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

Yes, quite so, Lone Arranger, how many photographers, and in fact whole photos, have disappeared in this way?



Hullo Lone Arranger! I like you very much, even though you're fibbing about the disappearing photographer. Will you be my Lone Arranger spirit guide?

Will you go about saying your version of Hi-Yo Silver! like Clayton Moore?

haha. Ah right.

Suddenly they AWOKE. THE END. haha.

So, Askadod and his merry companion were a dream? What about my snakes? My snakes! Very symbolic in a dream. Am I pleased that they all were a dream? I think I might be. I wonder what this dream meant? I think I might not think about this.

Welcome to the Sixties. heheh. What a curious and wonderful non museum this is. I want to go there to watch The Flintstones!

If Janis and Jimi had died in '69 ... Interesting thought. 1969.



Looks like the writing is flowing, paul! I've been waylaid for a few days, now I have to catch up some more! heheh. Are you enjoying the process?

Ah! I know where I am! The lady in the window lives opposite Welcome to the Sixties, and the Anything Goes Church!

Ah, are you Elvira Westcott?? Who are you, lady in the window? You are gloriously and appealingly mysterious.



Elvira, Mistress of the Dark??? A popular TV show? This I must check out.



That's a very evocative image. The lady in the window.

Makes me think of ghost stories, the ghostly face at the window. I once thought I saw a ghostly face in a window of an old house, but I tell myself it was just light on the glass..

We don't know how the movie version of "A man called Ove" compares with the book, because the movie hasn't been made yet.

I've just posted chapter 25, in which a man in a house shaped like a cuckoo clock watches real live cuckoos that visit his grove of trees.

In an earlier chapter, there is a woman who talks to trees and other woodland entities. She also visits a conservancy area famous for its 30 caves, and claims to know what the bats in the caves are saying. Te news is not encouraging. But then, what news is encouraging these days?

I don't know if I would want to be able to communicate with other creatures, or predict the future. The past is enough of a challenge.

Oh right. Doh. Haha. The movie hasn't been made yet. Well, it'll be interesting to how it turns out.

Are movies ever better than the book, I wonder. Sometimes, often, never..

The man in the house shaped like a cuckoo clock, watching real live cuckoos, thats very magical!

The essence of this imagery just reminded me of something, but it was such a fleeting flash I couldn't grasp it. Could have been a picture in an art gallery, could have been in a graphic design book I had once.. Perhaps I'll grasp it..

Hah! The woman who talks to trees and other woodland entities. 30 caves, bats...

No I wouldn't want to speak to any entity which could predict the future. Eeek! Not so much because of the events but the fact of prediction would spook me.

How can anyone predict the future 'cos we shape our future in the moment.. Sort of. Perhaps. Ooh a bit philosophical there..

My imagination is kind of hit or miss in the Spotlight on Crepuscular Meadows. The entries are large enough to fill about a screen and a half, or maybe two screens.

I've always been the sort of person who just gives rein to the imagination, and lets the chips fall where they may (hopefully on the same plate as some nice fish. )

Crepuscular Meadows has the advantage of having the same street layout as a real town, but I can use poetic license and sneak in some stuff that is different.

The Hoohaw River is a nice touch, even if I d say so myself.

Yes! I think I'm maybe like that, also. Giving my imagination free rein and letting the chips fall where they will. Heheh. Yes, on a plate with some nice fish. or in my case hsif, peculiar backwards fish, because my chips fail to fall into a story pattern. Haha.



It is an enchanting idea, the street layout of an actual town but using poetic license to create the detail,the culture.

One time, when we were kids,my brother designed an entire town in a dream. In essence it looked exactly like the two nearby towns we knew, same architecture, and still in England, Planet Earth. However it was a completely imaginary town

There were streets and shops and people, an entire culture, day to day events, packed into what was probably a two minute dream.



I'm trying to recall a book I once knew from childhood, that at the time enchanted me greatly. Not because of the story, but because of the map drawn on the first page, of the perhaps imaginary territory where the story took place.

That map! Loved the idea of the map.

Maybe there were quite a lot of kids books that had maps. I think it might have been Swallows and Amazons...

The anhingas mate for life. They have been taking turns on the nest for weeks now. They lay eggs about two days apart. The eggs take about two weeks to hatch and about six weeks more before the chicks can fly.

There are frequent heavy afternoon thunderstorms here in the summer. The tree branches and nest get blown around violently in the wind and rain. The nest is well built.

Anhinga feathers are not waterproof to allow them to dive deeply...in the rain the birds spread their wings over the nest like an umbrella to keepthe eggs (or chicks ) dry.

Leaving the nest is a big step...should happen around the end of August...

