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

Hi NPY,

just thought I'd drop by and say hello. Hope your Christmas was relaxing. It is freezing here. Apparently it was 5 degrees this morning, it's got a bit warmer, but it doesn't feel like it. I wonder if it will snow. Let me know if you get any snow...!
If it stays dry tomorrow, I might go and take some pictures outside. The sky looked really atmospheric this afternoon.

Hi!!
Sorry I've been AWOL. Dead PC and an awkward laptop. But I've finally been reconnected to the internet!! Such a relief.
Did I miss anything fun??

Hello!

Nah you didn't miss much. It's been very quiet here. Roymondo dropped in a few days ago I noticed. Dunno what's been going on really. everyone's been off doing stuff I guess. So have I really.

Suppose everyone's been busy in the real world. Can't blame them at times. Know how busy life can get.

true. You know, have absolutely no idea why I started this convo with Bonjour! I don't even speak french. Gave it up before GCSE's in school. Did Spanish instead. Oh well. Must've been having a mad moment!

It has been quiet here. Tell you what, would like to know what's going to happen about all that feedback we did for hootoo a while back. I wonder if they're going to give the site a revamp?

That's not fair!!! I had to do French to GCSE. I'd rather have done Spanish, but I couldn't fit it in with my other subjects. No fun.

Yeah, I've filled in a couple of those wee feedback things that ping up when you log in but no changes seem to have been made. Have a couple of things I'd like to see changed. Like I want to be able to unsub from several conversations at once. Took me about half an hour to get rid of threads when I came back.

I thought you could a multiple unsubscribe. Obviously not.

As much as I love hootoo, it could do with a revamp- a redesign would be lovely, compared to other beeb sites right now, it looks a bit like it needs a coat of paint, you know. Poor hootoo. Never mind. I hope they've got something in the pipeline for it anyway, that would be great.

Yeah, it maybe could do with one. Though I know my space could do with it too. Need more time and energy though.

I know what you mean. How was your St. Patrick's day?

Was ok. Though they get into it a lot more in the States. Think I saw a band parade and a few people in Ireland rugby shirts and stuff in a town we drove through. But other places don't really do anything. Kinda odd. More a Catholic holiday than an everyone holiday.

ah ok.

Sorry I realised after I wrote what I wrote it might've been a tad tactless. Sorry about that.

Anyway, it just proves how ignorant we are over here about Ireland and stuff. I blame the school system. Instead of banging on about the first and second world wars, Germany and the Russians and stuff, we should be looking at the history closer to us. It does annoy me.

That's a shame, it would be better if it was an everyone holiday, rather than just as you say.

I mean all this St. George's day stuff they keep going on about over here and social cohesion and that, I'm not a raging, fly the flag sort of person, but it would be quite nice to be able to have the day as a general sort of celebration thing, rather than it be like, hijacked by the sort of people who, well, you know the sort of people I mean.

sorry, I'm rambling now.

Don't worry bout it!!

It's a weird festival anyway. And I know that people do get the wrong idea after all the bad news reports that have come out of here over the years. So many people say when they first came over, their family told them not to as they might get killed. But it's not like that at all, esp the past few years.

Know what you mean bout schools stuff. We do the World Wars and the Cold War and all that, but we can miss so much of the more recent history. Shame too. And it bugged me that in RE classes, we did about various Christian denominations (which is great and needs done) but we never looked at Islam, or Hinduism or any other religions. Would have been great oti ncrease our understanding, especially at tim e like now when there are so many people of different religions living alongside each other.

Your St George's Day idea sounds great. Just a festival for everyone rather than just for some sounds fantastic. Like here, St Paddy's Day is more of a Catholic thing, and the 12th of July is a Protestant thing. Juat to be annoying, and then you get the odd riot or something. Luckily that's not so common.

I'm surprised you didn't do Islam or Hinduism. I did RE GCSE and we had to cover the Christian Denominations, but we had a whole close look at Islam, which was really interesting, and I remember in year 7 and 8 we did Hinduism and we also looked at Buddhism, which was good too. It's all handy stuff I think, as it dispels at lot of the myths and things.

I'm impressed you did all that at school. Though maybe it's something to do with there being more Hindus and Muslims in England than there are here. Though I think the Muslim population has risen as there are a few doctors from India and Pakistan. Think maybe here, they're trying to get us out of the whole Protestant/Catholic sgregation we've had for too long, before trying to get us into other religions as well.

I guess it's quite a difficult situation. Sometimes I wonder if a stronger religious identity over here would actually help with things, but I'm still not sure on that one. It's difficult, because on the other hand sometimes I also think all religion should be banned because of the way it causes so much infighting and fighting between different ones.......Anyway, before this gets too deep......

yeah, we had to cover those for GCSE. I think it's helped me be more tolerant of other religions and things. I think everyone should do it, as aside from getting more understanding, I also thought it was really interesting.

Know what you mean. Think a lot more tolerace is needed whatever happens. One thing that buggs me is the way it's kinda equal rights for all religions except Christian. Like that case a year or two ago of that woman who was suspended for wearing a small cross when others were allowed to wear their religious symbols. Doesn't seem fair.

No that isn't fair, I agree.

Unfortunately I think largely because Christianity is so deep in our culture (whether we like it or are Christians or not) it actually gets overlooked, taken for granted and is easy to deride (mind you, isn't it better to make fun of ourselves rather than others?-but that's a whole new debate I guess).

Also, I think like every other religion, it also gets bad press as a result of a minority who have extreme views, like the extreme Christian right in America which hasn't really done it any favours.

I'll be honest, I'd be lying if I said I was a Christian, or any other religion, so I'm not deliberately sitting on the fence. in one of his poems, Benjamin Zephaniah said about there being "good Christians, good Jews, good Muslims and good "not sures". Well, I guess I'm one of the "not sures" really, (!) as I'm definitely not an atheist. I'm sure there's something up there.

Yeah, you're probably right there. We definately live in a "Christian country" and there are so many things that gve Christianity a bad name. Same with AlQuaeda too. I'm sure not all Muslims are like that.

Absolutely.

I'm sure al Qaeda must make the average Muslim furious. It would me, I know that.

I'm so glad George Bush is no longer US president. I've been so impressed with the way Obama's trying to build bridges right now...it's about time. I think he's a good guy.

Yeah, he does seem to be trying to fix a lot of the mess that GWB left, with closing Guantanemo Bay and trying to bring the guys out of Iraq. Hope it works though. Just hope he does a good job.