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

He only went for the Happy Meal because it comes with a little plastic trinket... the actual nutritional value is in minus figures. If you've read Good Omens you'll know what I mean.

Just read your last postng . Tiddlywinks...brilliant. But who is this 'minus one' who hasn't returned to Hell? You can't leave me hanging for three weeks!

Enjoy Pennsylvania, it's a really nice area. I stayed there once with friends in a town called Danville. Anywhere close? It's one of those small towns you've probably never heard of, so I guess you've probably...never...um, heard...of it.

Hurrah for the holidays! All deadlines and tests now behind us. Now the mind-dissolving boredom can set in. And Ireland were just knocked out of the World Cup We was robbed!

, even.

Now I see - it was *Rasputin*, of course. I feel silly for asking now, is my face red?

What does the coding consist of? If there's any way I could help with it I'd be more than willing...got nothing else to do now that it's the holidays...

the coding is done all in GuideML.

Knifee used a series of GuideML brackets all in lower case.

GuideML proper is supposed to be upper case as I had believed it over-works the parsar when it has to hold two separates alphabets to translate the XHML brackets. (Hence a page takes longer to load and on a page the length of ours - that is not a good thing.)

So I'm having to work my way through the entire document up to "over to sam with the sports news" - somewhere around the bottom of LED 3 in the forums from memory - and that is as far as Knifee already coded. For that reason, I am switching them all back to upper case.

Plus, and this I conceed could just be a matter of style - but hey. - He has used the Paragraph bracket to make the text appear rather than the bracket. Although both work, the net effect is that knifee's style brakes up a lot of the paragraphs as every line or so the focus of the text changes, either dialogue or exposition, so I think it makes it harder to follow what is going on although I see it does space the text out more.

Still I prefer some more substantial paragraphs of several sentences if it is making a scene for instance. So I am going through maiign those changes.

It also allows me to impliment the text-edit tags for bold, italic and under-line etc. which are designed to work inside the bracket but not so for the paragraph bracket

That's why it's taking so long because rather than working from scratch, I'm back-tracking through his work - which though I am terribly grateful for, I do desire these changes be made.

If you want to see how far I've got use this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/test683624

One thing that if you remember we discussed some time ago which would be useful now would be to sort out the time-dialation that occurs when Rasputin is moving about in the early chapters.

He is resurrected in Wales. Then 3 days later crops up in moscow where he finishes off Vasily Yusupov. Then It's to the Moscow airport where, he sees the Presidential elections in America and vows to win, so he books a flight there and we loose him.

Then, presumbaly sometime later, we fly back to the cave with Richter and Robin and (this being fictional and Rasputin being the wrangler of the will of mankind that he is, we discover he has already won the presidency and is making his first foreign policy decision a visit back to Britain.)

Re-read whats on the page again as it stands and tell me if you follow that time-line as I have. I still think it needs possibly some more exposition to bulk out Rasputin's movements and generally sort out the time-delays that occour in the plot.
(It is approximately 3 days from when the concert collapses to when we return to Bob, Jill and Heddingly recouperating in the flat - the same three days that supposedly Rasputin has been active - and yet a few scenes later we have Tim, escaping from Rasputin (now back in England) and turning up at their door.

I have already cleaned up the jumping hither and tither in the scenes that occured between Smittington and Annabell and the concert.
If in my absence you would like to turn your mind to scribing some extra text to sort out a definte scene by scene progression from the Moscow airport onwards I would be especially grateful.

----------------------------

I say that is a long post - isn't it?

Oh vell, I've jst got back from seeing episode II (again) and have the Impirial march stomping through my head so am hammering at the keys like a man possessed.

Sorry to hear about Ireland. Though I myself do not, my family hails from Ireland so we was all clustered around the t.v willing them on, this afternoon. They should have won in normal time.

Clive

Seeing you put it down like that, it does seem a bit odd... Perhaps Raspy has time-travel powers? Nah, I'll write a couple of new scenes with him entering the New World. I'll post them in this conversation as I write them, and you can sprinkle them into the text as you see fit. Will that be OK?

Maybe you could move the resurrection scene back towards the start a bit, separate it from the Moscow scene and leave the Moscow scene after the concert in chronological order.

After seeing ep II I went online immediately and downloaded the imperial theme - surely the most bitchin piece of music ever composed. When they played it at the very end of the film, I felt like standing up and cheering

I guess you're in the USA by now. Have fun!

in the u.s.a - got back - graduated from uni- job hunting - got a job - and about to become unemployed again:

the practical upshot of which is, I shall have that thing called free-time again and I'll be continuing to code up the story.

This has been an apolitical broadcast by the Chocolate and Longer Lay-in's, reformers party!

Glad to hear of your impending unemployment ...you know, I turned that sentence around in my head and couldn't think of a better way of saying it. Ye ken ma meaning. Keep coding the Good Code!