It took a billion years of random successful mutations to produce these incredibly designed "devil-birds". I have hope that an infinite number of monkeys equipped with typewriters will eventually produce a work more popular than "Hamlet".

I don't see an infinity of either monkeys or typewriters . And I don't quite reckon why "Hamlet" is usually trotted out as the ne plus ultra of great accomplishment.

I find "lord of the rings" more fascinating than Hamlet, and it's got invented elvish languages, treelike people, an origin myth, a reassuring image of dying people setting sail on a boat headed for some beautiful shores, and the downfall of a truly monstrous villain. "Hamlet" has none of those.

I'm not even sure that "Hamlet" always get performed in ways that the text suggests. Hamlet talk about "this solid flesh." Some have taken this t mean that he was perhaps quite brawny, or even fat. A fat Hamlet might be an interesting touch, but I doubt that it's been tried.

Awww, anhinga love. I love that, about them spreading their wings over the nest.

Monkeys with typewriters..

???? ???? ???

I had to print out question marks and cupcake smileys there, which is completely irrelevant to anything, but I was thinking about monkeys with typewriters and that's what came out..

I'm not well enough acquainted with either Hamlet or Lord of the Rings, to have anything useful and devastatingly intelligent to add here. Interesting debate though.

I did have the DVD of the film where Lawrence Olivier plays Hamlet. It was amazing in fact. I liked the ghost. Really good ghost.

The sudden and unexpected demise of my brother in law at the weekend, has jolted me into the moment, and I have been considering the transience of all things, and wanting to speak to the Buddha about it all.

Instead I've been speaking to my very fine little wrought iron lizard that I just bought for our balcony. It sits on top of my pile of beach rocks, and looks very lizardy. In fact I thought I saw it move its head just now, but it didn't of course. Or did it??

Hey little lizard, am I afraid of the transience of all things? I love this life, this spark in the dark.

I offer my patchy, scratchy poems and patterns.

And, suddenly and spontaneously, I know its OK, little lizard. Have no fear I say to myself, have no fear.

I feel maybe there's a glowing knowing Love frequency, (that isn't really that because there's no words for something so awesome) at the heart of everything.



So that was a very interesting discussion with a wrought iron lizard. I think it might be my guru. I shall offer it assorted sugarcakes and chocolate insects, .

Also I shall offer it half remembered lyrics from a song I keep writing to a mysterious road-shaped vein in my soul.

I am sorry about your brother-in-law, cc.

I think it's good to stop, from time to time, and remember the transience of our existence. We are like fireflies, which flit around brightly for a while, then vanish.

As for the glowing knowing Love frequency, at the heart of everything, it would be good to believe that. .

Hullo mvp!

Yes, fireflies indeed! That's a poetic image, in fact, dear poetlady.

I wonder why fireflies glow?

I know , what am I on about, knowing glowing Love frequency. I'd be teased by any great Love entity, what you on about then, with your daft scratchy patchy lyrics, it would say.

I do feel sometimes ...

oh, wait, back in a minute ..

.. I do feel sometimes ..

What was I going to say? I just froze the pad on my laptop, had to go find a mouse , eeek!, no, a computer mouse, to restart it, now I lost my incredibly poetic and mystical flow.

I do feel sometimes ..

It was something to do with layers.

After the news at the weekend, (bro in law had a heart attack we think, he was 73, loved working, hard physical labour, couldn't stop) we went swimming in the sea, and I felt as if my layers of beliefs and all the things I think I know, were being gently washed away in the salty light.

It was OK not to know, not to have any answers to any of my mystical peculiar soul searching questions, just be in the moment.

Although I do like the idea of a 'big peaceful Lovebrain' at the heart of things. That's quoting Allen Ginsberg. 'big peaceful Lovebrain'. I love it.

In fact, not knowing is essential! Its a poetic muse! Oooh eh.

Dear journal,

I think I just understood absolutely nothing.

I found my Not-Knowing somewhere between the lighthouse , what?? there's a lighthouse smiley??? do I remember the lighthouse smiley??

.. somewhere between the lighthouse and the ..

I lost my flow again. Although I don't need to go find a mouse this time.

Somewhere between the rhyme of lighthouse and white mouse, I heard a rhythm in the spaces between words, and found it to be pleasing.

sleeeeep, I must sleeeep.

Does the Wrought Iron Lizard have a wink in one eye?

I've been thinking of getting or making a ceramic lizard with one eye winking for the garden.

It's probably likely that intense heat makes some people more prone to getting sick or dying suddenly.

heheh. The lizard doesn't officially have a winking eye, ITI, but now I will always see it winking. Just the thought of it will make me feel happy.

A ceramic lizard? That's amazing! Do you work a lot in ceramics?