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

Do you eat chicken or fish as they are healthier than red meat, although they may be more expensive?

What sort of things do you eat? Meat in stews goes further and you can use cheaper cuts than steak or chops (cutlets).

The way she cooks it, it's unhealthy, period. Too much grease.

I am bit off fish for the moment. I saw a National Geographic special last night on the dangers of the fishing industry.

The various Coast Guards and Lifeboat operations cost more than the catches would warrant. The various Coast Guards and Lifeboat operations have more modern equipment and better trained personnel than the fishing boats.
It would seem that some money might be spent on national fleets or something, instead of letting uninspectable tubs wander about on the high seas...
I don't think my lunch is worth anyone's life. With the exception of the lunch's...

Chicken I find a little...um...unappetizing, usually. I like to bake chicken breasts in the oven, with a little lemon pepper sprinkled on them after soaking them in a little cooking sherry.
But the female in the house, asserting herself, prefers frying the s**t out of things, using her Crock Pot and her George Foreman electric grill (which is supposed to be greaseless) and her newest aluminium wonder,which looks like a cross between a pressure cooker and a skillet...and...
while I have cooked, on and off, institutionally and thoughtfully, as a job and I can do it adequately and artfully...
she regards it as a duty and a hobby,
and it's all that I can do to get out of her way.

We eat what she cooks. She prowls the markets after she gets off work, and comes home and flops down whatever she's chosen to use as a burnt offering that day.
She keeps begging me for an outdoor BBQ grill so she can have a proper altar to the God Of Hardening Arteries.

Two of the things we used to eat a lot when I was still eating meat were chili con carne and spaghetti bolognaise - dead easy to do and use ground beef, so it's usually cheap.

We do things like tuna pasta, or tuna bake. Again cheap and easy. There are loads of things you can do with pasta, like lasagna, which are delicious.

What other people eat is always fascinating. You could try looking on the site for interesting things to eat.

The twelve-year-old is very interested in recipes and is prowling through the cookbooks and trying out things.
She talked her mother into making a vegetable/fruit salad with a bit of chicken the other day.
I couldn't eat anything but the chicken. Lacking my top teeth, I find lettuce and other things impossible to manage beyond just trying to swallow them.

No, my problem is the sheer weight of the meat.
Lots of it, daily.
Pounds per week.
Fried, baked, roasted, BBQed, stewed, sauteed, boiled, burnt, and microwaved.

I like pasta.

I'd forgotten about the teeth! I think I imagined you would have falsies. I never thought of lettuce as being difficult to eat.

Good for your daughter! This may be an area where she can succeed and make a real contribution. It might lighten the load for your wife as well.

Over here, many low income families find fresh fruit and vegetables beyond their reach because of cost. Is that the same on your side of the pond? Although I don't work in this area, I do have some contact with food projects, which aim to teach people how to make cheap nutritious and tasty meals that are healthy. I tend to think that lack of knowledge and skills is a factor here.


We like pasta, although not being able to take cheese with it is a bit of a shame, as pasta and cheese seem to go together so well.

No, fresh fruit and vegetables are everywhere, and comparatively speaking, cheap.

It's just a horrible habit to eat a full three meals a day, regardless of work habits.

We don't tend to eat three full meals a day. More like one breakfast, one big and one light meal, sometimes, breakfast and two light meals.

I've never gone overboard on food, and often it's just a chore. These days, I like things simple. Today, we had a simple stew, with vegetables and boiled rice and it was delicious. Quick and easy, that's how I like it.

I think that if you are in a habit of doing things in a certain way, that that can be quite difficult if you want to change. It requires effort and planning. Once the new habit is in place, it becomes easy. It's the transition that isn't.

I speak from experience here, as I trained to get myself up an hour earlier each day. Now I'm awake before 6 o'clock every morning, even when I don't need to be.

There are a lot of fat people in my family with heart problems and diabetes.

They are mostly about a generation away from farmers, who traditionally eat two big meals, breakfast and dinner, with a box lunch in between.

Do you do that tea thing?

My stepfather has been retired for over a decade, but he still gets up at 4:00 whether he needs to or not. Then he can't stand the house (he built it back in the mid-fifties) and so he goes to a fast food restaurant and farts around for hours reading the paper. Then he goes to the library. Well, my mom follows him around on this itinerary, chattering away the whole time.
He tried to divorce her a couple of years ago, but it was too much bother, so he decided to go deaf in self-defense.

Yes, going deaf is a really good one isn't it! My dad's dad was totally deaf in one ear towards the end of his life and could hear very little with the other. He could, however, always hear what my grandma was saying! I always thought that was interesting.

Both my grandma and grandpa were lovely people. Grandpa once did a 'turn' in a boarding house, where they were on holiday (we had come to visit them for the day). He did a quack salesman's pitch and it was really good. Then he lost his thread and was very annoyed with himself.

They used to go to see music hall (although they didn't call it that (grandma used to get cross - she said that music hall was low - what they went to see was variety) and saw all the famous people, like George Formby Senior and Billy Bennett.

Mind you, by the time I realised what a treasure house of information they had, it was a bit too late.

