennui! Not another formula 1 driver - how do these people cope? So was the full caption "Jenson delights his screaming teenage fans. He appears in front of magistrates tomorrow morning."

Agfa as in the film company. I'm not familiar with their advertising slogans, but I guess it's the same one. The same Agfa as is sponsoring at least one of the F1 teams this year. (I forget which. I think it was one of the blue cars...) I worked for the medical imaging bit, computer radiography in particular. In theory it was a really interesting project, but in practice it was appallingly badly managed, so in fact it was a nightmare.

You know someone *older* than me? Surely noone on earth could perform such a feat.

The key features of Belgian bars are: wide selection of Belgian beers (yum!), food of such a high quality that even the bar snacks would shame the average UK restaurant (Belgians take their food very seriously), extremely relaxed and friendly (well, true of bars in Flanders; Wallonia is a bit more uptight), and usually something unique to the bar. That last point is because loads of the bars in Belgium are essentially run as a hobby rather than a business. It seems that renting enough space for a bar is not prohibitively expensive even in the middle of Antwerp, and so it's something you can do more or less for fun. (Lots of the bars only open at the weekends because they are run by people who are busy with their main job the rest of the week.) This means you get a huge variation in character in bars. To give you a random handful of examples: one of the bars is in the cellar space underneath some shops and has been done out like a medieval dungeon, another has got this fairground organ in the corner which performs a surreal jukebox-like function (put money in a slot on the wall, it plays some random tune at you), one is basically someone's lounge, furnished with armchairs and sofas (although I'm pleased to see that this is starting to happen in the UK too), lots of the places do strange and inventive things with the decor. Basically you never end up with the feeling you get in so many British pubs, where it seems that they've bought their selection of bar tat (you know the kind of thing - a collection of dusty books on the wall, pointless things like bits of rope, old lanterns, funny-shaped bottles etc.) from the same shop (on Ilkley Moor, presumably). And the style of the drinking culture is very different. For one thing, although the beer is much stronger people seem to get less drunk - you tend to have smaller measures, and savour the drink (because it actually tastes nice!). Also, there's no closing time, so there's none of the rush to get a few extra drinks down before last orders. It all just feels a whole lot more civilised.

When I need to cart stuff around I tend to go for my small decrepit rucksack, or one of those Head holdalls, or if I'm not carrying much but have the laptop with me, one of the spare pouches in the laptop bag. Briefcases really aren't my style. And I don't know how I cope without a fish - I suppose you just learn over the years! You still haven't told me how you keep yours fresh. I'm beginning to suspect that you don't. There is a spare hairband in my laptop bag if that counts... (Not as a fish obviously.)

Mmm... Jamaican banana! You're not helping my diet here you know.

I hardly think that just because you'd turn down dark chocolate that this is conclusive evidence - after all, you like Radio 2! Prefering a milky bar to a slab of purest Belgian dark chocolate is just another sign that you are clearly unhinged (along with preferring Radio 2 to Radio 4, not liking Bladerunner, and attempting to have some kind of conversation with me). And again, please don't mention B&J when I'm on a diet!

Well if you get to work in PR for Maclaren, I suggest you challenge Adrian Newey to a race - you in your TVR and him in his Elise, and then see which you think is fastest. Although this is possibly a little unfair, since I think Adrian Newey currently owns the world's only 300bhp Elise... (When he started out on this minor engine modification (still the original block, but a somewhat OTT turbo), his single specification was that he wanted his Elise to have a better power to weight ratio than the F1...)

Not only did I go to Hawaii, I didn't even have to pay! My company sent me there on business, would you believe?

A psychologist called Dement? Fantastic! So have these experiments been repeated with larger numbers, or is this still on shaky ground, statistically speaking? Anyway, I'm still waiting for an alarm clock that doesn't have a Snooze button, but instead has a Make The Day Start A Bit Later button. Will sadly require some advances in physics before it's possible though.

I've been in a discussion about severing of the corpus callossum in another forum on h2g2 (which I think is hemispheric deconnection). Bizarrely someone was trying to use it as an explanation of why women are more likely to be naturally predisposed to concurrent thought processes, whilst men tend towards focussing their entire attention on a single activity. They observed that women's brains usually have a higher volume of material connecting the two sides of the brain than most men's brains. So far so good (well, probably - I'm assuming they didn't just make that up). They then suggested that this is why multitasking comes more naturally to women. I didn't really see the logic there. Then to back their argument up they talked about the examples where the connection has been severed for one reason or another, and the two sides of the brains appear to be able to carry on two independent thought processes. Possibly I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that this suggests that for optimum ability to think lots of things at once, you want less connectivity between the two sides of the brain, not more. So the characteristic male and female tendencies towards focussed and distributed concentration are *despite* the apparent differences in brain structure. You've studied this stuff, what do you reckon?

