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

is wondering why Em want's to be Bridget Jones have you only got a small bum or something ?

I remember the bit about B*****m the theory was that any word could mean something entirely different in another language I think.

Would rather not be Kurt Cobain than not Fred Durst

No the point is Bridget is like every woman in the world in one sense. Hellen Fielding gets over the female personality perfectly right down to mascara! Just like Nick Hornby gets the male persona in High Fidelity down to a T! (That is the basis of my big English RPR this year! Hehe!)

yes. very high brow and literary. who says education isnt dead

I wouldn't say Nick has us down to a T. He's probably got himself sussed, which is about as big a generalisation as I care to make.

I do know several people who could have worked in that record store though; semi-intellectual elitists with narrow-band knowledge and bad hair. And his instructions on recording a compliation album are seminal.

I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a stick than read any book which any woman feels completely defines her sex. By the time you're half way through you can bet money the information is no longer accurate.

-- David, in the desert on a sloth wearing a "kiss the cook" apron.

BTW, I did my RPR on Tom Sharpe

-- David, in the ocean on a sloth with a snorkle

Well Bridget Joness Diray is a very very good book and Helen Fielding has got women down just as well as Nick Hornby has got the men!

Who's Tom Sharpe?

someone funny

Who's Tom Sharpe???

Why I aughta!

-- David, and his incredulous eyebrows

Please don't generalize gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. I have always found that when one woman tells me "women like this" or "women don't like that", I can always think of at least one woman I've known that is an exception. It's the same with men. The fact is that all those things are really personal, and though perhaps one gender tends to lean a little in one direction and the other gender leans in the other, individuals are individuals and capable of free thought.

Add to that the fact that most people have two distinct sets of "likes": what they want to believe they like, and what they actually like. It makes everything more complicated. For instance: I was once dating a girl who sighed over romantic movies. I tried to do something romantic, and she told me I was being "clingy", "possesive", and that I was "smothering" her. And I'm not saying I'm not a clingy person, in fact I do pay a LOT of attention to the girls I date and usually expect them to pay me a LOT of attention back, and it's fine that she didn't feel comfortable with that. My point is that what she thought was romantic on a screen she didn't like so much in real life.

By the way... Who's Tom Sharpe?

Guys probably wouldn't get Bridget Jones anyway!

What! Oh come on your all saying that becasue a woman told you that Bridget Jones has been encaputured as the female persona by Helen Fielding down to a T that you immediatly think that it will show nothing of what you think women are like! Trust me you would be better listening to a woman about this as your more likely to find out the truth! that and its a good read!

Argh! Anyway with this book it's more likely women will be able to associate with Bridget and her personality and all her problems than a man would! No offence like!

If you identify with that character, that's great. I'll bet I can find plenty of women who don't, though. I know lots of guys who would say "men are like this" or "this is what men really want", and yet everything they've just described doesn't fit me, or most of my friends.

gender ethics and wranglings are beside the point. the point is that the book is derivative and shallow. and not that funny.

And this 'relating to women/men' malarky is all so much guff. everyone is different: men just as neurotic as women (doesnt that sound trite?) and so on and so forth blah blah.

we all jumped on her a bit for that didnt we?

sorry em!

Em

I already have as complete a knowledge of womankind as I want. To read the Jones woman's diary would just spoil all the remaining surprises.

Apparently it's all based on Fielding's own life.

And Tom Sharpe is a literary humourist of the previous generation (pre-Adams, pre-practically everybody still writing today) his book Wilt became a film and two of his other books (Blot on the Landscape and another I can't remember) became series on the BBC. The one that I can't remember I think had David Jason in it. He's terribly, terribly good.

-- David, who can also be expressed numerically

I can't comment on Bridget Jones as I haven't read/seen it, but from the Hi-Fidelity standpoint, I did find myself thinking "I do that" or "That happened to me" when I read it. Unfortunately a lot of his justifications were lost in the film. I am assuming it was the same with Bridget Jones. In any gender situation there are bound to be some aspects people agree with or violently disagree with.

Speaking (technically) as a man I have found that no two women are alike in their wants/needs, and although this can make things difficult sometimes, better this way than the 'stebford wives'.

The point is that both men and women have a 'fantasy' set of wants and a 'realistic' set of values. From a guy point of view, pics of whichever Page 3 girl is 'in' will invariably get admiring remarks made from a group, whereas a solitary guy may or may not find her attractive. This carries over into leering at an attractive woman in a club, yet going out with a Jo Brand lookalike.

Hornby's character eventually resolves his fantasy/reality issue by understanding that his attraction to 'new' prospective partners comes from the fantasy aspect that ignores realistic possibilities. His fantasies don't include 'unsexy' cotton underwear strewn around the flat for example, presumably his fantasy image only wears 'sexy' underwear.

It is logical to assume that such books will strike a chord with some people. I had a friend recommend Phil Gayle's 'Turning Thirty' as being 'spot on', yet I found nothing in it I identified with. Each to their own I think.....

Liked Sharpe's 'Riotous Assembly' and the other one about the South African Police.

Ah ..uhm ..cotton undies! Yummy.

He-he-he and you all thought I'd passed out and was sleeping didnja, huh. It takes a something a little stronger than what ever this is we're not smoking, not drinking and not snorting to lay low a old fart like me. I been partying with rock bands since ..well never mind that.