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

New Brighton?? Full of giant lobsters?? Alive or dead?

Very atmospheric Guide Entry, in a crumbling, broken down way. I see amusement arcades in a sort of flickering end of the world neon light. I've never heard of this strange place. Who stays at the Hotels? I think I'd quite like to stay there.

Ooooh wait, looks like I've been there. With Sasha. In a dream. This is interesting.

Wait, back inna min, must consider.

Hey, can we go shopping again in New Brighton please Sasha? Good dream, this. Perhaps we'll find your bag of trinkets.

Can you remember what they were?

I'm glad you didn't lose me. Not sure if I'd like to be lost in New Brighton, all alone, with passing giant lobsters for company.

Stange thing, a few weeks ago I did buy a piece of arty driftwood. Seriously. It was an offcut from a furniture making place. Not at that price though. .

Once I got it home it was waaay too big for our picnic table, like, there was no table left. I took some arty photos of it. It was a strange shape, I kept wanting to file it down. So I traded it.

That's weird isn't it? I wonder what driftwood means.

Driftwood means driftwood.

Yes, but in a dream. Symbolic like.

My youngest sister gave my other sister some driftwood from her Georgia beach for Christmas. The collection included shells and sand dollars. The whole fit into a large, rectangular, heavy glass container. You display it decoratively. You take it out to examine, feel, mull over....

W*k*p*d** says gribbles eat driftwood. I didn't know that...

Eaten by Gribbles???

Eaten by Gribbles (Whilst drifting through New Brighton)

A Short Story by.. by who?

Its a masterpiece, whoever writes it. Eek unless Sasha dreams it. No! No! Wake up Sasha! The gribbles aren't really gribbles, they're just lobsters in disguise.

I love that glass display case description, the objects within. Take them out to examine, feel, mull over. Poetic that is.

(Exits fast to find out what a gribble is.)

I didn't know, either. But I knew you'd enjoy the word.

Now I learn something also! Gribbles are relatives of the little blue wood lice that are abundant in my compost heap. They eat wood, seaweed and see grass! They bore holes into them. Therefore they're boring, but I wouldn't call them boring.

Driftwood is great for use in still life paintings!

Not boring at all! Here we are talking about them.

'Yes!' saith the Gribble! 'I am suddenly famous!



I'm apparently not at all boring while I'm boring into organic matter.

In fact my boring habits seem to be very interesting. At least to these people here on this nice website.

Perhaps I'll keep bore into a digital virtual organic skin named Brunel or even Pliny and say hullo some more. I'm a very cool not boring Gribble. People will be impressed.'

'No! Uh oh,' saith cc!! as she leaves the scene, never to be seen again.

What?? Keep bore? That's a strange typo. For my sins.

Keep bore.

Keep on boring into Pliny my friend and I'll lose my h2 membership.

(tiptoes out with a Gribble in her pocket, releases it into a patch of seaweed, far from any computers).

I will gladly go dream shopping in New Brighton with you if I can, cc I can't really remember what my dream trinkets were, but they might have been something like sequins, or craft jewels - something shiny

Yes, I was glad I didn't lose you in my dream - I wouldn't want to be lost in New Brighton all alone either, even though with company it can be very pleasant! A87915775

That is impressive that you did have a piece of driftwood that was a strange shape and would have been too big to take on a train but you got some art out of it anyway I can imagine driftwood would have a symbolic dream meaning, but I don't know what it would be!

"The gribbles aren't really gribbles, they're just lobsters in disguise."

True! Both crustaceans

How fascinating is this! Eddie Hall in New Brighton! (Considers.) I've never been a fan of strongmen, but a girl can change.

(thinks about strongmen) (briefly) (before fainting)(its those shiny muscles)

I'm really into New Brighton and the poetic memories it holds for those who know it. The Bright Spot arcade is in my life. Can we go there please, in a dream?

Crustaceans!! Yes!

hi guys

Hello.

Sorry, that was too curt.

Welcome to h2g2! Is there anything we can direct you to? Smileys, The (A87937483), guide entries, the water cooler?

Hullo natirutis! As Dmitri says, welcome to the site! And there's lots of folks here who can direct you to all the different bits of it! This site is a multiverse, a cornucopia of wonders.



Cornucopia. Good word. What exactly is a cornucopia? I think its mythological in origin.

(heads out to wonder why)

Mm I like that phrase. Heads out to wonder why. An enigmatic stage direction perhaps.

Icy North posted this architectural cornucopia on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/mrdavidwhitley/status/1148197317989847041

We have cornucopias as Thanksgiving decorations, dunno why. I understood it was related to the Cauldron of Bran, which is Celtic mythology, which in turn is related to Wolfram von Eschenbach's version of the Holy Grail as a sort of divine replicator a la Star Trek...

Shutting up now.

*Exit, pursued by a bear* (Shakespeare's most interesting stage direction)

That's a fine cornucopia of animal shaped buildings! What about that then? Animal shaped buildings.

What animal shape would I like to live in, given a choice?

An octopus shape would be good. Each tentacle or limb or leg - don't know what the correct term is - would be a long bendy lit up passageway with rooms leading off it. Like, observation rooms, aquarium style, as the octo-house sloshes and gurgles about underwater.

is this strawberry smiley relevant? No!

Ah a very fine cornucopia definition! (considers the a la Star Trek bit)

This reminds me of Jack Finney's wonderful novel 'Time and Again'. You should read it, it's the only time-travel novel that uses accurate history and a completely original, non-machine method of travel. Worth it for the photos alone. Anyway...

In Finney's novel, the main character, from 1970, and his girlfriend, from 1882, have to hide from the police. They do this in the arm of the Statue of Liberty. In 1882, the arm was the only part of the statue that had been constructed, and it was on display in Madison Square Park in New York City. They fall asleep, and wake up in the arm, but in 1970. Of course, it is now attached to the rest of the Statue of Liberty, and out in the harbour. They take the ferry back to New York City.

Why no one has ever managed to make a film of this I don't know. There was a film called 'Time and Again', but it had next to nothing to do with this story.

I got back from South America on Friday night. We saw all sorts of interesting things, including Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, the Very Large Telescope and the solar eclipse.
But it was all too packed in - lots of planes and airports, early departures, late arrivals and missed lunch breaks until it got to the point we were saying it resembled an assault course. Or some kind of virtual reality test - the group that gets to Bolivia first without losing anyone wins.

That sounds like my kind of book! Going to check it out!! It has photos in it? Like a photo novel? That's what I want to do. In collaboration, naturally.

No film of it? How extraordinary.