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

Good for you. It all sounds so strange and foreign.
I'm glad you had fun and it all worked out in the end.
I get lost easily and I don't play games well.

Up early, in time to go to the Quaker meeting. I'm really fairly tired, as I haven't have much sleep, but I'm so pleased to have gone. I met the two people I most wanted to meet - Bossel and Deackie and got to know the others in my team.

Sometimes I like team things, it depends who you have to *play with*. Our team worked together well and we had our first task completed before we came away from the pub. We had to be photographed pulling a pint, and I asked the chap behind the bar if we could - he wasn't busy at that time, so Vogon Poet did it and I photographed it.

Next we saw two policemen and our task was to be photographed in a policeman's helmet. I asked if they would lend a helmet and both did, smiling broadly.

The other tasks weren't so easy. We had at least three maps between us.

Off to collect my son now, in time to go to the Quaker meeting. I'm on creche duty, so I can't miss it.

There's a word I don't see much of outside of Science Fiction: creche.
It is a relatively unknown word in the States...
But I know what it means because I am a word maven.

Did you know Nixon was a Quaker?

Oh, the word creche is in fairly common usage here. Any council activity for parents will always be better attended if free creche facilities are provided.

What does it mean in science fiction terms - somewhere where alien life forms are bred?

Yes, I knew Nixon was a Quaker (there are exceptions to every rule, after all), but only after I submitted 'The Quaker Peace Testament' to PR.

The older children (5-9s) are doing the lives of famous Quakers and one of the women brought in a bonnet which had been passed down in her family and had been worn by Elizabeth Fry (I think - or a relative of Elizabeth Fry). It came with a lace under-bonnet and was very striking. There were other things for the children to try on and my son was so fascinated, he dragged me into the room afterwards to show me. It had a *very* large brim and anyone wearing it would have had the effect of blinkers (I think you call them blinders?).

I've seen such things and I know some people who own such. There are a lot of 'reenactors' running around Texas.

I don't fully understand the function of such head gear...

Blinkers or blinders...there is no one dedicated way of speaking here.
Some of the older folks refer to a nut that goes on a threaded bolt as a tap....

Oh, I think that the hat was fashionable in its day, but was 'plain', being grey. Fashionable non-Quakers would have worn colours and have more decoration, but I think the bonnets were in general the same sort of shape. I think the size of the peak (not the right word - I mean the front of the hat that forms a halo round the face) is more to do with sheltering a delicate skin from sunlight. Tans were not fashionable!

I think that re-enactors are trying to capture something of the essence of earlier and in some ways more romantic times.

...And I think of a tap as something you turn to get water out of!

the truly strange thing is that the mexican spanish word for 'turn', "javes"(sp?) pronounced yah-vays, is used for everything from 'turn' to 'key' to 'faucet handle' to 'nut' to 'dial' (like on a radio).

Now here you have me on a subject on which I am truly ignorant. I've never learned Spanish, although I once did try to use adapted Italian and I got into trouble until the person I was speaking to realised that I wasn't trying to insult him. I then learned the correct Spanish, which I have never forgotton. (It was properly 'la cuenta' as opposed to my 'el conto'.) I think if one of the men had tried to say that, they might have got a black eye!

Check out the front page. I've an entry on it today!

Wow!

I was really pleased with it. I wrote to the sub to thank him as I thought he'd made great job (he found a BBC link that I was unaware of), which almost means that an entry I might have done on George Fox might be superfluous.

On the domestic front, I had a leak boiler today and had to call the plumber out. It's soaked a bedroom carpet and was dripping into my kitchen. The plumber says he needs to order parts and he'll be back on Monday.

Oops. I meant to say 'leaky' boiler.

Had one of those last month. I'm surprised you were able to call it something unmoderatable.

I hink I was relieved that it wasn't under the carpet, which would have meant pulling up the carpet, the carpet underneath the carpet (which I didn't pull up when the new carpet was laid because it is tacked in place every two inches!) and the floorboards.

The plumber arrived promptly 12 hours after he was supposed to. Brought 3 helpers with him. Got the job done in three hours after rerouting a vent pipe and plugging up the holes in the heater closet door that had been drilled a time or two before because of the rules back then about venting the burner.
Never did figure out where it was leaking from, but a combination of the leak and the lime build-up in the core had made the heater an "on-demand" type that came on whenever we used the hot water. It didn't take too long to use it all. Not a happy experience when you are taking a shower.
I'm glad out current landlord has a plumber on call.
I've dealt all I ever want to with plumbing and heaters...or laundry appliances, too, for that matter.

And carpeting? Don't talk to me about carpeting. Hate the stuff.
Rather have dirt...or sand...

Ouch! Scalding showers, eh?

Yes, I know your opinions on carpets. I love my new one. I's made the room a lot warmer since it was laid. It's been blowing a gale here for the past few days and the wind really whistles through the house, if I don't close the internal doors.

With funky old houses like this one, if the doors and windows fit tight and something starts to leak, you could die...
We've got old-fashioned gas jets hanging out of the walls. They're capped off, but I don't trust them... The water heater and the furnace are gas, which means it's still hooked up to the house and I don't know if anybody bothered to disconnect the unused pipes.
There's an in-the-wall brick-type gas heater in the bathroom that absolutely frightens me...but the spousal unit likes to use it when she showers and does her face...I'm just afraid she'll drape a towel over it or powder her butt too vigorously and the powder will drift into the flame and *foomp*

The second most explosive factories in the world, right after gunpowder, are flour mills...you get enough of it in the air and their are only two or three oxygen molecules between each flour particle and somebody lets go of a spark and *whomp* no more factory.

Of course there was the famous incident about seventy years ago of the molasses storage tank falling over in a high wind during a freeze and killing a bunch of people they couldn't get to because of the muck...

My house is old enough for stopped off gas fittings to be there, but you can't see them unless you know where to look.

Yes, I've heard that about flour mills as well. I don't know the physics (or is is chemistry) of it though. People falling into flour (or grain, come to that) 'drown' in it. Potentially deadly stuff and needs careful handling.

The molasses, though sounds awful.

I remember reading once, about a man who fell into a molten vat of steel. His friend gently pushed him in with tears in his eyes, knowing it would be kinder than trying to get him out. I think it was fiction, but I've never forgotten it.

I've got five fireplaces in my house, but only one works. Potentially three of them could. Having a proper fire in winter is really nice.

Are you sure that wasn't the denouement of the first Terminator movie?

I've dealt with fireplaces, wood stoves both large and small, electric heaters and have even lived places where, for lack of better, I used the flames on the gas range turned high!

Well, it might have been, however, I've never seen one. My thoughts are that it was either:

a) a book I read in school; or
b) a black and white film.

I have friends who, when it's cold, turn the gas oven on high and open the door. For me it's a give away that I've left the oven on if I go into the kitchen and it's unaccountably warm. I've usually turned it not quite off.

Did you manage to do anything with Tom Lehrer? Peer Review is quite thin at the moment and we could do with more nice entries!

I've just learned enough ML to be frightened.
The lure of silly fiction has pulled me away from serious entries right at the moment.
I haven't been to PR in quite awhile.
Didn't TPTB just institute some new toys for PR?