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

Happy New Year to everyone.

Back at work this morning with drive to work too gloomy to see the partial eclipse and there was absolutely no chance of seeing the meteor shower much earlier. My granddaughter had a telescope for Christmas and ever since the sky has been too cloudy to make use of it.

I hope the phone rings for you soon Rikii and also for you Tickle.

Decorations are down and the living room is looking a bit bigger and a lot tidier; I love putting the tree and decorations up but I have to say that by the 2nd January I am itching to get things back to normal. Over the break we finished refurbishing the cupboards on one side of the kitchen. The kitchen was looking very shabby with oak veneered doors so Mr Toots has been taking a couple of doors at a time, sanding them right down, spraying a coat of polyvinal primer, then undercoat, and then finally a top coat (a very pale buttermilk); it does help that he has all the facilities at his workshop to spray this stuff and a brilliant motor trade paint factors to mix this stuff up for us. So that’s two drawer fronts and 6 doors down – only another 14 to go! Should be done by Easter.

Well, had better get on a do a bit.

Very best wishes to all.

Toots.x.

Thanks, Toots, but I don't usually answer the phone in case it's creditors. However, I am currently awaiting a call to say that this month's Sandhurst directories have arrived, so I can go and collect some and start the delivery. That will be a couple of weeks' work, but after that I've nothing scheduled until the beginning of March. I should probably follow Mr Toots' example and get on with some decorating then, but I'll probably sit on my arris like Rikii.

Foggy and cloudy here this morning, so didn't get to see the eclipse. The sun put in an appearance round about 10 o'clock, veiled by cloud, which would have made for good eclipse viewing if it had been an hour or so earlier. I'll just have to watch Stargazing Live tonight.

Damn. Just had a call to say that the directories won't be available until about 2 o'clock. That would normally be a good excuse not to start until tomorrow morning, but apparently it's not going to be possible for me to pick the mags up then, so I'll have to get them this afternoon. There won't be time to deliver many (especially if it rains, as forecast) so it's more or less a wasted journey - rather annoying given the price of diesel these days.

Postman's just been - no bills - which is very early. Last Wednesday he came at 7:30pm! Can you believe that? I wonder what he was doing all day.

Happy Days,

Was up at 4am. Thick cloud. No sky activity visible. And thick cloud obscured the partial eclipse.

Did any of you watch the astronomy programme last night on television? I thought it was awful. IMO it is much better to keep such subjects in the able hands of true astronomers such as the very interesting young professor. Patrick Moore's 'The Sky At Night' is still a great programme.

Morning all,rain and windy here today and more snow forecast for the weekend,great.
Our binmen have voted to strike again next week and the are mountains of bin bags accumulating everywhere again,all because of the equal pay rule,if women want the equal pay status by comparing a binman with a dinner lady somebody needs their eyes testing.Our binmen are out from 5am in all weathers not in some warm school,BTW have you seen what some people throw away these days?everything from the worst gunge imaginable to hypodermic needles,what is most visible here now is the huge amounts that everybody seems to throw away.
Why do people throw their bin bags outside their homes when they all know that there will be no collection?,I mean in my area we all have good sized back gardens and even the terraced houses like mine have rear access entries or their own gates.
Anyway enough waffle from wah,what's happening out there?

Refuse collection is ok in my area. But my new neighbours don't seem to believe in putting their bags out onto the street on refuse day. There is an enormous pile of bags piling up near my home and I'm very annoyed.

In the past, if I had put refuse bags out and then the collection didn't happen, I always brought the bags back into my bin or shed. It is lazy and uncaring to leave uncollected bags lying about on streets.

Hi all,well..my old tv finaly give up the ghost yesterday,so I went off Saturday afternoon/evening and bought another 32" flat screen thingy,with the stand 5 years insurance etc it came (for me) a whopping 369 quid.So...a quite harsh bit of belt tightening will now ensue.After fiddling assembling the tv and stand units I checked the whereabouts of my local tip/recycling centre in Brum and was amazed to find it stays open 7 days a week 8am-9pm until the end of Feb' so last night after the tv depature ceremony the old tv and stand was dumped in the appropriate skips at the tip,which to my total amazement was open at nearly 7pm on a Saturday night the real bonus was that there was no queue and apart from the attendant I was his sole customer.However when I got home I realized I should have dumped all the new packaging too,still if I had brains I....?

Haven't seen Toots for a while. Do you think she's drilling for oil?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/huge-oil-find-under-village-in-west-sussex-2178226.html

Oh, if only Tickle. If I struck oil with sufficient £millions I'd pay of all your mortgages!

I am around but usually just dive into Sin's place to do the daily trivia quiz, fortunately buzy at work.

Have a good weekend all.

Toots.x.

Hi all,tickle Forest afire! today and all in the last few minutes,wedged together in the league with Reading,so I guess you must be happy,Another derby day at noon tomorrow for the Villans and we are too lethargic even for them.Then I heard this morning that MON is now a hammer
Still I did get two low paid work days this week and that has boosted my ego no end,even if I did get wet.

Hi Rikii, Forest have struggled in their last few home games, I think that long unbeaten run - 32 games now - is becoming a burden. We could do with a top class striker, but who couldn't? Maybe Tshabalala is the man! I hear Villa have put in a bid for transfer-seeking Darren Bent - or is he just after a pay rise?

Reports that MON is set to take over at West Ham seem to have been premature.

Has this become a football thread?



I know little about today's game. I was reminiscing with friends at the weekend about football during the 60s and 70s - George Best, Dennis Law, Billy Bremner, Pat Jenkins, Peter Bonetti**.........As a family, we often watched Saturday night football on the television. My brother supported Leeds whilst we all loved watching Manchester United.