Hey! I can see those crossed fingers, I'm not falling for that one. Anyway, how would I be able to show my face before my friends if I became a Radio 2 listener? Actually I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue isn't on at the moment anyway, so no deal. Now I come to think of it, sometimes they do the repeats on Radio 2 anyway, so clearly you can't dismiss it as easily as all that!

I have the games, and play them from time to time on other peoples playstations. There's absolutely no point in me buying one now because I intend to get a Playstation 2 at the earliest opportunity (and that will be able to play my existing games anyway). Fibre optic lamp? Never really wanted one of them, but I've always wanted a plasma ball. (These items always seem to be on sale in the same kind of places along with lava lamps and those sort of panels with sparks flying across them, so I assume they're all functionally interchangeable.) Any cutesy cuddly toys that I may or may not own (I'm not admitting to anything!) are entirely evidence of former relationships. Being single at the moment, none are particularly in evidence. But ignoring those, I have a cuddly Ratbert... And a collection of beanie babies. And I've seen the odd rugrats (but not many, and sufficiently infrequently that I can never remember the names of any of the characters), but I do watch quite a lot of Buffy, so I was alarmed when you talked about a huge Spike! Thanks for clearing that up.

So had you studied Blade Runner to death *before* you first watched it? I can imagine that would kill more or less any film... I don't remember particularly hating a Lifeless Ordinary, but I don't remember much about it either, so I guess it can't have been that good.

I suppose I could change my number. Thing is that it's on my business cards, and my CV. OK, so the CV easy enough to change, but of course hundreds of people have already got the existing number. I should probably have got 2 numbers earlier on so I could give them out appropriately. But then at the time I gave my stalker my phone number I was going out with her, so I wasn't really anticipating a problem... (Will know next time. So clearly I need a number for my friends, a number for my business cards, a number to give to agents, and a new number every time I start going out with someone... All sounds a bit complex to me.)

I won't answer all 10 of your responses to my critique of your marking of my answers to your rhetorical questions. That would be silly. Petty, even. However I can't let you get away with (8) - when exactly did English footballers come into the conversation? I was simply saying that American footballers are soft, and you suddenly start talking about crybaby English footballers! You're just diverting attention away from the fact that you are wrong Wrong WRONG!!!

Ah, the good old inverted snobbery of school - to be accepted you must at all times be seen to be resisting the insidious effects of education, or anything vaguely resembling it... Better not mention the fact that I used to go and see operas when I was at school!

So just borrowing the Lotus a few days after passing your test then? Hmm... Again I'm not sure my insurance company would be delighted at the prospect. Then again maybe they would be, and would just charge several thousand pounds for the privilege. I remember the trouble I had getting insured for just a day to drive a Williams Clio back when my dad had one - he borrowed my car for the day whilst his was being serviced, and in exchange let me drive his car for the rest of the day when it came back from the garage. But I had to plead with my insurers, and tell them that I was in this situation where I would be totally without transport unless they covered me on this car for the one day... And that was when I was 21 or 22, having passed my test at 17! Given the Elise's unenviable record as the car most likely to be crashed within the first couple of weeks of ownership (displacing the previous holder of this honour, the Golf VR6) they might just refuse outright...

I'm not a natural poet. For reasons I've never quite grasped, I frequently don't get it with poetry. Most of the poetry I do like is Haiku. And generally I only go for really simple stuff. I think part of the problem is I love reading books, and I love music, so I tend to instinctively try and understand poetry either from a musical perspective, or as prose... (It was years before I realised that Shakespeare plays are all written to a poetic structure!) It also doesn't help that I was put off poetry at an early age at school - I'd been introduced to it in terms that made perfect sense to me as a musician - a clear rhythmic pattern, and structure reflected in rhyme. So a limeric is about my level. But then this stuff that doesn't rhyme was put forth, which I felt was frankly a bit of a con - that's not poetry. And when it also plays fast and loose with bothering to fit to a particular metre, what you have is

Not so much poetry,
As prose which doesn't bother
To go all the way
To the end of the line

Clearly not poetry! I found this offensive, and my English teacher at the time was clearly of the opinion that anyone who couldn't instantly see the underlying form, and appreciate it unaided was clearly a no-hoper and so he made no attempt to try and explain it to me... And I made no attempt to learn. So poetry has mostly been something of a closed book to me ever since, with a very few exceptions. (Noteably Roger McGough...)

Ah, printing. Well I often have enough windows open that they don't even all fit along the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, and it grows a little scrolling widget so you can get to them all! You get used to it after a while. Seems more environmentally friendly than printing stuff out. And the printer needs a new toner cartridge. (Actually it's not just laziness - the other printer's still working fine, and besides, I went to the shop to get a new toner cartridge yesterday, and they were out of stock, so it's not my fault!)

Anyway, bye for now!