Mr L

Looks like I'll be kept on till the end of the week now.

Anyhoo, I'm still struggling with arranging the timings between Rasputin at moscow airport and giving the pressconference in america anouncing his canidency for the u.s presidency. and how I can fit that around the gonzaroolio under 'henge / Richter and Robin in the crime-cave. It needs so judicious timing placements like "several days later" - I'll think of something though...

but I may have a solution of sorts:

I am using the line breaks to indicate a definate change of scene - liek from moscow airport to stone henge, but I am going to use and underline to indicate events that are ccouring consectutively.

Right I've inserted a couple of throw-away lines to suggest that time has passed between when we saw Rasputin last and when we see him next at the press conference - without saying so explicitly, which would probably kill the rhythm of the story - this probably won't stand up to any critical examination but it should suffice so that anyone just reading through could accept the shift and move on...

The changes read:

"I can surely do better than that." He mused, as he walked back to the departure gate.


The World turns... and in an unspecified location, an elderly clown was waking up with a bad headache.


and while Richter is mubling about the jackson 5 -

"The World had indeed turned and in that time Rasputin was already one step closer to world domination. From behind the podium he leered out at the press corp and addressed the prettiest reporter."

Tell me what you think...but I'm happy with that for now - it suggests that Rasputin has flown to the staes and entered himself in the presidential race without having to say so and deal with masses of fresh exposition or sort out the difficulties of the timings of the different events.

but I have stuck in:


Evil was abroad. and He had a Plans....



while Gonzaroolio is washing his wig - to get the sense that *something* is up - we don't know what yet....

Got as far as the ReD or DeD alliance.

MWU-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!!

I've just been reading it - great stuff The editing is good, especially the big red Hell letters . If you need any more Rasputin scenes written, just ask. Actually, I was thinking of writing a kind of Rasputin prologue, set in 1916 when he died. Whaddya think?

There was one thing I noticed - in the scene where Yusupov has just died, and Rasputin says he wants Power. Could you restore the original wording? I just have an absurd liking for it: "I want some Power. Let's go get some." You could fit it in, I'm sure, and I'd be much obliged.

Now, with the awkward request bit over: are you gonna write a finale? I seem to remember you were going to do a briefing scene in the Agency or something, right? Twould be good.

One thing that just struck me reading through the story again. I had never intended the cast-iron laundry wringer to be anything more than a throwaway line: 'Why is there a laundry wringer in the cell?' 'Can you suggest a better place for it?' That sort of thing Funny how this story works. I love it.

Yeah sure I can put that back. no probs. occasioanlly I tweak stuff and forget to put put things back I've moved.

I'm gald you like the big red hell letters - I hit on the concept last night actually - I'm gonna use a different font for "Meanwhile in Heaven" when it crops up and shade that a nice pastel blue...

Finale - I can do a finale - more than anythign I am keemn to get back onto this project now as somethign to do in my spare time (I said the tail end of this year was gonna be busy for me and it has been) Do you still remember the thing you had in mind for the leicester demoin cat body thing?

Re: the laundry wringer - given how the wringer becomes intrical to the story - I quite like how it builds up . first of all it's there, G is confused by it, he's dragged before A and asks what it's doing there, she dismisses it almost out of hand. then the next time she is in his cell she glances at it and it's like the tension is building up all the while y'know?

I agree it is great how this story works. I was taken with it the first tiem and I think the stuff we've come up with in the second edition is better still. (I swear brining Rasputin in was a stroke of GENIUS)

So this is the 'Empire Strikes Back' of the Storytime saga, then? Does that mean the next one has to have Ewoks Looks like I'm going to end up doing a history project for my exams on Raspy too, so it all works out.

I do remember the plans I had for the demon-cat. Nothing dramatic, just a neat little wrapping-up and happy ending for him. Shall you post or shall I? I think I'll work on the prologue thingy for tomorrow. Watch this space. And I'll expect more coding from you, young man!

*Stern wagging of finger *

aww happy endings are nice.

I'm glad you liked the coding - I hope it's noticeably different from Knifees - I will admit at first glance the page looks pretty much already done but the underlying stuff fdoes need a lot of tweaking - plus once I have finsihed (and I will - so ner! ) what's up at the moment I shall have to start drawing posts from the forum and coding those up.

Yes good - hopefully we can get thisd thign rolling again (again) and eventually we shall get it published in The Post.

Just finished the current load - I'll draw a load up fromthe forums and start working on that.

Got to God and arranging to play for the world over scissors paper stones.

Just read the new stuff, and can't wait for more. Good to see the Arthur-God scene without all those annoying symbols. It's great that this has started up again. More! More!

*Bangs fists on table, makes petulant face*

stick around: I'm just gonna upload the first "meanhile in Heaven banner"

tell me what you think.