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

Hi Maggie

Thought I hop on over and find out a bit more about who you are. You sound like you've got a lot more drive and direction than SwabyWaterBaby!!!!

Can't believe you used to present for Hereward. I am about 5 minutes walk away from their offices as I type!

I am now off to read about Wellbeing at Work.

Catch you later?

You bet! How amazing. Never found anyone else on line who'd ever heard of the station! I co-hosted the breakfast show with a guy called Dave Bowen. It was my first outing as a DeeeeJay and I loved it.

I am a born and bred local and remember the station starting! How long ago was that? I have listened to some programmes in the past. 10 years ago it was the only thing that would get me out of bed in the morning ... admittedly it was the local adverts, they were (and still are) torture, I just had to do something to stop them!!!!

I did used to like Simon Potter's late show with Pick Your Poison though

Golly, I remember 'pick your poison'. It was, umm...YIKES 20 years ago.

Ye gods and little fishes! I fell in love with a Base Commander from the British Antarctic Survey when I was out there and played it so cool he thought I didn't care - and went off with someone else.

All after I'd waited for him for a whole six months while he was in the Antarctic. What a prat I was in those days!

But enough of this...there was a wonderful Italian pizza restaurant just outside the shopping centre which had great profiteroles. And my next door neighbour worked at Ferry Meadows and became one of my very best friends...

Oh my God! I've gone cold and the hair are standing up on my arms - TWENTY YEARS! NO WAY!!!!!!!! And then one day you find ...

Glad to have rekindled smiley memories for you. Sounds like you are thinking of Topo Gigios, near the Church just behind the guild hall? It's moved but is still open and is my favourite Italian.

And waiting for someone sounds more like being a misguided romantic, I've done similar myself. I am currently settled in a somewhat stormy marriage with a Leo (Fire and water!!!!), we've been married 3 years and they have not been an easy time. But we've managed to get through it and we are stronger as a result.

YES! Topo Gigios!!

Don't get me onto disastrous relationships please! I'm now with a lovely man who is, of course, nothing like i would ever have looked for.

Whenever I hear Robbie Williams sing 'I just want to feel real love fill the home that I live in' (Mods, that short section's okay to quote - honest!) I realise how incredibly lucky I am.

I went to Topo's last week after a traditional trip to the fair to win a goldfish... they even offered to cook to order when they saw the fish! Thank you for reminding me how good the food is!

I married a caring man who loves me so much it sometimes scares me -but he has huge amounts of baggage. I want to fix it all and make things right for him but he fights against it. But then it is usual for me to choose a difficult path!

Love the bit about the goldfish! Do you have a tank/pond or did you succomb and have it fried in garlic butter

Oh don't we just want to fix our men?! And isn't it hard to be loved sometimes? I've been widowed and divorced and am now resisting marrying the wonderful man I'm with because my baggage gives me a real problem with the idea of being married THREE times! That makes me a really scary person.

But the man I am with is by far the nicest of the three - and he really cares for me and looks after me which is a new experience. I have a horrible feeling that I might start taking it for granted...

Actually when it comes to the goldfish the answer is none of the above!! We have a water butt that now contains a total of 7 goldfish (Fish, Fish, Fish, Fish, Little Fish, Little Little Fish and the latest addition, who survived the garlic, Dizzy Fish). There is a very valid reason for this (honest)- Mosquitoes breed in the water but but the goldfish eat them which stops me from spening my whole summer covered in bites.

I said I would never marry. I have no desire for kids and couldn't see a point to the outdated institution of marriage. Then I met my husband and I wanted to let him know how much he meant to me by making a committment that went against everything I always believed in.

You don't seem like a scary person to me! But then I don't find divorcees scary, I say good for you, put the bad experience behind you and get out there and meet the right man!!!

Darn it! I posted a long reply here and tried to post it but the server was playing silly-******* and it didn't go up.

Bother.

I am with a WONDERFUL man now. One who makes me realise what a prat I've been with my choices before! It is interesting how often one doesn't learn from experience but just goes on repeating it. However, I think (hope) I've got the knack now!

Your fish names are wonderful. Fish should always have daft names. I used to have Melvyn Bragg and Robin Cousins but they went the way of all fish. Now we have Horace, Boris, Cloris, Doris, Maurice, Norris and the Bunkum Fish.

Except we don't. Today I went out into the garden and the Bunkum Fish was lying all freshly dead on the top of the pond. I am so sad He was a Shebunkin and my Best Beloved hadn't been able to pronounce that so he became the Bunkum Fish.

Oh well. It's all food for the fox I suppose...

Hello again. Shame about your server problems. I haven't been ignoring you ... I have been off sick for 3 weeks and only have net access at work. (My home pc runs on steam power and it takes a week to log on so internet is a bit out of the question.)

I firmly believe that once you have recognised a pattern of behaviour you have already broken it (provided fear of change doesn't get in the way).

You have some great fish names there ... there must be something in the water, Dizzy Fish didn't make it and swam off to the pond in the sky last week. (Is that the definition of a large rain cloud!)

