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

The definition I found for Alice band suggested two types; the plastic horseshoe shaped ones and the simple elastic fabric ones. The latter is what I'm suggesting above. The plastic ones with teeth would be sold in fetish shops.

Some do, some don't. I've never found that the teeth make much difference as far as holding power is concerned, though someone with different hair thickness/texture may disagree. The teeth can be pretty darned uncomfortable if the band gets hit, though.

There's one aspect of these... does anyone know what they're called, by the way? Apart from all the obvious words we might apply to them?

Any road up. It's bad enough getting a stonker if you're wearing budgie smugglers, slightly less so if you have on Bermuda shorts, but what happens if you're wearing one of those and you get... aroused? Where's it going to go? Is it going to end like... well, do I need to post a link to the bikini scene from Carry on Camping?

Quite a (Or I didn't notice that there was one more page...)

I don't know the answer to that question, but I think I know the sound effect it would make when the situation ..ahme.. arises...

they've been called Alice bands as long as I can remember, I think at least since the Disney Alice in Wonderland film

oh and "stonker"? I haven't heard that since my military days!

My British slang lexicon only goes up to the point where I left, in 1999, and is mostly stuck in the 80s and 90s. If I was to go back for any length of time everyone would probably think I'd been in a coma for the past 15 years. I'm unaware of most of the slang that's evolved since then, other than what I've seen on British TV

well, my not hearing "stonker" any more is more due to the fact that I don't hang around soldiers any more and doesn't say it...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-28018007
Godmanchester festival 'Jesus' scarecrow removed after complaints

I really don't know where to begin with this one, it's almost entirely composed of -able material. I think the comment about the trampoline is probably the most risible.

I do like the resurrection reference though

One football match, and suddenly all my American beer-related acquaintances are refusing to drink the Belgian beers they normally revere, and even going as far as to post pictures of themselves pouring Belgian beer down the sink, and not just any Belgian beer - a bottle of Westvleteren 12, often voted the best beer in the world and one of the most sought after (and hard to get) beers there is because the monks who brew it make a limited amount and you can only get it at the monastery after jumping through several hoops, including making a promise not to resell it - a promise which a handful of people break.

And someone is proud to be pouring it down the drain to make a point just because the US football team is playing the Belgian football team in the World Cup

Let me say here that I'm not wailing and gnashing my teeth because beer, and especially this holy of holies, has gone down the drain. Westvleteren 12 is a type of beer - Belgian strong dark ale, some say quadrupel - that doesn't particularly excite me, and they say that if you've had a Rochefort 10 (which I have because it's quite easy to get here in Texas) you may as well say you've had a Westvleteren 12 because they're virtually the same beer. What's more, whichever team wins the game, the owner of that bottle is going to regret it at some point. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of their life (gratuitous Casablanca quote).

It's a very childish thing to do.

While we're on the subject of beer, I suppose I should add a to the fact that the first pumpkin beer of the year has just been released. At the end of June. Pumpkin beer. I don't know about you but I associate pumpkins with autumn and the onset of winter. Not that we get muxh winter in south central Texas but you know what I mean.

Breweries don't recognise seasons any more. It's not uncommon now to to see summer ales released while there's still snow on the ground in some parts, and winter seasonals on the shelves when it's still hitting 100°. And from breweries located where it's still hitting 100° I might add.

Fair enough - there's nothing to say that any kind of beer shouldn't be consumed at any time of the year. I don't mind drinking barley wines in the summer or crisp Czech pilsners while I'm watching her Majesty's Christmas message to the Commonwealth. But if you're going to brew a beer that's *specifically* marketed as a seasonal, like Sierra Nevada's autumn seasonal Tumbler brown ale, complete with representations of golden and orange leaves on the label, don't release it in August when we're still all thinking 'summer'. And if you brew a beer that's so Christmassy it practically makes the sound of sleighbells when you open the bottle, it probably shouldn't be on the shelves in September (the clue's in the name - 'winter warmer').

At least one local brewery - Live Oak - sticks to their guns and has the decency to wait until September 1st to release their Oktoberfest beer each year.

Oh hell, let's go for a hat-trick.

I've seen too many comments today that the sole reason the five Supreme Court justices who voted in favour of Hobby Lobby being allowed to deny contraceptive coverage in the healthcare they offer their employees is because they don't have a vagina But that's how social media (really getting to dislike that term) goes. Everything's black and white. Opinions are fact. Anything that inconveniently disagrees with or disproves a statement is ignored or denied.

Not contraceptive - abortion

I prefer things to be kept seasonal otherwise they're no longer special. That's why I resist the Christmas goodies in the shops until the 1st December or the first Advent in Sunday (whichever is sooner)

Pouring away decent beer because football?

The Hobby Lobby thing - it is really difficult not to see this kind of idiocy as part of a (not always) low level prolonged war on women though. I don't know if you have to be a woman to really get the feeling on this but it isn't just the fact that they want to interfere in their employees private medical issues. It isn't the fact that Hobby Lobby invest their pension funds in the companies that manufacture the drugs that they are preventing their employees from having access too.

It is the fact that viagra is perfectly well allowed. Some of the comments I've seen on the internet about how women should control their urges and not use contraception (not just the "banned" ones, any and all of it) while questioning anyone who says "give up Viagra too" make me weep. Seriously hot bitter tears.

Hobby Lobby is sending a lot of business to certain flea markets, especially in the Valley.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-rise-of-the-diy-abortion-in-texas/373240/

A very interesting read.




I wonder how many of those social media images of eedjits pouring out perfectly wonderful Belgian beers refilled empty bottles with some swill before taking the picture.

(I should note I'm being a bit facetious. Let me be clear it's Texas republicans that are responsible for that black market.)

Not water, I think, but it could equally be a bottle filled with cheaper beer and then poured down the plughole. You decide http://twitter.com/Jack_Around/status/483803845265326080

It makes me feel better to believe it's just some swill. It could be Miller Lite, the swilliest of swills.