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

Hi

I am a Danish freelance journalist. I like to talk to different people - to give, to listen and to learn - and I symphatise with what you have written in your introduction. Wellcome to this space on the web that brings lots of laugther and interesting conversations.

In Lil's salon a bunch of people based mostly in US and Britain - but also in a few other European countries - talk about and discuss a wide range of subjects. This is the beginning of the current thread - but anybody can join at any time. F38024?thread=3050873 .

tartaronne

Hello Mr. Tartaronne, from Denmark
I am very glad to hear from you for the first time . I hope this will be the first step for a long and ever-lasting friendship. I will certainly contact you later tonight. I am afraid , I am pretty busy this morning. I have to take my daily shower, have breakfast,get dressed then rush to school . We are getting ready for the Bacalaureat Exams in Morocco these days. The Exams are due on June8th.Since you are a jounalist Mr Tartaonne, I am sure you and I must have a lot of points in common among which our good command of foreign languages. I promise to elaborate on this an other things in my next e-mail. I hope to hear from you very often Mr. Tartaronne. I am looking forward to hearing from you. So keep in touch. Thank you very much.
Yours,
Cleverabdourabbih from Casablanca, MOROCCO, North Africa
e-mail address : [email protected]

Good morning cleverabdurabbih

I'm a woman, 53 years old, married, with four children and three grandchildren. I first was guessing at that you were a woman - but now I think you might be a man (?).

I look forward to hearing from you.

tartaronne

good morning Mrs. Tartaronne. How is it? I hope you and all your family members are very well. Many thanks for your prompt reply, Mrs. Tartaronne. I believe your guest was right. In fact I am a 50-year-old man. I am married and have got 5 kids: 4 daughters and a son. I will tell you more about myself and my family in my next e-mail. Once more thanks for your quick answer and keep in touch please because I assure that you will never regret making my acquaintance because by getting to know me , you will find out more and more about the Arabs, the Muslims and the Africans because I am three in one . I mean I am an African( Moroccan ), an Arab and a Muslim. A moderate practising Muslim of course. I think that's enough for today.I hope to hear from you very soon . Bye now . take care.
Yours,
Cleverabdourabbih

My family is well, thank you. Yours as well, I hope.

Right now I'm quite busy working and early tomorrow morning I'm going to Sweden to meetings and a seminar and will not be able to post here or on my mail.

But I'll return.

tartaronne

Hello Mrs Tartaronne. I hope you are having good time in Sweden. How long will you stay there ? Once you are back home I hope you will notify me so that we can resume our correspondence and start even an audio chatting if you feel like it. O.K.?

Hey

I've just returned from Sweden and am full of impressions, four different languages, informations ...and am too tired to say anything else. Just to let you know, and to kick this conversation a bit forward in my rows of conversations.

tartaronne

Good morning Mrs. Tartaronne. thanks for your last message. You are back home from Sweden where you had a busy agenda during the seminar and the meetings you attended there. you said that you used four languages for communication at those meetings. What are those 4 languages?. Second so far you have not told me enough about your job as a freelance journalist. What do you do exactly? and what Danish and foreign newspapers and magazines do you work for? And for how long have you been working as a journalist? What did you study at university? and what diplomas did you get when you graduated? And what are your children's names and how old are they? And what do they do? What about introducing them to my kids and build a friendship between the two sides because I believe they may the same age. And where do you live in Denmark? And what's your husband's job? I am afraid, I may seem a bit curious, but I'd like to know more about you Mrs. Tartaronne. And I am ready to answer any of your questions about myself, my family and my job. I hope to hear from you very soon . Bye-bye now. Take care.

Yours,
abdourabbih from Casablanca, MOROCCO, North Africa.

I'll take it from the top, then

The four languages were Danish, Swedish, Norvegian and English - mainly for the benefit of the Finnish participants - their language is from a complete different linguistic stem than the other Scandinavian languages. Most Finns do understand Swedish but have a hard time following Danish. In addition we had guests from Iceland, Serbia and Ukraine - the first understood the mix of Scandinavian languages - the two latter only English.

I mostly write for Union Magazines, Danish, about working with children, youth and adult peoples - disabled either socially, physically or psychologically. Unions for specialised pedagogues. And social politics. Sometimes I work for a local radio station or the nationwide. I don't work for daily Newspapers. They pay poorly. Right now I'm creating a web page for an institutionen for children, youths and adults with thos handicaps described above.

I've been working as a journalist for 33 years. At that time the education for becoming a journalist was at a special school. Now there are three educations - two of them at two different universities and the third still at the Highschools of Journalism. So that is my degree - journalist.

I will not reveil names on this page. I have a daughter 33, my husband has a son 30, and together we have a daughter, 19 and a son, 17. All in all we have three grandchildren - 4½, 4, 3½ .

I will not get enay further in the answers but will return. I have to write an article about being on the road with a band of guys with mental handicaps.

See you

Morning, Mrs. tartaronne!
Nice to hear from you. thanks for teling me more about your activities as a journalist as well as about your family members and your background. I am very glad that our friendship is getting stronger and stronger as the time goes by. Don't you think so?
I fully agree with you when you refused to reveal names on the Internet pages. Nobody does and I personally don't, either.
Now few more questions, Mrs. Tartaronne: What languages do you use when you send in your contributions to Danish newspapers? Have you ever contributed to articles published by some outstanding British or US newspapers such as The Times? the Newyork Times or the Whashington Post? What European countries have you been to? And how often do you have to go abroad? And when you do is it on business or on holiday? Have you ever been to any Arab or African country? What does your husband do? And how old is he? Is he a BBC h2g2 member too? if so could I have his personal e-mail as well as his space page? Thank you very much for answering all my questions and do not hesitate to ask any question if you want to know more about me, my family members, my job or my country, MOROCCO. By the way could you please answer the following questions without looking at the World Atlas or any reference books:
Q: what's the nearest European country to Morocco?
Q: what's the European country which colonised Morocco from 1912 to 1956?

Answers to your questions - without looking:

The nearest European country to Morocco - in distance you mean. Three possibles - Spain (Gibraltar), France and Italy (Sicily).

Spain (Gibraltar - is that British?) is very close to Africa. So Gibraltar is my guess.

France occupied Morocco, and the OAS did terrible things to the people there.