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

The bloke with the hugely annoying mobile phone has now moved desks, so I don't have to answer it anymore. However, I've just noticed that his old desk is now empty except for a toilet roll. I'm not sure if this is symbolic.

No this is not symbolic. This is a new cost cutting measure - in other words it is more cost effective to have the toilet roll there then bloke with irritating mobile phone. This was the conclusion reached by a team of consultants who charged the company far to much money. The time to get worried is if you come across other desks with toilet rolls on them!

Funnily enough, the toilet roll is more useful than the bloke with the mobile phone.

I might just put a toilet roll on my desk, then go and sit in the toilet all day. I wonder if anyone would mind, or even notice?

How do you want me to answer this? Do you wish to feel valued by your fellow H2G2 researchers, your company, both or neither? I mean obviously I couldn't have a conversation with a toilet roll so I would notice. Well I would probably think that you have just quite quiet recently.

Sorry, I meant "I wonder if anyone in the office would notice". Obviously if I went and sat in the toilet all day I'd have to borrow a laptop. Actually, that would be better, because then I could read and contribute to H2G2 in peace without having to hit Alt-Tab every time someone goes past on the way to the printer.

Tell me about it - when our IT department did a presentation the other week they decided to start it on a light note; showing the most popular sites and searches accessed from company computers. Fortunately I was not the only one to sink low in my seat and offer up a silent prayer. Apparently one guy searched for "pron" making him the only person to search for porn on the internet and not find any!!!

So in the unlikely event that I ever create my own porn site, I'll remember to include the word "pron" in it somewhere, just in case!

Maybe we're being unfair to the guy... he might have been looking for seafood. Pron cocktail, anyone?

or he could be in some financial difficulty and be wanting to pron some of his possessions.

Maybe it's an obscure Scandinavian heavy metal group. "Have you heard the new album by Pron?"

Maybe it is an award winning unpasteurised cheese made from the milk of iberian albino pygmy goats on a small farm outside Llanelli and shortly to be outlawed by the EEC? Fancy some Pron and crackers?

Suddenly, everyone in the office disappears, the scenery spins around and I'm on Call My Bluff!

Errrr.... I'd expect a Scandinavian heavy metal band to have a more sinister sounding name than "Pron", so I think it's the cheese.

Don't you want your third option?

Well, I'm fairly confident about the cheese, but go on then!

It is the title of a mid 80s Sci Fi movie about two men stuck inside a computer. This is shown with alarming regualarity on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Ah, you're trying to confuse me with the old "pron movie" gag again.

(Discusses with other, non-existent members of team) Hmmm... Pron... Tron... Prom night... Pronald Reagan... Pron the road to Mandalay... hmmm....

No, we still think it's the cheese.

Darn it! How did you guess that?

Careful study of Monty Python's "Cheese Shop" sketch, combined with the fact that I've just completed a computer-based training course entitled "Know Your Cheese". Oh, and a bit of a lucky guess.

If I had known I was going up against a man with qualifications in cheese recognition then I would have been less enthusiastic about the goats. If I had delivered it in a more off hand style perhaps you would have dismissed it?

It was the *albino* pygmy goats that gave it away. If you had just said "iberian pygmy goats" I wouldn't have been quite so sure.

I wonder how long it takes to get into the "5 busiest forums" list...

No idea - I have been on it once for a conversation with Smiley Ben about Dawson's Creek but I am only admitting to that as I have legal representation present.

Any way it is your turn........