** He was a player of that era, wasn't he?

Just for you and I, Toots, I knitted on four needles yet another pair of fingerless gloves. My first sock is nearing the heel.

Hi Polly,are those what we up here call wrist warmers about 6 inches long,a knitted tube that you cut a thumb thingy in and seal it around the thumb cut out with wool

Rick, no! They are proper fingerless gloves. They do have a shape and are not just a tube!

A very chilly evening tonight. I have been to my home-group. The cars were completely covered in frost when we all left the hosts home at 10pm.

Evening all! I realise this is passed the season of seasonal greetings but what the heck! Is there any way of renaming this hern?

In case you're wondering, I'm having probs sleeping for more than about 2-3 hours at a stretch lately, hence my posting at 3.30 am! Still could be worse - at least I'm not kept awake by noisy neighbours like a freind of mine.

Trust you are all well, and over the New Year thingies - I had a stinker all over Christmas and it's left me with a cough that is still hanging on.

Now. Went to see The King's Speech yesterday - our youngest said we must! Ab-so-lute-ly brilliant! No wonder they're raving about it. I know Colin Firth was going to be good, but Helena Bonham Carter was superb - as you'd expect, and the support includes
Michael Gambon ,Timothy Spall, Jennifer Ehle, Derek Jacobi,Anthony Andrews and Claire Bloom.

If you haven't yet, do go and see it.

We hardly ever go to the flicks - last thing was The Kiterunner - 2 or 3 years ago. Good experience, we must go more often.

Had a dream last night about some of you - it's alright, nothing strange - just trying to meet some of you on the tube - s'pose it's the MC connection ?
Polly, and Rik (Rik, you had a long beard, in case you didn't know), and Toots - did you know you're a biker in leathers? - and Tickle who was in a football ref's outfit. Most strange. Don't ask me what happened as I'm not sure, it was just a collection of people really.

Now, I must get back to bed to try to get some more sleep - only had 3 hours so far tonight.

Night night

Trying to rename it as it still said Seasons Greetings

Morning all!hi Folderol2,I wouldn't bother visiting one of those dream analysts if I was you,sounds like you'd be whisked off to the funny farm a bit nippyI must admit the thought of tickle in a refs uniform shorts 'n' all racing around like Billy Wizz did raise a smile as for our hot toots in leathers I think I'd like a bit of what you've been supping.No kip? that's a bit iffy makes me right irritable.
I was feeling a bit rough myself,so much so I went to my doctors emergency surgery on Saturday,I think they suspect I may have a duodinal ulcer,so I'm on a bland food diet and no ale
Somehow I get the feeling it's going to be a long week,as I'm awaiting blood tests and another doc's appointment on Friday
Anything else out there?

HaHa, Folly - no wonder you wanted to restore the original title. No prizes for guessing that Rikii and M Houllier are dreaming of Darren Bent proving himself to be a nightmare to opposition defences over the next few months and leading Villa to a string of victories.

Forest have a new international striker, too: Robbie Findley. Anyone heard of him? No, I thought not.

Our baby, Grace III, is fifteen today. Let's hope she has stopped growing now. At 5'7" she towers over Mrs Tickle and is only a couple of inches shorter than me. If she carries on growing for much longer she will end up as an Amazonian Grace.

Sorry to hear about your health problems, Rikii - no ale sounds rather serious. Hope you get it sorted out soon.

Time I hit the streets. At least it's not raining.

Happy days.

Hi all,Mathos-L-R. left me a message from our Polly,apparently Polly's old PC has finally packed up,so I guess we will be hearing from Polly a lot less
I had to go back to the doctors again today for more blood tests,Im still waiting for the results from my last tests,then I received a phone call from the surgery saying one of my blood tests was borderline for glucose(whatever that means)so another armfull goneIm still scratching for work but I may have a couple of jobs next week.
It's gone awfully quiet on these boards lately,so I await with relish on anyone who wants to spill the beans.

Hi Rikii,

Yes, Polly's PC has died - but she is looking into getting a new one, so hopefully she'll be back with us in the not-too-distant future.

Borderline for glucose, eh? I imagine that means your blood sugar levels are a bit high, which might be a sign of type 2 diabetes - quite common amongst us more mature chaps. Be warned: "the 'first-line' treatment is diet, weight control and physical activity". You may need to swap the lager for red wine - so it could be a blessing in disguise.

Villa seem to have perked up a bit lately. As far as I can see, most of their remaining fixtures are against the also-rans, so I foresee them climbing up the table over the next few weeks. This is in contrast to Forest, who have a lot of big games looming up, starting with Watford tomorrow - and QPR next w/e.

I think I mentioned that I didn't expect to be working this month. However, I had a phone call out of the blue the other day, with the result that I now have an unexpected week's work starting on Monday - or maybe this weekend if I'm in the mood and the weather's ok (neither of which seems very likely). I suppose this is a good thing, although I could really do with getting some jobs done round the house - and garden. However, I probably wouldn't get round to them anyway.

Bon weekend a tous,

Hi tickle,"also rans"? try telling that to the Man u supporters tonighthttp://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://img2.photographersdirect.com/img/19309/wm/pd1490494.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp%3Fimageid%3D1490494&usg=__tjyyPHksgDTIRfEHlkzo-AZQXmA=&h=334&w=500&sz=42&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=lIWr8K40fjvueM:&tbnh=123&tbnw=173&ei=W6NNTeAfgYaFB5GslaYO&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcanis%2Blupus%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7DKUK_en%26biw%3D1003%26bih%3D574%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=702&vpy=280&dur=8835&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=192&ty=130&oei=W6NNTeAfgYaFB5GslaYO&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0