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

Weird you should mention your boiler and someone doing it for .5 of the price Brtitish Gas were charging - I've just had an uncannily similar conversation with ecotype. Well there you go.

Synchronicity!
Probably says something about British Gas and their unbelievable pricing policy combined with the Summer finally ending and a cold snap reminding us all how pleasant it is to have working heating systems. Soon now I WILL have one of those Raises to toast non-BG plumbers

Functioning heating systems are a must. We're renting right now, and have a wonderful landlord. He fitted a new boiler the week before we moved in, and just shelled out for double glazing throughout. Huge, south facing windows. On a sunny day, you don't need heating, it's like a conservatory in here. Bought some new plants to celebrate. An ancient cycad tree fern (the species is ancient, not the plant), and a weird aquatic bulbous thing. 1st time cycads have been back on the slopes of the Mendips for 90odd million years.
Frogbit. (Who has finnished re-constructing).

Conservatory and cycad sound lovely
away to see what the construction team has built.

Followed the link to your archeaology site - nice . Started clicking round the aerial photography links (it's the pilot in me, I can't resist those sorts of pictures) always amazes me what you can see from the air that you don't notice from the ground.
Seeing as how this isn't peer review I'll not tell you where the typo is on Frogbit's home page...

Typo ammended (even though they were a great band)
Fieldwalker has been running on empty since july - great value hosting.
The reconstruction probably doesn't look like much - but I'm gooing for the 1st time. It rather feels as though that was how the guide was supposed to be seen. Even though I have big reservations about light text on a dark background (remembering the days of the PET, BBC micro, and later Amstrad).

Speaking as someone who's been around here for a long time, It has to be Goo, wonderful Goo. This place just doesn't feel like home in any other skin. White on blue is restful on the eye I find.
Reconstruction looks just fine and dandy to me

How did you get those xtra 'suject bars'? They look rather smart.

That should have been 'subject'. The bits with 'Longendale', 'stuff I like to do' and so-on.

Sounds like you need to check out the GuideML part of the H2G2 FAQs.
You got those bars by using Header tags in GuideML. For example:- Longdendale - The Haunted Valley
Simple as that

I thought I had checked that faq out. You just get so much more for your money in goo. OK, I'm a convert.

Hi MC - just keeping in touch. Off on a Jurassic nautilus hunt for a couple of days - talk when I return.
Frogbit.
PS - More ichthyosaur stuff in pr http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A660971 appreciate comments if you get the time.

Don't worry about the pr thing - it slipped through. Had a good time hunting - Got a couple of good nautiloids - a few ammonites (5) with a combined weight of 150-200 pounds. Some bivalves with soft tissue preservation (mucle structure intact) which is pretty rare. This is all from the lower midlle Jurassic - about 160 mya. Some fish teeth turned up, as did a quarryman selling a big ammonite - £20 - a bargain. My favourite was a gastrolith - a plum sized crop-stone from an crocodilian. It' sitting on my desk as I type (as is a model of an ophthalmosaur, to celebrate the ichthyosaur piece going through).
Frogbit.

Sounds like a successful hunting trip then. The crop-stone is a fascinating thing to have on your desktop

Well done on getting another entry through - before I'd even got round to reading it. Honestly, I don't come here much for a few days and just look what happens.

And now Wells has made it to the front page and you got another nice picture too. More and .
Talking of fossilised paperweights I have a very nice little fossilised shell (cockle sort of thing, an inch or so across) I picked up when hiking in the Atlas mountains in Morocco a few years ago. Small but with a certain style, particularly when you think how much it had seen the earth move around it. Maybe that's part of the fascination with all things palaeontological - their connection with things long gone and all that's been between then and now.

Yes. I find palaeontology and geology help my peace of mind - walking down a street and considering when it was desert, rainforest, coral reef or ocean floor tends to put every-day niggles into perspective.
Tell me more about gliding - a friend of mine went up above the Mendips as a birthday present. When he came back down he had stars in his eyes.

Another gliding convert there then by the sounds of it
See with gliding, you get a quiet, gentle introduction to the art of flying - and you go smoothly and slowly enough to have a good look around. Then you really feel at one with the elements, particularly once you start to take the controls and try and work out where the best lift can be found, watching the clouds, the ground and the birds for clues.
Don't know what sort of a launch your friend had but that can be a most exhilerating experience if it's a winch launch because you're pulled off the ground very fast and at a very steep angle.
(*** blatant self promotion ahead *** There's a very good article in the Guide about gliding if you haven't read it already.
)

Winch I believe...
He's talking animatedly about going up again - a definite convert!
Sounds good, good article too
Clear plastic bucket now purchased in anticipation of Spawncam (tm)...
Frogbit.

Winch is best !! But then I would say that as our site doesn't do anything else. Back in the 30s and 40s when my club was founded, they used to launch by bungee ropes. These are essentially large pieces of elastic which you use to fling the aircraft off the side of a hill. The practice continued on occasion, with steadily decreasing frequency until the legendary occasion when all those holding onto the ropes were called 'Dave'. When somebody cried out 'Dave let go now' they ALL did resulting in a failed launch and a slightly dented glider. We don't do that anymore
Roll on Spawncam

Just remembered something from Friday's Grauniad.. Did you see that bit of 'Jurassic coastline' down by Lyme Regis has been designated a World Heritage site? The article even gave Mary Anning a mention for finding her ichthyosaur fossil. Wonder if the journalist had been browsing here recently or actually knew his subject without your help...