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

I've been leafing through the paper this morning and these stories caught my eye:

1. Supplement promo: deltoids, abs doubled in 3 days or your money back!
2. Money laundering ring ran a Darby and Joan club in Gateshead.
3. Ansari justified selection with five wickets and a run out.
4. Parisians wept as De Gaulle’s cortege passed.
5. “It’s not every day you get the chance to chat up Robert Redford”
6. But in spite of the proclamation of 1763 and the Treaty of Augusta, lawless white settlers overran Cherokee hunting lands.
7. Most depictions show Theseus in battle with the Minotaur, usually in a submissive if not defeated role.
8. Is it okay to date a friend’s ex?
9. Tutor in organic chemistry required, 10 hours per week - apply Box 2030.
10. West Virginia man accused of killing teen after they bump into each other.

Over to you...

Thinking out loud...

"Subliminal" suggests there is some hidden message that our subconscious brain can see.

Many of the clues have unusual words or names in them: deltoids, Darby, Ansari, De Gaulle. The message we're looking for is probably hidden somewhere around the odd words.

2. Granada

6. Ranchero

7. Taurus

They're all Ford cars?

1. Model T
2. Granada
3. Edsel
4. Escort
5. Probe
6. Ranchero
7. Taurus
8. Ka
9. Torino (never heard of this one, I'm guessing)
10. Pinto

Good quiz

Congratulations to Gnomon for solving it so quickly

I set one of these every year, and Gnomon usually solves it!

No Ford Prefect?

<BB<

I really tried to use that one. It's not easy to hide it.

'Cistercian monks tart up refectory building' was the best I came up with.

What a give-away! Cistercians, being forbidden from eating meat except when sick, would sneakily get around the rule by eating in the monastery hospital instead of the refectory.

<BB<

Good quiz!

I thought people were being invited to submit headlines from their daily newspapers. Here are some that I noticed in the Boston Globe:

GOP factions still divided on secretary of state pick
The high price of a high school
Marijuana shops may be delayed to mid-2018
Insider Harvard may be on the outside this time

The subliminal message would be about lessons learned: Republicans learning how hard it is to find common ground, cities and towns learning that it's more expensive to educate students than they had planned on, voters who supported legalizing marijuana finding out that they will have to wait longer than they ha hoped, and Harvard University finding out that it won't have as much influence in Washington as it used to.

I haven't heard of half of those, they may be sold under different names here.

Cars seem to go by different names in different countries. What we in America call the Volkswagen Rabbit is called the Volkswagen Golf in Germany.

They both use holes

But the VW models are all named after winds and the like. Passat is the German for the Trade Winds, then there's Scirocco, and Golf is the German for Gulf as in Gulf Stream.

Oh, perhaps there aren't so many aftecr all. Can't think of any more off hand.

They stopped after that problem with emissions testing...