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

I'm having great fun with the Flea Market Rescue I took on about waterparks. I thought I'd do it because I went to one of the waterparks 12 or more years ago – but of course going somewhere once over a decade ago (and unlikely to go again as it isn't nearby) doesn't make me an expert, but if I don't try, chances are no-one else will.
With Bond, there's a new car to write about in the Car entry – which will probably only be a paragraph, but a new table section for the film 'Spectre' in the Ultimate Guide. So does adding 1/28th more to an entry mean it needs to go through the Update procedure?
With the Leeds entry I have thought about adding a paragraph on where the city's Parkruns are located. I had thought about doing a Parkrun entry, but I've not done as many as Beatrice so had hoped to collaborate with her, although I've not seen her for a while.

I hope you get an answer soon so you know where you're going and what you're doing… I know that with the on-road runs I've done they have road signs up advising of road closures for the month leading up to the event and the police have to be informed of what roads are affected for how long and where marshals are going to be located, but if it is an event that doesn't affect traffic…? I assume that the Parkrun doesn't close a main road? Is it a lane leading to a carpark or something, as otherwise I don't know how they'd be able to do so.

Enjoy it anyway! Nerves are all part of the fun (especially the 'desperate for the loo' feeling just before the start, I find...)

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Yeah, I tried with Facebook to try to persuade someone to sign up and rescue something, but it didn't do all that much so the likelihood of anyone else being interested in waterparks is rather low... Good luck with it, anyway

I think 1/28 of an Entry will probably be fine too, as it is the Editors who would add the section so it is checked before the Entry is updated

Ah, yes that is a shame that Beatrice hasn't been around for a long while... It is a good opportunity for a collaborative Entry as there are so many different parkruns around...

The parkrun does close the main road through the park, but I guess because there are numerous other roads around the park it isn't a big issue so the park rangers can manage it themselves. At least I know the sponsored walk starts at the Visitor's Centre, so there will be time for the loo before we set off The e-mail I received makes it sound suspiciously like they are making the route up as they go along, but we will see... I've made plans even if they haven't, so it will be fine

I'm just happy that you've done some rescuing of entries I've nudged out of the Alternative Writing Workshop – that makes it feel worthwhile. I've looked at over half the workshop now, I reckon. Still a few conversations hanging around the top of it that I'd like to know if anyone is happy to second one way or the other if you get a chance.

Looks like I'll have to watch the 'Spectre' DVD I got for my birthday at some point then so I can update those entries Sadly they don't seem to put many extras on DVDs anymore.

I hope to fit in a haircut between Parkrun and my son's birthday party tomorrow so I won't have sweaty hair during the run. It's a gentle t-shirt run tomorrow so I'm not too exhausted to do the 10k on Sunday.

I hope it all works out – if you arrive early you should have time to find out in advance what is going on At least you know where the start is and don't have to wander around the park trying to work out where you're supposed to be. Lying map!

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Thank you - yes, it is a worthwhile exercise to go through the Alternative Writing Workshop and make sure nothing was forgotten. We certainly have found some good things so far

Sorry to hear there aren't many extras on the Spectre DVD - I thought that was the whole point of extras, to persuade people to buy the DVD rather than watching a film on TV... I did discover there was no director's commentary on my Monsters Inc DVD, so your Pixar Entry was very helpful as I presume there were more extras on your copy...

I see you got a good time at the Parkrun even though you were taking it easy I hope all went well for you at the 10+2k

All was well for my run in the end, give or take a few niggles that luckily didn't matter because I wasn't on my own. They handed out the maps when we got there, and it was the case that we started in a group but just spread out as we all found our own paces. It turned out that we were crossing the road and walking 2/3 of the parkrun course as well as walking the Visitor's Centre side of the park. There were no road closures, so we had to be a bit careful of traffic but marshals were around to escort people if needed and there were pavements for most of the way (although dropped kerbs were lacking, so my mum had to help me with the steps).

Having seen the parkrun course now, I no longer envy you your exploits - I've got a certificate to say I've done 5k and I'm very happy with that... I admire your achievements immensely

I have excellent friends - I raised a good amount of money so my family is currently the second highest fundraiser, and we hope a few more people will sponsor us now we have completed the event

I hope you're not too stiff this morning - I am a bit, very conscious of my arm muscles, but I managed to get to my desk OK...

Happy International Day of Happiness!