I usually have breakfast (a cup of tea and some cereal), then a pack lunch and come home and make dinner - often that's a fairly light meal.

I understand that diabetes tends to be a lifestyle thing, although there is a genetic component to it.

There are several kinds of diabetes.
Juvenile Diabetes until about twenty years ago meant a very short life.
It was poorly diagnosed and rarely treated.
Adult onset diabetes can be induced by hepetitus, which my wife once had and a fellow I knew in the army had had.

My wife was diagnosed years before we met, and didn't deal with it very well. She was a yoyo dieter. When she became pregnant with the springoff, she had Gestation Diabetes, which threatened both her and the child.

Now, her 'lifestyle' can make all the difference.
Her meals should be regular as clockwork, measured by the ounce, and determined by an exchange chart.
Legally speaking, in many States, a poorly controlled blood sugar is as dangerous as being drunk or drugged.
She has the blood test monitors and she has needles and insulin around, but I'm not sure what she is doing.
Outside of her work, she is very loathe to receive supervision.

I lived with my father's mother for a few years, so it was more of a roommate arrangement than a family one.
I listened to her for a long time.
I didn't know all the right questions, but I picked up a lot from her.
I still listen to some of her favorite musicians and singers.

We used to watch the 'Muppet Show' and she was absolutely fascinated with the Pig and the Frog, and their relationship.
She had spent years watching soap operas.

I knew about infantile diabetes and late onset diabetes, also type three diabeties, but I've not heard of Gestation Diabeties. I think the first is caused by too little insulin and in one of the others, there is enough insulin, but the body can't utilise it.

Someone said, that when you understand all there is to diabeties, you understand everything about medicine. I don't.

There's often a special bond between grandparents and grandchildren. Something about skipping a generation. I think grandparents can enjoy the children as they can give them back at the end of the day, so they're privileged, being experienced and unburdened. Sometimes.

Depends on the people, though. I didn't have such a good relationship with my mum's parents though. I never met her mum, as she died before I was born and my step-grandmother had very much of a 'spinster' feel to her. I gather the marriage was arranged by my mum so that there was someone to keep house for her father. He fought in the first war and got trench foot.

The absolute horror that some of the British and Commonwealth troops were put through during the Great War...
I'm not disparaging the contributions of others. I've just read more about the British, Canadian and An/Zac side of things.

...leaves me utterly speechless.

Sorry. You mentioned it.

And more people died from the Influenza pandemic that was sweeping the world than died in the war...

It never ceases to amaze me that...they prattle along about progress and modernity while the actual distance that separates us from a 1914 or 1918 is only a couple of centimeters...

once a scar forms from a wound, that thickness may desensitize one from another danger...or the same one...

and time and forgetfulness can lead to the children of the wounded to to suffer the same...


ah, ah, ah...

taking the daughter to the dentist in a couple of minutes. Her first real 'procedure' in her life.
I don't know what to tell her.

If I remember rightly, granddad talked about trench foot and mustard gas. I can't remember him telling me a great deal more, although Ive read about WWI, how poor the commanders were and what the soldiers had to go through.

As a child, though, I read all about the heroism, especially of the pilots and the 'aces' and the 'circuses'. Baron von Richtofen, Captain Ball, et al. Most of the aces, including these, died in combat, yet I was still impressed. They were my heroes and I desperately wanted to be a pilot. Somehow, the pilots of WWII weren't quite the same. They were grimmer. Except perhaps Douglas Bader, who had a lot of glamour (but no legs).

I now know that that heroic world was more of a fairy tale. The life of an RAF pilot wasn't long.

I did once get the chance to have a flying lesson, you know. Some friends bought me one for my birthday a long time ago. It's the best birthday present anyone has ever bought me.

Yes, I was aware of the pandemic. In some quarters, you could get shot for sneezing out of doors, I heard.

How to prepare the youngster for the dentist. It depends on what she's having done. If it's just an inspection, the no problem. If it's anything else, such as a filling or an extraction, then you have to be honest and supportive. With a filling, it's a bit of discomfort - the needle, then a lot of noise, but generally that's it. If it's extractions, then, if they're baby teeth, no big deal, except they will bleed. If it's extractions of second teeth, then that's more serious, as they have to pull a lot more. I think you just have to be honest and supportive.

When I was little, I remember going to the dentist to have about five of my first molars out. I was promised either chocolate or ice-cream. *I didn't want either afterwards*.

Hope it goes well.

No problem. They gave her nitrous and she was clapping "Jingle Bells" with her hands while they removed the deciduous molar. Just making room for the new one.
$140.00! and that's our half! She got a toy hourglass for her trouble.

The spousal unit is going in for some yankings on thursday.

I have two uncles. One was in the Navy during the Suez mess in the late fifties, sweating it out in an engine room as a Machinist's mate on the USS HOLDER. The other was in the Korean War as a machine gunner's ammo carrier in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was wounded in a mortar attack and his gunner lost his head. My uncle the Marine was never the same. He wandered around and ended up in the eighties living on the streets of Los Angeles. He did some street extra work for 'Hill Street Blues'. The last any one heard of him, about ten years ago, he'd just been released from a sanitarium, where he was being treated for TB. His brother, the sailor, has lived in California for the last thirty years, and he kept in touch with the Marine as best he could. He guesses he's dead now.