Hello
this is another small penguin to say that I have returned from being a bond girl (was a good idea at 2.30am on Saturday...actually it'd be Sunday...never mind) and so attempted to write a message but I got (and this is impressive) carried away and have already done a message the same length as the last one and I'm only half way down page two of your message...admittedly two thirds of mine is abuse aimed at BTinternet and related disaster but still

Anyway, I'm about to fall asleep and felt it wasn't fair to inflict said message on you without serious editing so I'll post it tomorrow morning instead,

Anyway (really need to find a new word there) goodnight and go and listen to radio 2 as I'm going to make an effort to find and listen to radio 4 tomorrow(err that'd be today now) so it's only fair...and there'll be a test afterwards so I'll know if you're just humouring me

Being a bond girl? Excellent, I look forward to seeing you in the next bond movie!

Anyhow , I'm out most of tomorrow, and unlikely to be anywhere near a radio, so I can't make any guarantees I'm afraid...

O.K typing very quickly in order to make up for the extremely poor internet service which is offered by bloody Bt in order to trick stoopid people into paying and then never actually allowing them to use either the internet, the e-mail or the computer ever again

Anyway, I'm liable to disconnect any second at random times so I thought I'd just pop in to explain why I'm seemingly ignoring you. I do have a message typed but it's in word so I'm going to attempt to post it after this and then edit it very quickly in order to remove the random numbers but I'm not sure if it'll work so don't hold your breath...not that you would because only foolish people do that because you generally pass out ahem

Oh yeah, just incase this doesn't work and I can't connect again before saturday I'm going on holiday for a week during which time my brother will alledgedly fix the computer and I'll be able to message you afterwards and gloat about my suntan,
Bye hopefully only for ten minutes but possibly for days,
Fiona

O.K so annoyed just edited all this and it didn't work so I apologise but you're going to have to put up with novel spelling mistakes, typos, and those very annoying punctuation numbers which word has kindly given me! Anyway, I'm very sorry and I hope you can still read it

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa *fwops computer with a halibut* aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!
I would like to state for the record that I hate BT *fwops Btinternet disk with halibut* !!!

Hmm *and breathe*, I have no idea when you'll get this as I'm having the teeniest, tiniest trouble with my ISP...actually I say it's mine, it's only been mine it may not be for much longer *removes halibut from reach to prevent further damage but only to the fish*. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh it just bloody well crashed again, that's 4 times in 4 attempts and not even the internet just the actual computer *I will not swear, I will not swear*... Anyway, first the disk failed to initialise and then when I'd connected and paid it wouldn't allow me to get an e-mail address, then it wouldn't allow me to connect to my old e-mail address, then it wouldn't allow me to connect to the internet at all and so crashed, restarted, crashed, restarted, connected woohoo, wouldn't allow me past the Bt *spits and fwops with imaginary spare halibut* page so I ended up finding a backdoor into the site through a Luxemburg verb tables entry (why on earth is this the only way in?) got to h2g2 front page, crashed, restarted. Got back to h2g2, let me into my home page then decided that the page was unavailable even though I could see it in front of me, so it failed again. Then I gave up started typing in word and then the whole system collapsed and died right before me...and on top of that I have the brightest pink screen ever seen in the world due to some random file "''''write access" which is missing and so won't allow me to print, type, see the screen and just generally compute...

... Anyway, it just crashed again and now seems less pink and having allowed my brother (computer degree/computer technician/all round genius but I swam before him and he never got a trophy bloke) to swear at it for the about...4 hours it now seems to be working as long as I go through some very bizarre route involving many confusing computery menus and files but I'm assured they're idiot proof (actually I think his words were less pleasant than that but never mind) so I should be able to cope until he has chance to fix it. Actually two good things have come out of this (actually 3 if you count the fact that I had to bribe him with large and hefty bar of white chocolate in order to get him to fix it which means it is now out of arms reach and so I may still be able to go to the ball ) one was that I managed to confuse him entirely by remarking on his Ping usage (which did admittedly scare him as he is aware of...err make that amused by... no wait abusive of... my ineptitude) and secondly because I spent so much time stuck in menus etc I finally got round to changing the default noises so I now have cow's "mooooooo" for shutdown and close programmes, a holygrenade anthem (worms armagedden, much fun when drunk) with cow remix and "baaaaaa" for err, everything else but at least it beats the Britney Spears trash which my mate put on last time he was here

Hmmmm, I might actually get round to replying some time today because my free internet only lasts til midnight which gives me...gaaa one and a half hours to write as much trash as possible to maintain my title as the person who writes the most crap on here I'm actually quite proud of that, out of 56,543 users I'm the one capable of waffling for the longest possible time and typing the most trash...the wafflequeen still reigns supreme

Oh yeah, guess what, the lure of the womble was too strong, I snuffled one out and am now the proud owner of a 33" singing Orinoco ...hmmm, considering your level of maturity maybe I should keep that quite...err, what I meant to say was that we were out shopping and a friend saw one on a shelf and suggested I bought it as a joke, obviously I said no and was appaled at their immaturity but to humour them I decided it wouldn't be so dull if I bought it and I thought perhaps it'd keep me amused for a couple of minutes, y'know novelty item, thing to show as an example of a waste of money...

Right then your message errr, *finds interestingly folded piece of paper under neath large pile of clothing/books/rubbish, considers benefits of finding her floor first and writing later, realises she's lived on the floor of someone elses room for the past two nights so it can't be that much worse*...hmmm, I could really try and be efficient here and challenge your conciseness by writing, Yes. No, you're wrong more. No I wish. Hmmm. Possibly. Beer, mmmmm. Yuppie, Fabreze.Sorry. Took you long enough to figure. TVR. Yes. Alledgedly accurate. No, doesn't work like that. Yes I can. ha you have cuddly toys, with hearts and ribbons and stuff, beanie babies? hmmmm. Was V.bad. I am always right, accusation overuled. Opera= classical= radio 2.Iambic Pentameter, Blank verse. Can't print anymore due to Btinternet *pah!*... However, I may have got them in the wrong order and have admitted to something I didn't mean to such as liking Blade runner or radio 4 so I'll continue in my usual random fashion and write an unrelated essay for each paragraph...hey maybe if you only used one paragraph I'd be more selecative and not write as much rubbish

*looks more indignant and being female has had more practice and so succeeds* I never lose... *hmmm, wonders if psychology may have a use after all, tries to evaluate possibilities of dubious analysis sounding sufficiently convincing to avoid losing*... evidently you're now trying to shift the blame due to unresolved Pingu issues which you've previously repressed. Now you've realised you're wrong and worse still have been defeated in an argument over a small and fictional childrens penguin you refuse to accept it and thus feel the need to deny such possibilities. It's ok I understand, I'm sure you were right in you own little way...do you think my fake psychologist act is believable enough to make money yet?

Btw, I never wriggle unless doing a slug impression so I resent losing on that count too...

hmmmm...*drifts off to far away place* sorry, but you mentioned the Button thing first...I think I may be in danger of fulfilling the female F1 fan stereotype and so will no longer mention his name for fear of shaming myself...ok for shaming myself more

Aaaah blue cars, that's a safe area, just Heidfeld and Alesi there, phew...although the Williams team wear is blue...aaaaargh, there's no hope!

I believe there are a select few people over the age of 26...possibly 80% of the population something like that Do you need me to go over the whole 26 is nearly teenage thing again?

What's wrong with Ilkley Moor? hmmmm, *considers becoming defensive due to her many connections with Ilkley Moor, decides against it*. There used to be a really good pub near us (not in Sheffield they've all become commercial tack in order to compete with Yates and the billions of bars) right on the edge of the moor, a proper walkers pub with roaring fire etc but then it somehow became popular with escaping city types and so now has seated tables with napkins and full restaurant menu...Actually all the pubs in our village have escaped that (for some unknown reason we have 15 pubs to serve a population of 9million old ladies...although they are very useful for pubcrawls but whichever way you go you always seem to be as far away from my house as possible which is really quite annoying ) and are still great ...although being a village with pubs it does mean we have the obligatory "old man on a bench" but luckily he manages to double as "old man sitting next to the woods" and occasionally "old man standing on the bridge looking at the river" so he's quite nice really

Do you know I've just noticed that having been walking last Monday during the summer week I now have deep tan and then white feet and ankles where my boots were...oh no, I'm a rambler that means it's only a matter of time before I'm going to start wearing gaghouls and carrying waterproof map holders

Hmmmm, the angry halibut fish is kept fresh with fabreeze which is also in my bag to remove the odour of pub cigarette smoke which is kept right next to the mini screwdriver set which is used to get the lid off the fabreeze at high speed during hot weather

How about if I change it to mmmm banana...oh wait that's calorific too, how about mmmmm grapes, they're nice and are mainly water and pip so have no calories!

Can I just say bleargh to dark chocolate, it's really bitter and icky. If you're going to have something sugary you might as well make sure it's as sweet as possible in order to make it worth while I object to the accusation of unhinged, that's just going too far...historical I would take, possibly even Ally Mcbeal-esque but unhinged is just viscous (like Cous-cous but slightly scarier)! Hmmmm, if talking to you is a sign of unhingedness what does it mean if I'm talking to you and thinking you're more normal than me

I also object to your suppostitions of me working for McLaren, that's highly unfair, I would never stoop so low Besides I'd still be quicker than Adrian Newey as he'd have to be hauled into the stewards office for cheating and would then be disqualified before the race had started...what happened with that by the way I missed the verdict completely? Did Mika keep his points or has the genius that is Jacques finally get his podium finish...actually I missed the race as well because I was dragged to a festival in a field because of the sun and I haven't had time to watch it yet so the only bit I got to see was the annoying start...aaah the hard life of flitting between pubs, sunbathing and BBQ's (how do you spell that I have just spent the past five minutes attempting to do it and still can't work it out)...admittedly I've stopped now as the suns gone and my parents (grudgingly I will admit reasonably) complained because I left the house at 3pm on Friday and next saw them at 11am on Sunday when I appeared for food

