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

A man caught a snake just outside El's apartment two days ago. It was about four feet long and as thick as your wrist.

She has a photo of the man holding the snake by the neck (?) in one hand and talking on his phone with the other hand.

Good question: Where does a snake's neck begin and end??

<- the nearest we have to a snake smiley?

Could you identify it from the photo? Hope it wasn't poisonous. And I hope El doesn't live on the 27th floor - that would be worrying.

I know nothing about snakes. It was on the ground outside her apartment, not in the corridor.

https://flic.kr/p/GDNznS

Or http://flic.kr/p/GDNznS if you're not using Pliny.

A non-venomous python.

That's a relief.

Soup meat in Chinese cooking.

Bad news only for the rodents and other small critters they prey on.

El has just three weekend trips left to do in China:

1. Flight to Hong Kong to meet Dublin's Trinity Chapel Choir. They're on a week's holiday in Hong Kong. El was their conductor for two years so she's looking forward to singing with them in Hong Kong Cathedral.

2. A bus trip to a part of Sichuan which is up in the Himalayas, although not officially in the country/province of Tibet.

3. An overnight train trip to Beijing.

Then she'll have seen all of China that she wants to see for the moment. It'll be time to start packing for coming home. Having lived there for nearly a year she will have a lot of stuff to dump or give away.

42




... days until El comes home from China.

You are an adventurous family all right.

She plans to sit in Trinity for the next three years and do a PhD.

Oh lucky woman. Tell her to borrow some books from the long room some time. I was told last week that I could have sat in the reading room and called up something to read if I'd had any proof of graduation with me. I'll have to go back and take them up on the offer

El is well used to Trinity library. She did a Master's there on the music of the French Revolution.

Still, you don't get to borrow books from the Long Room, or even read there as far as I know. You can get a special pass to see the early printed books upstairs, though. And a few manuscripts, including the Ballet Lute Book.

In fact that's where I did the research for A55545348

Bother, I must have misunderstood the custodian. I thought it was too good to be true, but was looking forward to him climbing one of those marvellous library ladders and bringing me something to the reading room

Well that's not impossible. It is a library and there are still books in the Long Room... but you'd have to have them brought upstairs to the Early Printed Books reading room to read while wearing cotton gloves.

Yes I thnk El did that for some of the revolutionary texts.

That was a fun bit of research, if possibly a confusing Entry. Must do another such.