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

looks like you will have the dubious pleasure of my company- the other half just grunted in a vaguely affirmative way

Good. It'll be nice to meet you and you should enjoy it. The winter meet was the first I'd ever attended and I was a *little* nervous as I knew no-one - in person, anyway. The first person I recognised was Shazz, and I got to meet Bossel, who'd flown in from Germany specially for the occasion. I also met Deackie, who I'm supposed to be doing a collaborative entry with and she was also on our treasure hunt team. (The road to hell is paved with good intentions.)

The treasure hunt was really fun and afterwards the BBC bought us all a pint (or in my case, a sparking water), which was jolly decent, I thought. Then we had a quiz, where we did reasonably well in the first half and dismally in the second half. The first half included questions about things that had appeared in PR, so we were well in. The last section had us guessing what the italics got for Xmas. We got 0/5!

Well, I shall be nervous because I'm in London- I'm not a city person, and tend to get terribly claustraphobic in London, but I shall be un-nervous because a) you can't get far from a pub in London, and pubs are my natural habitat b) you all seem like fairly non-bitey people, and c) I shall have the other half for company! Any word on this year's activities?

Errr, this is going to sound like an odd question, but what gender are you?

It's just that I want to look out for you at the summer meet, and it suddenly occurs to me I haven't got a clue which you are! I tend to assume all ppl are male until proven otherwise (I don't know why), but I have a suspicion this is not the case

I'm female! I thought the same about you until I looked at your site and discovered you weren't.

Names can be wonderfully misleading, can't they! I'm sure you can guess where I got mine from. Where did you get your?

Blake's 7- Avon was the evil b*st*rd who would shot his crew mates in the back if it would to be to his advantage in any way, and was just with the crew because he was wanted by the Federation, and Liberator was the most powerful ship in Federation space. Me using his name confuses people plenty,. what with him being a bloke an' all My all time favourite line from a TV show was said by him-

Vila: Ohhhh, my head hurts

Avon: Have you considered amputation?

He was a sexy anti-hero before anti-heroes were invented!

Aha! That *was* my guess! I remember that line, too. I used to be glued to it.

I also used to like Dana. Mean and efficient.

What was the computer called (the plastic box they used to carry round with them) - memory fades.

Orac. Voiced by thenlate Peter Tuddman, who also voiced the two ships' computers, Zen and Slave

Of course it was - how could I forget. Such a wonderful irascible character. I loved the squeak (not quite a squeak, but I couldn't quite find a word to describe it) as he was turned off. Zen I remember, however, I'd forgotten Slave. Still can't bring Slave to mind.

The computer on Scorpio, who was always apologising for being so cr*p.....

Aargh! Scorpio - I really have forgotten my Blakes 7.

Did you enjoy the meet? Was it worth the effort getting there? I thoroughly enjoyed it and also meeting you and Pete.

You were a little taller than I had imagined (maybe it was the hat). Pete was very tanned.

The park was a really nice place to meet (although by the time we got to the pub, I was crossing my legs - the loos weren't that near).

Who else did you get to see that you'd really wanted to? For me, apart from you and the people on my team - agcBen and Hoovooloo were the people I most wanted to see. Just wait till I've posted this and I'll think of several more immediately. Oh, yes. It was nice to see more of Anna.

I didn't see you I don't think as I was leaving and I would have liked to have said goodbye.

How about you? When did you leave? Where did you stay overnight? Did you get home OK?

Just in case you haven't seen, there are party photos on Gnomon's space, including a rather nice one of you.

Hi - I would like to say thank you for coming to find me and for accompanying me on the way home.

A good time was certainly had by all. Really enjoyed it all - mainly thanks to you and Bossel!

Finding you was a challenge. A bit reminiscent of the treasure hunt we had at the winter meet. As we weren't playing softball, it gave us a purpose.

It was really nice meeting you too.

I enjoyed m,yself a great deal. Meant to talk to you more- I went looking for you in the pub, but you'd already gone Still, always the next meet

I left at chucking out time, in fact, the landlord tried to man-handle me out as I was loitering

We stayed at a St. Christopher's jobby- cheap and cheerful. Think I met evryone I wanted too, had a good long chat with Bossel about the relative standards of mainland Europe's and our language skills, spend a couple of hours telling dirty jokes with the SBVM umm, (it all gets a bit hazy after that)...