See now you're just showing off because you can spell *leans over to check spelling* Hawaii

Sadly it's pronounced De-munt rather than dement as in madness although there was one called Boring who proved that the average age mental age of Americans was 12 which ranked as a "recoverable moron"...which despite being an exceptionally flawed study amused me

I hate snooze buttons, they're lethal, particularly as I use the radio on mine to get to sleep so when the same radio goes off in the morning it just sends me back to sleep and once I've pressed snooze more than twice there's no hope for me

Hmmm, stupid internet has died again so I am resorting to typing in word, therefore I can not be held responsible for any &£23614 dodgy symbols as it’s not my fault

Anyway, with the corpus callosum and hemisphere deconnection thing I could be here all day. Basically (maybe that’s the wrong word as it makes this sound like it’s going to be concise) I would say that whoever said that was talking a load of rubbish and should be sent to read a biology book almost instantly. . . not that I’m an expert on the subject but multitasking has nothing to do with the connection between the two sides of the brain. *Tries to remember mneumonics learnt for exams*
Sperry’s nobel prize winning study titled “Unity In Conscious Awareness” was carried out in 1968 and was designed to report the effects of dividing the two hemispheres of the brain (by cutting the Corpus Callosum) , on behavioural, neurological and psychological effects. (I can feel myself reverting to psychology essay mode so I apologise before I start. . . well continue ) Anyway, he already knew that the 2 Cerebral hemispheres were connected by a mass of fibres (Corpus Callosum) which were used to exchange information, the left hemisphere relating to the right hand side of the body and so on, and it was also hypothesised that both hemispheres were specialised. Sperry tested 5 (limited subject sample, poor generalisations) severe epilepsy patients (possible subject bias to start with, probable side effects of epilepsy not taken into account) who had volunteered for a Commisurotomy (ethically sound) on 4 different tasks relating to visual fields, memory, linguistic capabilities, physical actions and emotional arousal of each hemisphere. It demonstrated the capacities of both brain hemispheres not only showing that each hemisphere workds independently with it’s own sensations, perceptions and learning experiences but also that the right hemisphere had many of the left hemispheres capacities which were previously unrecognised. Thus the left hemisphere was shown to be linguistic with mechanisms for speech and writing, and to be the centre for comprehension and organisation of language. It is capable of verbal and symbolic capacities, both logical and analytical thinking and processes information sequentially (allegedly your male way of thinking but personally I think that’s a load of trash because it depends what type of person they are but that’s just me) . However, the right hands side of the brain is the minor hemisphere and so consequentially is mute with no language capabilities but it is the perceptual side of the brain and is responsible for visuo-spatial skills and artistic and creative talents. It also uses wholistic perception methods and thus is responsible for face and body recognition and also processes information more defusely (alleged your female thought process). Therefore I would challenge the other blokes (I assume it was) idea because the actaul corpus callosum or it’s thickness, length etc is not responisble for any of the thinking it is merely there to exchange information from the right to left hand side of the body and hemispheres in order to allow the fullly developed mechanisms which humans have. If this is missing or damaged in anyway then all that happensare things like objects shown in one visual field will only be remembered by the same visual field and can only be described if shown to the right visual field but can be pointed out and recognised if shown to the left visual field. If a woman does seem to process information more defusely then that’s got nothing to do with these nerves, possibly the section of her brain may be bigger but that’s just a supposition. Either way the coprus callosum has no effect on the amount of information processed at any one time which leads me to believe that whoever said it had been shouted at for not having done the washing up, cut the lawn or done the ironing or any other task which he didn’t want to do and so was using this as an excuse. Besides if it were true it would also suggest that females would have better visuo-spatial skills than men and we all know that that’s not true

Anyway. . . Go and listen to Radio 2 and it is possible because if, like me, you have any sense at all you won’t reveal to your friends that you listen to Radio 2 (before you become pedantic (not that I’m suggesting you would of course ) I know I told you but that’s different and I did protest to start with).
So they won’t be able to laugh at you

Oh plsma balls are great fun except my mates got a decidedly dodgy one which has no safety standard at all and so after touching it for about 5 minutes your hands start to slowly singe I don’t know if you’ve always lived in Cambridge but if you ever lived further north then you might have been to Pets Corner? Maybe not, anyway it had the worlds biggest plasma ball in the wizards tower (right next to the dragon) and at the age of 6 it used to be about twice the size of me. . . although ebar in mind I was six and so everything would have seemed scarily large I really want one of those lightnign sheets because errr obviously it reminds me of lightning which is pretty (one badge for stating the obvious coming up) I saw one the other week in meadowhall that was reduced to£25 and I came so close to buying it but then I saw this leather jacket and kinda got distracted

*supresses laughter at image of 26 year old male playing with tiny Forever Friends heart bears * yes I thought you’d have them but they still don’t count as toys and I did nearly put in a clause about Beanie Babies because they class in the same category under collectables rather than toys. . . especially if they all still have their tags attached Hmmm, just to show my ignorance what’s a ratbert? I have never heard of that and whilst I’m reluctant to ask I am intrigued Actually I think that a huge spike would be quite good but only in cardboard cutout form not in cuddly form as that would scare me too much. Just out of interest how can you not watch Rugrats, as much as I hate to say it, they rank even higher than Pingu

I think the main reason that I hated A Life Less Ordinary was because I wanted to see Peacemaker with someone else but instead I got dragged to see that and it was so incredibly dull that even the end was torturous as I thought it’d finally finished and then it started up again with some strange cartoon morphed version! Actually I saw Stigmata on Friday night and it was amazing, I think it’s the only film I’ve ever had to use a cushion to hide behind and my mates hand was half crushed by the end of it (which served him right as he nearly broke my arm when he leapt up squealing ) so it definitely out ranked anyhting I’ve seen recently. . . except maybe Final Destination which was also jumpy. . . although Blair Witch crap nearly had me in tears due to fear and that was really poor so maybe I’m not a good judge

Hmmm, I give up with the phone numbers as it worked for me because I haven’t had to speak to an uncle in about 18months but you seem to be making it somewhat complex so I don’t actually know anymore. . .

In relation to question 8 I would once more like to point out that I am never wrong ergo I must be right making you wrong. You’ll note that I was merely broadening the spectrum of debate and providing more than one feeble piece of evidence like someone else did as you’ll note that not only did I mention English footballers but I also cited rugby players

When you went to see opera were you going voluntarily or did parents/teachers take you? I just wondered because this seems the best case ever for you listening to radio 2 as if you listened to opera whilst you were at school you can’t possibly (and reasonably) mock me for listening to the quality that is Terry Wogan

As for insuring the Lotus for me, I could just smile sweetly and flutter my eyelashes at them and as long as I didn’t mention rallying techniques or formula 1 (I have already been warned by my instructor to be on my best behaviour and state crochet and reading as my two main hobbies if asked. . . I don’t know why but he gets the strangest idea that I might put them off by talking about the corners as chicanes and hairpins ) I’m sure they’d be more than happy to let me drive it

Yeah, Shakespeare used Iambic pentameters to write his plays and often where there’s variations it signifies a moment of high drama or conflict it’s not particualrly interesting but you can count the iambs and see how many feet are included in order to work out what was being said, if it was five then it was generally the set structure but any variation above this and it generally meant love etc any lower and it seemed to mean conflict, anger etc. But that’s just what I found through analysing small sections so it’s probably not true for all his work. Also the romantics were slated at the time for not using Shakespeares penatameter system. I think it was probably Byron who changed it when writing his sonnets so he could launch a new style of writing to allow him to be differentaited from W.S, I think it was called Petrachian although that could’ve been then style he changed it from. . . I can’t actually remember. Anyway, I love reading Poe’s work which surprised the interviewers at Cambridge as they assumed I’d read it within a course as apparantly no one reads it anymore

My printer doesn’t work now its yet another thing which has broken due to the IP configuration which I errr . . . BTJane seems to have mangled

Anyway, I’m off to watch Big Brother now and as you’ve probably realsied that this isn’t morning like I said it would be I shan’t bother hiding it. What do you think of the whole Big Brother concept btw, the other week you were talking about docusoaps and it’s a similar sort of style so do you still uphold the laziness view?

Anyway, g'night, oh and sorry about the length of this I did edit it but as it’s 5 pages in size 10 font on word I think it could seem much more substantial once I’ve posted it

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying - got called to do a job at very short notice, and have been in a bit of a work backlog nightmare for the other stuff I'm meant to be doing at the moment, and h2g2 got a bit neglected for a while.

So are you annoyed with me, BT or just the world in general?

By the way, swearing has been proven to improve most computers' operation, so don't hold back. However it does sounds like your computer is pretty unwell. Have you tried using the laptop?

You make your computer mooo when you shut down? I thought you didn't like cows?

Hey, you're the one trying to convince me that immaturity is good, so don't go all apologetic for buying a 33" Orinoco! Be proud of your womble ownership! Reaffirm your Wimbledon Common roots!

The frightening thing is that I was able to work out what most of your ultra-concise answers were about without having to go back and refer to my original message!

*ponders trying to concoct some psychobabble in response...hmm...thing I've got it:* No, you're just wrong. However I'm sure you can make money spouting that kind of stuff. I also notice that you "resent losing". I see you admit you've lost then.

Nothing particularly wrong with Ilkley Moor as far as I know - I've never been there. I was simply using it as the basis for a bad pun. And you can never have too many pubs. A village near to where a friend of mine used to have consisted pretty much of a reservoir and one road about 3/4 of a mile long. This road had houses either side and a pub at either end! Both pubs were always busy...

What on earth is fabreeze?

No you can't just say bleargh to dark chocolate! It's yummy. It's the nicest thing in the whole world! How can you possibly not like it? That's as bad as finding cous-cous scary. Much worse in fact!

I'm not actually sure what the outcome was of the technical infringement. From what I'd heard at the time it was seeming fairly unlikely that it would go against him but I don't know. Ah, being dragged between lounging around outside eating, lounging around outside drinking, and just lounging around outside - your life just sounds like a living hell. Are you asking how to spell barbecue or whether there should be an apostrophe on BBQs? If the former, I think I've just answered that with the aid of my trusty dictionary. If the latter, well opinion seems to be divided on the matter of pluralising TLAs (Three Letter Abbreviations). The usual argument is that the apostrophe denotes one or more missing letters, and there are clearly missing letters between the final capitalised letter and the 's'. But this doesn't convince me - why aren't there apostophes for all of the other missing letters, i.e. T'L'A's? My opinion is that the abbreviated form becomes a noun (or occasionally verb) in its own right, and there are loads of examples of morphology growing spontaneously around this assumption which appears to indicate that this is how people naturally interpret TLAs. (We get a lot of TLAs in my industry.) So the apostrophe is inappropriate. Of course in the case of BBQ it isn't even an abbreviation - it's just shorthand, so I really don't thin apostrophes are required.

How can the average mental age of Americans be 12? Surely it would be the same as the average age of Americans? Otherwise you've got an unrealistic measure of mental age. OK it's clearly going to be a bit more subtle than that since you're doing a kind of meta-analysis: a 'mental age of N' is presumably going to mean having ability equal to the average over people aged N taking whatever test it is you're using to measure mental ability; the average mental age of a nation is presumably the average of these averages... So you might expect some quirks caused by the not exactly linear progression of mental development. But I'm highly suspicious of that claim - stupid though we know Americans to be (see [Clarkson99]), I don't think they have a global monopoly on stupidity... Furthermore I suspect most Americans are beyond recovery.

Well I love snooze buttons at about the time I should be getting up and then hate them by the time I've actually woken up and am irreparably late...

On the corpus callosum thing, good! I'm glad it wasn't just me who thought that that argument was a load of cobblers! And don't apologise for going into psychology essay mode, I'm *interested* in this stuff! Part of it has confused me though. You say:

"the right hemisphere had many of the left hemispheres capacities which were previously unrecognised. Thus the left hemisphere was shown to be linguistic [...], the centre for comprehension and organisation of language."

Those two things seem to be saying the opposite - if the right turns out to have a lot of functions previously thought to be 'left only' I don't see how this prooves the specialisation of the left hemisphere. Basically I don't understand why you've said 'Thus' here - I don't see the connection. If you'd said 'Despite this,' I would have concluded that linguistic functionality was one of the capacities which the right hemisphere turned out really not to have even though it could do things previously considered to be the domain of the left hemisphere. Is that right, or did I miss something?

Is the right hemisphere smaller? (You call it the "minor hemisphere".) It's interesting that left-hemisphere functions are considered to be a characteristically male way of thinking - I agree with you here in that I don't think that's right. The right-hemisphere visuo-spatial modes of thought are for me the most important - for an awful lot of the things I enjoy doing and thinking about (e.g. computer-related problems, mathematics, music, taking a corner on a race track) I don't believe I think linguistically at all - it's all more or less abstract, and feels very much closer to visualisation than it does to talking. I am able to talk about the thought processes involved, but that's very much a post-processing step as far as I'm concerned, and in some cases (e.g. talking about music) one that feels somewhat unnatural and was difficult to learn (music isn't about language, so to talk about it in any detail requires you to try and pin it down in an entirely inappropriate medium). One of my two housemates seems to think in a very similar way to me, and is interested in similar things (he works in computing, studied physics, is into music and likes cars, although he's mostly only driven go-karts, not having got around to taking a driving test despite being 27). My other housemate, who is a woman, finds it hard to understand even the idea of non-linguistic thought - she claims that language is the primary medium for her internal thought processes. She has a somewhat different academic background - she studied history then socio-political science at Cambridge, then did an MSc in Psychology and Statistics, did a year and a half long research associate job at the instutite of management studies at Cambridge and is now doing a PhD in something related to the social sciences and statistics (but, strangely, with a hint of web site construction thrown in!). (Both of my housemates are frighteningly intelligent!) So taking a highly statistically valid sample size of 3 (and from what is obviously a completely normal and average household ) I can conclude that obviously linguistic thought is characteristically female and visuo-spatial thought is characteristically male.

What do you mean "before you become pedantic"? I'm frequently accused of pedantry. Unjustly in my opinion - strictly speaking it's not pedantry. I'm more likely to be picky. There's a fine but important distinction between pickiness and pedantry you see.

I've not always lived in Cambridge, but it is as far North as I've ever lived! I'm decidedly home counties... I was born in Buckinghamshire, lived there for 6 years then moved to Hertfordshire and lived there for 12 years. Since then I've lived variously in Cambridge, Southampton, Berkshire and London. Where's Pets Corner? You were distracted by a leather jacket? I had this idea you told me you were a vegetarian, although I may have got that wrong. If I didn't, is it just eating animals that disturbs you, as opposed to wrapping yourself in one, or is it that you feel that killing cows (which I gather you consider to be evil) is justifiable homicide? (Or bovicide if we're being strictly accurate .)

The Beanie Babies still have their labels attached, but this is not because of any collecting instinct (the closest I get to collecting things is accumulating junk, which isn't really the same thing). It's more that I feel it's cruel to cut bits off your cuddly toys. And Ratbert is a character from the Dilbert cartoons (http://www.dilbert.com/ although the humour may be lost on you if you've not spent a fair amount of time working in a typical office in a medium to large-sized company) which I suppose I have to admit is not exactly a children's thing... But then neither would a huge Spike.

I really wanted to see Stigmata, but managed to miss it. For some reason, whenever there are a whole load of films on I want to see at once, I tend to manage to miss *all* of them! Paralysis induced by indecision I suppose.

Ah well, I just disagree with your assertion that you're never wrong. And anyway, the quantity of evidence isn't exactly relevant now, given that the extra evidence you supplied actually strengthened my argument!

I voluntarily went to the opera and still do. Although having got more into theatre recently, the fairly naff stage production of most operas tends to annoy me these days where I tended not to care a few years ago, so I'm more likely just to listen to it on CD... However if a talented stage director is doing an opera (e.g. Jonathon Miller does them from time to time), then I'll still make an effort to go and see it. Anyway, I suppose I have to let you off with Terry Wogan - the man is clearly a god. He can make the Eurovision Song Contest entertaining, which clearly no mortal could possibly achieve.

You could try fluttering your eyelashes at my insurers, but since they only seem to be available over the phone I'm guessing it won't work... And yes, I guess that talk of chicanes and hairpins, or referring to the hard shoulder as a 'run-off area' would go down about as well as the approved crossed-hands steering technique required in racing. (Frowned upon by most road instructors, but as far as I can tell, despite the fact that they all claim the 'shuffling hands' technique is safer, I believe the real reason is that it's harder to get the racing technique right, particularly with the massive great big steering wheels most cars have.)

You've broken your printer with bad IP configuration? That shouldn't even be possible! (Unless the printer is attached to a different PC I suppose...)

I've not watched Big Brother, and have only a hazy idea of the premise. Is this where cameras have been installed in places with peoples consent, but in a pretty unobtrusive fashion in order to get people to behave more or less as though they weren't there? Or is there more to it?

Anyway, I've got 302 unread emails (the result of 2 days without keeping up with my email backlog!) so I should probably go and deal with that soon...

My replies over the next week are likely to be sporadic by the way. I'm working in London all week, and whilst I will have an Internet connection during the day, I have to do actual work (I'm teaching), and I don't have access during the evenings. So I apologise in advancce for any excessive delays in replying.

*applauds*

Um...why?

That's the longest post I've ever seen anyone make.

I think it's about average for this thread isn't it? In fact I'm pretty sure Tinkerbell usually manages longer messages than I do.

It's ok you can breathe a sigh of relief now, I'm back
And with SUNTAN!!!
Admittedly my cat has shunned me and now refuses to acknowledge my existence...but I have a SUNTAN!!!

Anyway, err, hands up all those people who didn't read my message properly (that'd be you btw) you were apologising for writing slow responses when i wasn't even here to read them which, admittedly, is an admirable thing to do but it was highly unnecessary

Errrr....anyway...did I mention I have a SUNTAN... guess I did

hmmm, wonder if my printer has fixed itself since I've been gone...can' reply unless it has...errr, back in a bit when I've sworn at the computer

Well the apology was too late by the time I wrote it, but I don't think it was misplaced - had I replied earlier it would have been before you went off on holiday!

You're clearly trying to make me jealous with the whole SUNTAN!!! thing, so I'd just better point out that in order to get a SUNTAN!!! what I usually do (and what I did today) is go out for a nice long drive in my Lotus Elise when it's lovely and sunny.

You don't *need* a printer to reply. At least I've never printed out any of your messages in order to reply to them - seems like ecological vandalism to me. (He said, as the owner of 2 fast cars...)