I have a bit of a zoo really. I am incapable of turning away waifs and strays and at the moment have:

3 rabbits named Pie Filling (or Pie), Barbeque (or barbie) and Naya (short for Stolichnaya, my fave vodka!)
2 Cats named 'Cefor' Cat, 'Anda' Notherone
And a Black Velvet Tarantula that goes by the name of Ani (I am actually arachnophobic although excessively improved since living with Ani!)

Hya, sorry to take so long to get back to you. I love your menagerie's names!

My beagle is called Didcot after the Great Western Railway centre there. It seemed perfectly sensible at the time...

Hopefully DizzyFish and the Bunkum Fish are frolicking in the great raincloud in the sky now.

I find it can take a bit of a while to break a pattern once I've spotted it simply because I usually spot it afterwards! Once I've got to spotting it before I fall into it I then got through a short phrase of still doing it anyway - and then I finally get it for real But then I'm a bit of a slowcoach in that way (some might say a little dim )

Hope you're feeling 100%. I've finally got the stresses and strains of the last month come home to roost (conferences, deaths, work changes) and am falling-over-tired. So I'm going to go and lie down now...

Hope you had a good rest. Sounds like you have had a tough time. I hope you are coming out the other side.

I know the tiredness one well. Unfortunately I am not 100% fit yet and have another month or so when I don't expect to be. But life is sent to try us and I am sure I will get through it! I am finding it a little hard to stay positive at the moment but I know I have to as the downward spiral is one of my patterns and it would just be so easy to give in and go with the flow - but I wont.

Pets need silly names and even though I am a vegetarian I always wanted a bunny called Pie Filling!

I knew a pig called Rasher.

If you fancy it, have a read of these...A770375...may help you feel more positive. I do know the negative cycle so well - having Moon in Scorpio which always sees the worst possible scenario immediately.

And the recovery period after illness is almost as bad as a diet.

I love talking to you...

I love talking to you too!

I have briefly looked at the articles you mentioned and will give them some proper attention later - Thank you.

You inspire positivity by just being there and making me smile. It is nice to know there are kindred spirits out there.

Like the pigs name! We seem to have lost all our fish. Dizzy fish had something wrong with him which he passed on to the others.

Poor fish. I was worried that it might be the case with The Bunkum Fish in that he had something that might spread. But nearly all the other fish have been regularly visible since (and you can't expect Tench to be that sociable).

I've just been to a Very Important Business Meeting where everyone was talking Very Important Language and showing Very Important Diagrams (which I mostly didn't understand) and I'm so tired from smiling and bluffing that it's SUCH a relief to come back here and talk to real people like you!

I was a bit worried about it before I went but I did have a realisation on the way there, that really, all they wanted me to do was listen...to bear witness to their hopes and dreams and tell them that they are worthwhile people. So I did - and they loved me for it.

It's a very strange world really...

I am not actually on a first name basis with any Tench - their trend for being unsociable explains why! Sonic (my hubby) is the fish man; if I ever ask him what a particular fish is like he will describe it to me with references to other fish (it's a smaller version of a pike (say) with lighter colouring - OK so what does a pike look like???!!!)

I am so lucky with my current job - no long and boring meetings. I used to have to minute finance meetings and I never really understood what I was typing and just trusted in the finance manager to read through them and correct any glaring inconsistancies!! I didn't even know who half the people were so my notes said things like 'the man in the red tie said ...'.

I love strangeness. I am strange and proud of it and take it as a compliment when people call me 'weirdo'!

I am feeling more tired today but more positive as well - which is good. I have read the first two parts of your article and I am finding it really interesting and I could feel my mood lifting as I read. I am looking forward to finding time to carry on. Thank you again.

Ah well now I can feel very special because I am on first name terms with two tench. However, they are 'golden tench' presumably because no one will buy boring brown ones any more and they have bred them to be pretty. Sigh.

I don't have many meetings in this job - mainly because no one knows I exist (I'm not joking!). But I'm a freelance so I have meetings for the rest of my work and sometimes those are paralysing...

I love weirdness too. I'm currenly wearing some Trayner Pinhole specs which make me look like a Martian, but if they're going to prevent me from needing real specs then they're worth their weight in gold. And I like it that people wonder what the heck I'm wearing polka-dot specs for and don't have the guts to ask.

Sonic was impressed when I said Tench!

One of my hobbies is 17th Century Battle Re-enacting - I am a member of the English Civil War Society and quite often travel home from events in kit. It's really good fun stopping at the services for coffee. The looks and comments are great. Some people glance out of the corner of their eye, others stare in blatant disbelief and there are those that can pretend there is not a thing out of the ordinary!!!

Ooo, so are you right but replulsive or wong but womantic as defined by 1066 and all that? Or do you change sides?

And have you heard of William Lilly?

I'm a 19th century battle freak myself - not a member of any such groups but used to play Napoleonic war games with my old mate Bill (matches for cannon balls). I have a real affinity with that time.

And Bill used to be a member of the Richard III Society so I studied all the 'Richard is innocent' stuff with him. I met Bill again six years later after we had both got married etc. and asked him about the Rich III Soc and he said he'd left. 'I reckon he done it,' he said and my past world fell apart!

One of the Tench (Maurice) was enjoying the rain on his back this afternoon....delighted to have impressed Sonic...My sister in law breeds koi carp. Does that do the job as well