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

It's all in four-part harmony, so making it up as you go along wouldn't work well.

True enough. I once played in a Grateful Dead, Jazz fusion, Pink Floyd crossover band. We made it up as we went along as well.

Sounds like it should be a disaster. You're right....it was.

It's a beautiful cold evening with a cloudless sky. I'm going to postpone today's journal post in the hope that i can report later on some stargazing.

I set up my telescope. It's been a year since I last used it. I carried it out and sure enough, the stars were out, but the viewing was not as good as I had thought it would be. There was a bright moon up behind the house where I couldn't see it, but it lit the sky enough that the stars weren't really as bright and sparkling as they should have been.

Still, I saw two sights worth seeing:

- Jupiter and three of its moons, all in a line. At the magnification I was using, Jupiter is just a very small, bright disk. I don't see any of the surface detail. My telescope is not really good enough to pick that up. The moons are just dots of light, but it's fascinating to see them, and they're in a different position every night.

- The Pleiades is the name of the closest star cluster to Earth and is made up of beautiful blue-white stars. There are about 100 of them, but only six or seven are visible to people of normal eyesight. With my glasses I can see two or three - without my glasses I can't see any. The telescope shows many, many stars. They're particularly good at low magnification. My biggest lens gives me a magnification of 17, and the image is much steadier and brighter than my 15x binoculars, so it is a great sight.

Later in the month, if we're lucky enough to have more cold weather, the moon will be gone, so I'll be able to get a better view of the stars.

I have been reading, just not commenting. The sky here (UK) was clear last night and I think we had a frost.

Looking back on my journal over the last 12 days, I can see that it is very much a list of things I've done, rather than speculations into the meaning of truth and beauty. But that's me. Life is what you do.

It depends how you read it, Gnomon. We can understand the meaning of life through observation of your actions. Isn't the Earth only an experiment conducted by white mice?

If it is an experiment, then it's by someone who cares as much about us as a white mouse.

One thing is quite clear from reading this journal, Gnomon. You don't waste time. I mean that in a deep, existential way.

Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3JzcCviNDk

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3yJA7TnSk for unadulterated, talking-head on a stage version)

Deb

It's nice to read what you've been up to, Gnomon. It's sharing these everyday activities which makes one feel close to somebody.

It's not mentioned in my NaJoPoMo journal, but Mrs G and I spent a lot of time in September and October clearing out my late father-in-law's house, and doing it up. Mrs G painted some of the rooms while I fixed up small things, electrical connections that weren't quite safe, shelves with broken supports, added trim around doors that hadn't been quite finished, and so on. The biggest job was the lifting of lino tiles that had been stuck down very solidly and replacing them with carpet tiles.

So the house has been up for sale for a few weeks now, and the offers are rolling in. We've been offered about 20% more than we thought it would be worth. So it looks as if the work we did has paid off.

So that's good news.

Today, I finished fitting the inside of the wardrobe in our bedroom, so that is done. I also put most of the books back on the bookshelf in the bedroom. I keep all my maths, science and history books there because they were taking up too much space in the sitting room. When I've read a fiction book a few times, I know I'm never going to read it again so I usually give it to charity. But non-fiction is something I'm reluctant to part with. It's so hard to find good, reliable information about many of these topics that I need to keep all of the books in case I ever need to look something up.

Because it was my day off work, I spent a certain amount of time ferrying daughters to places. I also cleaned out the guinea pigs' hutch - they live in a hutch out in the shed, and it needs to be cleaned about once a week. In the summer they spend most of their time on the lawn grazing, but now that it is almost winter, the grass doesn't grow very much so they only graze for a short while before it is too short for them to get any more. As a result they spend more time in the hutch in the shed and it needs more cleaning. That's done, anyway.

I cooked a dinner tonight which was only reasonably successful. I use spices such as cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander seed and paprika to make a sort of vegetable garam massala, but I don't think the broccoli really went well with the spices. The other vegetables were grand.

Deb

Experimental cooking can be fun (usually, all mistakes are 'edible'), but some combinations just don't work. Banana and Brussel Sprout sandwich anyone?

My sister once accidentally replaced half a cup of sugar with half a cup of salt.

That wasn't edible.

A friend of mine accidentally put twice the correct amount of sugar in a cake mix, and the cake exploded.

Cool!

My goulash entry has been picked.

This one was more controversial than I thought it would be.

Tavaron lives in eastern Austria, so she is very close to the place where goulash is originally from. As a result, her idea of the dish is very different from the thing that is served as goulash in Western Europe.

This is always a problem with recipes. If people in different parts of the world serve different versions of a dish, should we go back to the people who invented it, get their recipe and refuse to call anything else by the same name? I think not. On the other hand, when someone in a foreign country (that is, not Ireland) serves an "Irish Stew" which is a healthy brown colour and made from beef, I have to say "that's not Irish Stew".

I've just checked my totals and between entries I've written, contributed to and sub-edited, I'm up to 665 at present. One more to reach the number of the Beast. Unfortunately, my 666th entry is likely to be "Larry Niven's Ringworld", rather than something appropriate such as "Dan Brown's Angels and Demons".

Since I have two other entries waiting to be published and one in Peer Review, I won't stay at 666 for long.

I've about five more entries that I'm working on, but they all need a bit of research so I may not get them done until over Christmas.

Those recipes should have proper legal protection.

Only then will you be able to write 'Irish Stew' in the name of the law.

Re stargazing, isn't there a meteor shower in November?