Although apart from it being my son's birthday, at work it is not a day I would describe as being happy at all, alas… Very busy with lots of enquiries – the day's zoomed by as I'm dealing with six urgent problems or more at any one time, and no-one letting me answer one before I'm being bombarded with the next lot.

Alas these days you tend to get lots of extras on the Blu-Ray release of films to try and encourage you to buy the Blu-Ray rather than the DVD. Unfortunately we don't have a HDMI socket in our telly, so if we wanted to start buying Blu-Rays we'd need to buy both a Blu-Ray player and a new television too, which would make it a tad expensive. We do own one Blu-Ray, though, which you can see here: A87882952. That's because the 'Double Play' meant that you could get the film in both Blu-Ray and DVD in the same box. We had a few extras on the 'Monsters Inc' – can't remember what they were now, though – it was a fair few films ago… The making of the doors sequence stands out.

Well done on your run – I'm glad you found out where you were going and weren't expected to keep wandering around the park at random until you'd covered the correct distance! I hope there weren't too many steps! And well done on the sponsorship

I was very pleased with the 10k & 2k – despite not being able to do a parkrun in under 27 minutes since last summer I did the route in 53:03, which is under 4 minutes slower than my PB. It's a good indication of how my fitness is slowly improving since the start of the year, but will have to keep putting some miles in my legs before I am confident about the Half. Hopefully this will give me the confidence to break the 27 minute barrier at Parkrun this weekend! As for the 2k, my son did very well, confidently running off really fast while my daughter and I were nearer the back, but she was the fastest person to do the route while carrying a cuddly chicken.

I was watching a documentary about the 'Carry On' films at the weekend and one point was talking about Kenneth Williams and someone said how great he was to talk to because he always asked questions. I realised, I don't do that – I'm not really someone who asks the person I'm talking to a lot of questions in conversations. Thinking about it, though, I don't think the reason I do that is because I'm particularly self-absorbed (although probably am a little). Looking back I know that among the times I've felt most uncomfortable is when I've felt interrogated by people, including family and friends, who have kept asking questions I didn't want to answer. I know I don't want to make people feel that way when I talk to them, or feel like I'm a nosy or prying person, so I don't ask questions. I believe that if someone wanted me to know something, they'll tell me in their own time when it arises naturally in conversation, but now I worry that I come across as disinterested. Oh well – I'll just have to get used to the fact that no matter what I do, I feel socially awkward and worry that I'm inadvertently insensitive or doing the wrong thing.

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I have written lots in reply to your message, so I shall answer your last paragraph first...

I understand the 'art of conversation' a bit, I think. If we have an introvert and an extrovert talking, the conversation goes like this:

Extrovert: Hello - how are you?

Introvert: Fine thanks - how are you?

E: I'm a bit tired as I've just returned from holiday

I: Oh yes?

E: Yes, I went to [place] and it was really good and [5 mins detail] and we flew back two days ago.

I: So the journey was smooth?

E: Yes, we set off from [5 mins detail] and returned [5 mins detail]. I'll have to go now as I'm doing [task].

I: Glad you had a good time. Bye for now.

The introvert asks questions, but it isn't interrogation, it is just asking questions that respond to points in the conversation so that the extrovert keeps talking. The extrovert thus enjoys the conversation.

Introverts talking is different in my experience - can be a bit awkward to get going, but if each person asks a responsive question to keep the conversation flowing and contributes comments that aren't too long (so as not to dominate the conversation) then it is a good game of ping pong and each person takes an interest in the other person.

You definitely don't come across as disinterested to me - you are very interested in the conversation, to the extent that you become nervous about it sometimes, and I can sympathise with that... Resorting to interrogation isn't the solution, though, I completely agree (I've experienced some of that from family and friends, but thankfully not too much). I enjoy our conversations - especially your sense of humour

One of my honorary sisters in law pretends to be an extrovert, so takes that role in the conversation, while the other does have a tendency to ask rather bold questions to start the conversation going, which can feel a bit like interrogation, but I know it isn't meant to be, so it works out fine. I hope you were OK.

Happy belated International Day of Happiness!

Yes it has been a long week so far... I hope you managed to manage all the queries in the end - I can sympathise totally... Mine wasn't the happiest of happiness days yesterday, but not too bad as I did go out in the evening, met some nice people, and did a quick run too

Ah, I see... I haven't paid much attention to Blu Rays as I only have a DVD player. I watched a Blu Ray at Christmas on my dad's tv, though, and the sound quality was terrible so it wasn't a great advert for Blu Rays, extras or not...

I tracked my run on Endomondo, and worked out that I actually did 5.5k! There must have been more wandering around than I thought, but at least I felt vaguely like I knew where I was supposed to be, unlike you at the parkrun where the map was completely misleading...

Yes, I'm very pleased with how we're doing for sponsorship - interestingly, I got no sponsorship from people I've known for more than 20 years (apart from my dad), but the people I've known for 10 years or less were amazingly generous Mum's friends who are not on Facebook have been generous too

You did get an excellent time for the 10k Glad your children enjoyed their run too - your son looked like he was really enjoying running fast, and fastest person with a cuddly chicken is a great result too

I often worry about conversations. The thing I probably worry about most is feeling I'm excluding people. As my children are still quite young, they aren't able to sit down and talk without getting bored and disruptive, so if I want to talk to someone I have to do so without them around, which means that my wife has to stay behind to look after them. I know sometimes she feels as if she's being excluded because of this, but if she and the children came along I wouldn't get to have as enjoyable a conversation with who I'm talking to as my priority would be ensuring the children are staying well-behaved and safe. So this means that apart from the friends we have who also have children, we're developing separate social circles as when she's with her friends, I'm at home with the kids and vice versa.

I enjoy talking to you as, among other things, its quite rare for me to find someone who shares a similar sense of humour.

Still loads of Options queries – this week the students have been choosing what options they want to do next year, and I'm the only one who is able to ensure the right option choices are attached to the right courses, with 218 courses going through the process – and it didn't work right on Monday morning. So I'm still being a bit bombarded by students and academics alike, but hopefully the missed off choices have been sorted out now and the system is up and running. Have I mentioned that the computer system we have here can't cope with heavy traffic, so whenever lots of people try to use it at the same time it completely crashes?

Well done on doing an extra .5K more than you were expecting! Is Endomondo a phone tracking app thing? Hearing about your sponsoring patterns makes me wonder: did you do a big, financially draining sponsorship thing 20+ years ago that the people you've known for a long time haven't recovered from?

I've just had an unbelievably daft/bad idea about my current Flea Market rescue entry on 'Waterworld' so I'll see if that works out. In the meantime I discovered yesterday that the water at Waterworld is kept at a steady 30 degrees, but also I spotted that my Pritt Stick on my desk has a Wash at 30 degrees symbol on it – so can I take my Pritt Stick swimming there? (It also says '90% Renewable Ingredients, although I'm not sure how to renew 90% of the glue after I've used it.)

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Yes, it is easier with just two people to concentrate on a conversation and have a proper catch up. Nice to do things in groups, like the h2g2 London meet the other year, but it is different....

Endomondo is something z uses on facebook, so I thought I'd give it a go - I did have to carry my tablet computer with me, as my mobile can't cope with that, but it was ok.

The sponsoring pattern is either because my schoolfriends weren't that friendly anyway so they aren't keen on donating money on my behalf, or that facebook has sorted it so that my schoolfriends are not troubled by the things I post... I suspect a combination of both factors...

Much more refreshing these days that I have friends that I have more in common with, such as yourself - sense of humour is important

Sorry to hear you had a tough week last week - I hope this week goes more smoothly for you...

I look forward to reading about Waterworld I like your musings about the Pritt Stick and Tippex! it would be good if 90% of the stick renewed itself, but I don't know how to do that either...

Ah yes, meeting in London. That reminds me – I was going to ask if you wanted to meet somewhere beginning with 'H' next time, as we've met in Southampton, London, Eastleigh and Fareham and if we meet somewhere called 'H' the initials will be an anagram of either 'Flesh' or 'Shelf'.

Ah yes – school friends on Facebook. Generally the people I was friends with at school I've stayed friends with regardless of Facebook, and everyone else wasn't really very friendly. I'm often tempted to cull the number of Facebook friends I have to keep it just to people I actually consider active friends, rather than people I met 20 years ago and haven't really been in contact with since. Especially as I sometimes feel that to some people, I'm just an extra number in a popularity contest.

Still looks like a busy week – especially as it is the end of the year lots of people who have holiday left to take are having time off, so it is just me trying to make sure everything's working. Still, I had a very good weekend seeing family who visited for my son's birthday, and I had a very pleasing parkrun, finally smashing the 27 minute barrier. Although I've since found a website I'd previously never heard of that has listed lots of my runs on to an almost stalking extent. It doesn't have everything I've ever run, but it has an awful lot. It has a nice graph showing the decline and fall of my running ability too:
http://www.runbritainrankings.com/runners/profile.aspx?athleteid=711205

Waterworld's not quite ready yet – still got to read up on Alton Towers as well as put my cunning plan into action. As I've said before, this plan is a really, really bad idea that has absolutely no merit to it whatsoever and an infinity number of reasons why it should be avoided at all costs – so naturally I can't resist proceeding.

Oh – and the ballot result's in: 88% of UNISON staff here have No Confidence in the VC. We're awaiting the result of the UCU ballot.

I hope you had a good weekend – did you manage to get out and about?

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So we've already made SELF meetings! *ponders places beginning with H between here and there...* - there's a couple in here A87878236 !

Have you gathered many friends on Facebook? I've got about 100 - I'm an extra number in some people's popularity contests myself but I've got things compartmentalised so it doesn't bother me too much. The people I was friends with at school are now friends with me only thanks to facebook, which makes me feel a bit sad, but I'm happy to have encountered a good number of people since I left education who I'm friends with regardless of facebook

Good luck with it all - I'm on the helpdesk myself this week while the team is out and about. There have been some computer glitches this morning, but nothing that was expected, unlike yours is every time there is high demand, so everything is just about OK so far...

I enjoy looking at your parkrun page, so I saw you'd had a great run this week but it's not quite as stalkerish as that website... Reminds me of the time I got an e-mail from zoominfo and found it contained more details about my career than I was aware existed...

Glad you had a good weekend. We did too - Mother's Day was busier than expected (so mum said, "Told you so" when we couldn't even get into a cafe that didn't need tables booking... ) but we went to A87875987 (again) and had a good time as the weather was very pleasant

Somehow I seem to have got to 180 friends on Facebook, and I'm not entirely sure how as I never tried to. Some are members of the running club, a lot of people are either my wife's relatives and friends as well as their partners so I feel I have to be friends with them even if I've only ever met them once or twice as otherwise it could be interpreted as an insult.

I don't mind Parkrun having my Parkrun details as, after all, I'm doing a Parkun. If I didn't do any Parkruns the Parkrun website would have nothing on me. But for a website I was unaware of to have so much information – things even I hadn't been told, such as the lap times I did for the Endure 24 last year – would seem a bit intrusive if it wasn't for the fact that I can't think of any possible use or interest anyone would have in the time it took me to run round a field at 3am in the morning last summer.

I'm glad you had a good time at the wetlands. We didn't go out for a meal on Sunday in the end as we'd tried booking earlier in the week and everywhere was busy. So we stayed at home and had breakfast with my wife's parents and a meal with my Dad and stepmum.

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That is an impressive number to have gathered. That's true that it is easy to become friends of friends - as well as my schoolfriends, I am 'friends' with a number of my sister's schoolfriends because they recognise me from having visited our house (and vice versa too).

That is also impressive that the website knew some of your lap times even though you didn't Just shows what gets online these days...

Sounds like a good plan to have breakfast and dinner at home - even when my family did manage to book a meal last year it was a set menu that wasn't that great, so the home cooking this year was far superior

I had another look at that running website and am pleased to see it now has a blip up at the end following Saturday's Parkrun. I've still no idea what SSS and vSSS mean, though

Still, it means I'm able to compare my actual Endure 24 times with my previous guesses. According to entry I wrote on Endure 24, I speculated that my lap times were:
42-minutes
44 minutes
Over 1 hour
Under 2 hours
70 minutes

When I now know that they were:
44:13
50:09
62:44
1:53:10
67:32
So not too far out guesses.

I just realised that Saturday will be the perfect opportunity to have my terrible plan in practice, so I'd better get started on it.

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Good guesses indeed.

That website is amazingly detailed... I see 'the "SSS" is our measure of the course difficulty and weather conditions on the day'

I enjoyed your terrible plan indeed! Saturday 1 April was perfect for it

I hope you've had a good week - mine has been rather epic (it's all or nothing round here...) but I am looking forward to the weekend of catching up with h2g2 and will probably see my sister too. I hope you have a good weekend

Ah yes – my cunning plan was indeed to put two entries with identical names in Peer Review at the same time on 1st April. Completely pointless and potentially very confusing, but even if both entries now sink like stones to the bottom of Peer Review I still think it was worth it. And no-one seems to have noticed that I'd only written half of the film review entry anyway…

A hectic week at work here too – especially as there's been no computer systems for most of it (Tuesday to Thursday). Still isn't working perfectly now and so the work's been piling up and no-one's been able to do it. One good thing is that my line manager's been away getting married for the last three weeks, so I've not been micro-managed and been able to get on and do stuff, but she's back on Monday. Don't get me wrong as she's a really, really lovely person – but she does micro-manage that slows everything down so nothing gets done.

I'm on a half week next week and will be off for a week over Easter!

Have a great weekend too!

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No, I didn't notice Waterworld was only half written!

That is coincidental... Must be one of those weeks - our computer system was off for two days... Two people were off sick too, so I was able to cover for them but today was an avalanche of backlog... Sounds like our micromanagers are related as that was my exact experience last month! I hope you don't have to take a punishment for doing stuff too quickly, though...

I hope the weather's as nice for you over Easter as it is this evening - very pleasant indeed

I've probably gone and made 'Waterworld' a lot more long-winded than it originally was. It was quite fun to write. Most films are intended to be successful and are to a greater or lesser extent, the films where they try hard to make something good and it all goes wrong are actually quite entertaining.

Yep, the last couple of weeks have been very hectic as we've been in charge of setting up the options students can take next year, at the same time the Uni's told course leaders to dramatically reduce the number of options that are running, so some confusion and contradictions have come of that. There have also been newspaper articles printed that chances are no-one would have read if the VC hadn't issued a statement stating that everything the Daily Echo has printed is a lie.

We had a very good weekend. Saturday was the first day of the Easter holidays and was a really warm sunny April day – so we went to Legoland as our passes expire on the 16th. Of course being the first day of the Easter holidays and very warm to boot, it was much quieter than the cold March day last month when we went and we actually got on 6 different rides! Six! It must be a record! We'll miss the place until we can go again.

On Sunday morning I had quite a laugh with ELIZA as you know, and in the afternoon we went to the cinema to see 'Beauty and the Beast'. I still think 'Beast' would have been a better title and it was a very enjoyable film with a disappointing ending as the handsome Beast once again becomes a generic prince

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Yes, it is fascinating when someone tries too hard to make something good, and can make something bad, or something so bad it's good...

I hope all the turmoil is not disrupting you too much. Interesting about the articles - our local newspaper is a good one for strongly 'holding organisations to account' so there are sometimes clashes, but not quite that spectacular...

Glad you managed to squeeze in another Legoland visit Sounds much more pleasant indeed with good weather and not too busy - strange that it was like that on the first day of the holidays, but great that you got to take advantage of it

Thank you for finding time for our bot chat - definitely 10000% more fun than when I just got cleverbot to talk to another cleverbot by myself

Glad you enjoyed Beauty and the Beast mostly. I'm not sure about these live action remakes, but it is fascinating that the ending is still the handsome Beast being transformed into a generic prince...

Have a good Easter

The VC has been blaming the unions for spreading lies in the media while the unions have all along stated that their position is that they hope to begin negotiations and will not involve the press at this time. Of course, when thousands of members of staff are afraid they'll lose their jobs something will filter to the local newspaper. Not that I trust the Daily Echo - a few years ago they were very much in favour of selling off Southampton Art Gallery's collection.

Yes, we did have a very enjoyable Legoland day, and I'm looking forward to going there again hopefully next year. Still this week I'm off work and at the inlaws, although we're being quite spontaneous and not got things planned (other than my wanting to do a Parkrun on Saturday - hopefully if it is really nice weather we might even be able to go to Fountains Abbey!) We're even considering heading to your neck of the woods and visit Chester Zoo. I've been advised that if we do go, to go to the boat ride first thing as that gets very busy later.

I've no ELIZA here, but yes, that was good fun. It was great that they just didn't seem to get on at all.

Disney are definitely going overboard with remakes at the moment, which is a shame especially as the quality of their animated films is high once again. I suppose we should be thankful that they are trying to make good quality remakes rather than when they were churning out direct-to-video sequels to classic animated films.
Did you see the George RR Martin television series of 'Beauty and the Beast' back in the 80s/90s? Typically he killed Beauty off...

I've got to the end of the AWW! If you get a chance to look at the entries I've bumped to the top up to and including WH Auden, that would be appreciated and then I'll be able to write an issue of SuperMarket.

Hope you have a great Easter too and have enjoyable time off.

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