I was fascinated by pilots and fighter pilots when I was a kid, too.
Once I thought I might like to be an astronaut.
I used to pore over books on planes. I still have few. I have a couple of books and kits of the Bell Aircobra. It was not a terribly effective weapon, but I like the way it looks and how it's laid out.
A lot of them were given to the Soviets, who used them for strafing Wehrmacht columns.

I always kinda liked Eddie Rickenbacker. He survived WWI and went on to be a mail plane pilot and later helped found TWA, suffering an ocean crash in one of their planes and later having a book written about it. To the best of my knowledge, he died in bed!

Ouch! The dentistry sounds expensive.

I used to dream of Sopwith Camels and Pups - biplanes were *so* romantic - and no doubt draughty and uncomfortable too.

The other hero I had was Antoine de St Exupery, who flew mail flights and wrote 'Terre des Hommes' and 'Vol de Nuit'. (Man's earth and night flight for any Mods, who might be watching!)

He also wrote 'Le Petit Prince' (The Little Prince), which is a wonderful storybook for children, with really lovely illustrations. Do you know it?

Yep.

And then there's Roald Dahl, who suffered from injuries sustained in a plane crash in Africa during the war.

Martin Caidin, who was a bomber pilot once and gave the world "The Six Million Dollar Man" with a novel called "Cyborg".


Yeah, everything's expensive. I don't know how we survive, worrying about those little green pieces of paper.

I started listening to the HHGTG on tape, the original broadcasts, last night while doing the dishes. Haven't listened to it in years.
Mainly because I had it memorized.

Didn't know about those two. I don't know that much about Roald Dahl, except the stories and i think I saw an interview with him once on TV.

Don't know why, but I just made a link in my mind with an interview I saw with Dr Seuss. Dahl's seems to have a peculiar relationship with adults, or it could be that the adults appear to be in general fairly unpleasant people and generally they get what's coming to them. Why have I made the link with Seuss?

I've got some of the radio tapes, and now the CD set and I too have most of it memorised.

Well, Dahl wrote for adults until he had children.
His adult tales are very strange and dark and Twilight Zoney, in fact some of them were filmed as Twilight Zone and Outer Limits and Thriller entries.
He claimed that his children stories were heavily edited by...his children...and that they included the elements that they liked best.
Including rude little children and rude big children getting their come-uppance...

Not sure where the Dr. Seuss thing comes in...Ted Geisel did have it in for authority figures and teachers, particularly school librarians, who keep his books off the shelves for years...as well as Dahl's.

Judy Blume has been having trouble with teachers, librarians and school boards with her youth books. She regularly on the Banned Book list. Madeline L'Engle has had problems, too.

Not to mention our little friend J.K. Rowling, who still has weasel-butt fundamentalists burning her books every once in a while.

They burn Harry Potter books? Oh, magic. Gosh, how insecure they must feel is this sort of thing threatens them.

What I remember of Dr Seuss, was that he wanted to be regarded as a serious adult author and he was fairly frustrated that he got all his recognition as a children's author.

Don't know about Judy Blume and Madeline l'Engle - who are they?

For different reasons, Enid Blyton was banned in schools because of the gollies (not written in full, mindful of the Moderators). They were naughty, the bad guys. Robertson's jam used to have gollies as well - I used to collect them. You had to collect jam labels and send them off. As children, we were not aware of racist stereotypes (although I can see them now).

I apologize, you must be thinking of someone else. Ted Geisel, Dr. Seuss never wrote anything but humor and ad copy. He was drawing from an early age and he drew cartoons and graphics for his college rag and various magazines and newspapers, until he decided to work for himself and his first book was 'To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street'.

I'm racking my idiotic memory. The writer you are actually referring to is floating in my brain...just behind the knowledge of how to balance a cheque book...and I haven't seen that in a while.

Judy Blume is a young 'adult' novelist who writes to the teen market, rather than for it. She deals with such taboo things as menstruation, rape, anorexia, bilumia, and puberty, in addtion to being a good story teller. If I remember correctly, one of her hits was called,'The Cat Ate My Gymsuit'.

Madelaine L'Engel is the author of 'A Wrinkle In Time' and several other children's fantasy books. They all have a scientific basis, but she takes off at an angle to show that thinking is more important than knowing the right spell, and that children can be resourceful and helpful to their parents, if the parents actually think about their children instead of talking down to them.

As Sir Hiram Maxim once said," My Ancestors moved to America in order to practice their religion freely and prevent others from doing the same..."

The Religious Wrong have no idea that most of their cherished traditions are either borrowings from or in reaction to ancient indigenous practices.

The fact that the litany is a spell casting against evil is not known to most of them. The fact that a litany or a prayer has historically been used as a charm against one's enemies is also poorly understood.

Yes, I've heard of the Enid Blyton thing.
Tell me, what do you folk call a baby frog?

Wait a second. Are you telling me that I can't mention the title of the old Strangler's song: