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

I've never yet made it to any of my own* graduations (two, one for BSc, one for MSc), but hope stprings eternal It sounds fabulus though... making me nostalgic for the ones I didnt' make it to myself and the Eveninsong sounds good too (I am, yes, a fan, despite my non-religious credentials)

Today is Wednesday and my day off work. After yesterday's excitement, I'm taking it easy today. So far, all I've done is:

- removed a telephone socket from our bedroom - we don't use the house phone in our bedroom anymore. If people want to ring us at night, it had better be serious, and they can use our mobiles. I had to disconnect the wires one by one at the telephone junction box and check which socket was affected, since I didn't know which of the wires were for which sockets. When I'd identified the cable going to the bedroom, I was able to disconnect it and cut it where it went into the wall.

- replaced our broken filter tap with a new one. If we'd bought it from the people who supplied it, it would have been €48, but Mrs G found one from Amazon for less than €10.

- had my lunch

- played some Words of Wonder.

This afternoon, I may do some wiring - we've closed off part of our built-in wardrobe, in preparation for opening it up on the other side, into El's room. So part of the wardrobe has four walls, a floor, ceiling and no door. But it does have a light - when we turn on the light in the rest of our wardrobe, the light comes on in there too. I'll have to go up into the attic and trace the wiring back to the switch, disconnect it and work our some other way of turning on and off that light.

Deb

Goodluck with the wiring... I'm convinced I've got some dubiously 'creative' wiring in my house, that doesn't necessarily arrange itself on to the ci circuits it should at the fuse box end of bisuness...

A cousin of mine was living in a rent house that had horrid wiring. The landlord was a retired electrician and he wired the entire house with scrap wire from work. My uncle rewired much of it and said it was hard to find a length of wire longer than his arm in the entire attic. Every foot or so was a twisted union covered in black tape.

It's a wonder the house hadn't burned down.

I've discovered that the wardrobe lights were very well wired in the attic, but I floored over the wires and the junction box. I've found the junction box, so I'll have to lift a floorboard to get at it. After that it should be plain sailing.

I've also moved the bookshelf back into the bedroom. i still need to attach it to the wall before putting the books back on it.

(After dinner, between the first and second glasses of wine, I attached the bookshelves to the wall. Gradually, bit by bit, the bedroom is becoming more habitable.)

Today, my Ringworld entry was accepted. Goulash and Slide Rules are in Peer Review, but there are not much comments. I take this as a good sign - they'll be picked eventually. Next on my list are Irish High Crosses, Prats de Mollo, The Science Fiction of Iain M Banks, and Why Are There No Green Stars?

Three of these require some more research:

- For the Irish High Crosses, I've visited 8 out of the 10 sites I considered to be the best in Ireland. I still have 2 to go, but I may not get to them this year.

- For the Prats de Mollo entry, I may have to go back to the South of France, which I probably can't do until next Summer - unless I can find something fairly definitive on the web. The church was shut the day I visited Prats de Mollo. Some sites say there is a particularly interesting statue inside, but other sites have the statue in a different church further up the mountain. It would be a pity to miss out on a good story, so I'll have to find out.

- For the Green Stars entry, Galaxy Babe raised the point that there is one star which is considered green: Zubeneschamali. I'll have to either look at the star, which I can't do until summer, or talk to the h2g2 Researcher of the same name, who is likely to have seen it and is also, as it happens, my brother.

The Iain M Banks entry just needs to be written.

There's also a list of about 150 entries, some of which will never be written and some which I might suddenly get interested in again.

I try to make my entries as different from each other as possible. I know there are researchers who like to offer blanket coverage of certain topics; Bluebottle is on his comedy, superhero and animation films theme at the moment and is churning out entries. Well done to him for filling the Guide, but I find there's a similarity about all his entries which makes me lose interest in them. I don't work like that.

Nevertheless, I'm sure that my entries look very similar to everyone else. You can probably tell it's a Gnomon entry by reading the first paragraph, or sometimes just from the title.

Ah, is that what I'm doing?

I can't deny that there is often a degree of similarity or area of overlap and often writing about one topic seems to lead naturally into a related one.

(Incidentally, I've read both Goulash and Slide Rules, just didn't have anything to add)

<BB<

Deb

You're certainly industrious, Gnomon. I'll have a look at the goulash entry of yours. I haven't cooked any for a long time, maybe I'll learn a new variant.

Things are very quiet today. Not much to report as yet. I'm glad it's very nearly the weekend. I don't intend to do a huge amount over the weekend. Perhaps I'll drive down to Wexford and sort out the plumbing in the mobile - needs to be done before the ice sets in. I'd also like to attend the memorial service in Trinity on Sunday morning. After the Anglican Communion Service (at which daughter El conducts the choir), they all troop over to the building marked NIKE and place a wreath on the war memorial. If I go along, I'll let you know.

The weather looks good for the evening - there's a clear blue sky which means there will probably be stars this evening. I think I'll set up my telescope and have a look around. Jupiter is very bright at the moment, and the Pleiades are in a good position for viewing. At very low magnification (15X) they're an impressive sight.

I haven't seen a clear sky for weeks. Lucky you.

We've had a few starry nights. The down side is that it is always really cold when the sky is clear.

Deb

I liked the Ringworld entry.

My father had all the closets in our house fitted with automatic switches. You open the door, the light comes on, just like a refrigerator.

Two things to report today.

Firstly, I spent most of the day sorting out our wardrobe, which we've reduced in size, so I have to rearrange the drawers and rails inside it. I needed to buy some chipboard covered in white melamine to act as a support for one of the rails, and it turned out to be quite difficult to find - in the 80s, virtually everything in our house was built from white melamine.

Finally found it, and spent the rest of the day working on the wardrobe. It's all done now (since about 9:30pm).

The other big thing was daughter Iz's debs dance. This is known as a "prom" in America. I don't know what the British name for it is. She looked amazing in her finery, and she was wearing heels for the first time ever, making her as tall as Mrs G and towering over elder daughter El. Iz's debs isn't quite the traditional one, in that she decided to bring three men - her gay friend, her intellectual friend and her wild friend. Mrs G is going to drive out and collect them whenever they've finished, which will probably be about 4am. Luckily, Iz doesn't drink much (or at all, really) so she might actually enjoy the party.

After all that, we're having chips for tea.

I've a fabulusly dated white melanine, set of drawers, which somehow I've managed to keep in my posettion since I was a child... I think its from the early 80's, and has a very* tasteful 'red' bit on it, goign round the edge of the topp, and then repeated, with the red plastic handles on it sadly its not in fabulus condition, mainly as I modified it, removed one of teh drawers, and turned the other two drawers into one, deep draw, for holding vinyl in Its currently somewhere in the loft, next to the old world war II writing desk thing

I think it might be prom in the uk too these days. I know a friend on facebook was posting about prom nails fairly recently.

Deb

Iz had a good time at the debs party but decided to leave early. She was home by 1am and we were all still up.

Is it like a May Ball? Only in November, of course.