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

hej Milla!

*...looks round room for Fridge, on which to leave a note...*

*...sees a room containing a Compass, a Car, a Couple of Couples (dancing), and some Code...*

maybe the room doesn't contain a fridge, because 'fridge' begins with an 'F' and not a 'C'?!?

(unless 'fridge' in Svenska begins with a 'c'? hmmmm ...i'm not sure that i ever knew the Swedish word for fridge)



so - well - please excuse me i'm a newbie to the h2g2 (but an oldbie to planet earth)

i lived in Sweden when i was 8 (not 7, or 9) but that was a loooong time ago and now i have lost nearly all of those magical scandinavian words i stored in my brain


anyway, as a sometime engineer, i've been asked to visit you and say: "can we have all our Leftover Nuts and Screws back, please?" - there is now a world shortage of many sizes

i realise that this will mean that for a short time you will not have anything to Keep - but it's ok, because just as soon as some inquisitive teenagers start to take something apart to see how it works there will be plenty more leftover nuts and screws again for you to keep safely


i was pleased to follow your links to the 'Meaning of Liff' and 'Pipedream Productions'

i can certainly agree with DNA that there is nothing more bizarre than some of the names which people choose for the places where they live ('Ashby de la Zouche' being a particular favourite since i actually visited there when i was a student at Loughborough, in another life - it sounds like it should be the hippy love-child of North England and Switzerland)

and a 'pipedream' is something 'hoped-for, but which will never happen' - certainly not true of Pipedream Productions! it seems that sadly i'm not 'really clever' because i tried 'Millaspotting' and think i failed (unless you are in the Mellanraden of the Produktionsteam photo?)

ok, this is turning into a book and i have run out of magnetic alphabet letters to stick all this to the side of your fridge...

be well, have fun! ...oh, and - er - SKOL! (don't ask me how i knew THAT word at 8yrs old!!!)
a-l-s

Oh, hello, a-l-s, I'm sorry I'm so slow at responding

Welcome, it's always nice to have visitors, and make new friends Help yourself to any screws, nuts, bolts, or shims even!

Well, since my real name isn't Milla (surprise!) you won't find me by that.... just look for a 40-something female , usually in wigs, for some reason.

Come back soon!

hi Milla, thanks for your kind reply!

and thank you also for the safe keeping of all our missing nuts, bolts etc - the Wheels of Industry can now be busy again!!

ahhh - yes, i only understood after i wrote to you that 'Milla' is not your name in real life, because i realised that the link which you gave us to the Meaning of Liff is actually to the definitions which you have contributed - and that person was not called Milla

i am very slow!

...and i'm very impressed that you have heard of Ashby de la Zouche

i should also thank you for your entry on "Roundabout Dogs", one of my first findings when i started exploring Guide Entries - exactly the sort of mix of humour and fact which i like

and so now i think i may have an idea of a possible entry for the Guide based on information about my local area in the South of England - and i'm hoping that i also can weave an interesting article which mixes fun and fact in the same way as yours

i am very encouraged by the warm and friendly atmosphere in hootoo - i wish i had rediscovered h2g2 again many years earlier!

be well, take care
a-l-s

I'm so glad you have returned, and we'll hang out here for many years to come.
It's funny that you happened to find my entry, and I'm grateful for your praise, since I only ever made one solo entry...
So many other researchers are very prolific
It will be interesting to see what you will write about. Do let me know when you put it in for peer review, and I'll be there to nudge it along the process.

It's funny, when I clicked the Liff links, I didn't get my own Liffs just the general page... but I'm glad you found the ones from Alchemilla Digitalis. That's my older name here, but it got too long winded

I used to work for a company which had a sister site in Loughborough, that's why those places tickled my imagination.

a few years ago i used to hang out with net friends from around the world on the Excite.com chat system for a couple of years until Excite decided to close it - it was good fun, you could chat in many rooms with just a few, or many, people in real time and create unlimited 'avatar' images to represent yourself in the room, and you could use your own webpages as a background to meet if you wished

happy days!


i sense a similar bond between the folks here, although of course h2g2 is a lot lot more than just a social meeting place

i think i must have found your 'Roundabout Dogs' entry via the random link generator - i'm glad that it was your solo entry which i was able to appreciate; i hope you get to do some more

thank you for your encouragement to go ahead with an entry myself - the standard of researching here is very high quality, so i'll need all the support i can get!


yes, i must have mis-remembered the sequence of getting to your Liff definitions; on reading your message above i followed that link again and realised that the initial page doesn't contain much information - so i think i must have clicked on the 'authors' menu and seen Alchemilla listed near the top and wondered if that was you

when i saw A. de la Z. defined, i noticed that Loughborough & Quorn were also included and i wondered if the author knew the area - a very pleasant part of the English countryside, but not very dramatic scenery compared to the Swedish Archipelagos (<---- possible 2nd solo entry for a certain swedish reporter?!?)

take care