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

heheh. The Bernie memes.

One Sunday in 1975 ....

Good line that... I remember Kew Gardens. I was there one Sunday in 1975...

Strange thing is I probably was in Kew Gardens one Sunday in 1975.

Imagine if we'd been in the Palm House on the same Sunday. Might so have been, might have, might have, not entirely impossible.



I'm sure NVP and I met before in the 70s, because we later found out that we both ate our lunch sandwiches in St James Park, (London), which was near both our workplaces.

Now NVP will tell me she never ate sandwiches in St James Park. She'll be like The Sugar Puff Guy who insists he never told me he ate Sugar Puffs for breakfast.



The resolution to be serious ... uh oh ... what are you two cooking up? I will read your Editorial wearing my Vita Sackville West rainhat.

Not sure how that is relevant. I do have a new rainhat though. It does make me look like Vita Sackville West. . I wear it even when its not raining. I stare at my reflection in closed down shop windows, and think about Kew, 1975.

I have just looked up pictures of Vita Sackville-West...great hat!

Full moon tonight, whaaaooo.



I've had this digital device for about ten years, its a sampler, I make recordings on it, but there's a feature called Pattern which enables you to turn fragments of old recordings into new sounds. Breakbeat guys are brilliant at it, I can't do it like them, but I need to make recordings about a jasmine fragrant dawn, with a radio effect, and mix it with something about a tin can metallic sunflash, and a silhouette of something (or someone) with wings.

It's kind of quirky, doesn't work in a clear cut way, which is why I've always liked the idea of it.

Anyway, thanks to lockdown nerd time I got obsessed with it, and a few weeks ago I said to myself 'I will work this thing by full moon in January, or else ...

Or else what??? I don't know. What lies beyond the three dots. ...

Anyway, at 3.46am this morning I woke up,set the register to Moonlight (even though it was raining), and presto! I'm on my way ...

There's no such thing as a Moonlight Register. I made it up. It worked.

heheh. Ah yes, Vita. I flatter myself, naturally. If I looked half as elegant as her ...

Talking of gardens, and Vita, Sissinghurst Gardens! Kent!

And ...

Erm, well, she created them. Great gardener was Vita.

See you on Sunday, Sissinghurst Gardens, sometime in 1975. I'll be wearing the hat.

That's an odd sentence.

(heads back to the Non Existent Moon Register)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_lywJvMeH8

(For the moon.)

My mum's favourite song, may she dance with angels. I have an old photo of her in London, when she was young, and wearing a hat...
Thanks GoHL.

Ah, hat memories...

When I look at TV shows from the 1950s, or photos from the World War I or II eras, what strikes me is the near-unanimous wearing of hats by men. Nowadays, we guys tend to wear hats only in cold weather, to keep our heads warm .

Throughout the eight-year run of their TV series, George Burns and Gracie Allen kept up a running gag about men who got so distracted by Gracie's illogical logic that they fled he Burns house without their hats. Gracie took to writing the wearer's name on a piece of paper, tucking it into the hat band, and storing the hat in a closet. Not many men came back for their hats. .

Gracie didn't just do verbal humor. She also sang and danced (notably in "Damsel in distress,"), and had some hiolarious routines in which men who visited her put their hats on a chair, whereupon, Gracie would put a heavy book on the hat, or sit on it, etc. After a while, you could see it coming and enjoy the way she blithely committed mayhem on the poor hats.

You're right about the disappearance of hats. I realised, when I was messing about with my 'A Place to Call Home'story that nearly everyone wore hats in the 1930s and 40s. I went through giving headscarves for women and caps or berets for men.

You don't often see hats these days, except for weddings and funerals.

I routinely wear knit caps in cold weather. When it's in single digits (F) I may wear two hats.

I have a fair-sized hat collection and people give me hats as presents.

But my parents wouldn't wear them. The World War II generation went on strike against hats, postwar. Didn't want to have 'hat hair'.

People used to feel undressed if they went outside without a hat. In the 19th Century and before, hats were worn indoors, too - no central heating. Also to bed.

Night caps were very handy.

"And Ma in her kerchief
And I in my cap,
Had just settled down
To a long winter's nap "

[from "A visit from Saint Nicholas"]

I wear a cap a lot, and a wide-brimmed hat whenever I'm out exploring the bush.

I imagine that a broadbrimmed hat is essential in the bush.


I wear a cycle helmet when I go out. This means that I have to strap it to the frame of my bike when I go shopping.

Is that to help prevent sunburn and/or skin cancer?

Probably just to stop it being stolen.

It so happened that Paulh and I commented on Willem's post at the same time.

So we've now got the odd picture of my cycle helmet preventing sunburn and skin cancer, and Willem's bush hat being stolen!

If someone were to steal anything, I'd rather have them steal sunburn and skin cancer.

Yep sunburn is rather an issue over here! But strangely we've not had a very sunny summer season so far ...

We might actually see the sun tomorrow...in between snowstorms...