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

I'm back online now, hurray! It turned out to be a bit more complicated than a replacement cable, unfortunately, as we bought a new cable easily enough, but then when we plugged it into the BT Openreach ONT on the wall, the box's inners disintegrated. So I had to phone Now TV who are our current internet provider and they asked various security questions, like 'can you confirm the amount paid on your last bill?' which, being online, I didn't have access to...
So we've had a good few days with no internet meaning no television (as we have no terrestrial reception), no BBC Sounds, no webpages etc. And no Photoshop! It checks online that you have a valid licence to use before allowing you to do anything. And I had no mobile data at all, having used it all when going to the Paul McCartney concert.

Have you had the training rescheduled for the New Year, and have a replacement lunch too? Sorry your plans didn't quite work out.

The big news from me is that the Paul McCartney concert was FANTASTIC!
My son and I left early that day to have a look around the Natural History Museum first before going to the concert. The concert itself lasted about 3 hours and involved 37 songs, starting later than I expected and finishing much later than I'd planned. (I've made a concert spreadsheet, naturally). When I bought the tickets as soon as they came out, I never twigged 'that's the last date of Paul's tour, it might mean special guests'. I just thought, 'He's performing in London on Wednesday and Thursday, my son has college on Wednesdays so we'll go on Thursday when he doesn't.' So all the people who bought tickets for the day before when he played at the same venue for the same price but without the added guest appearances must subsequently be devastated!
So, halfway through the show Paul said, 'I have a surprise for you - a special guest. It's Ronnie Wood!' and I must admit my first thought was, 'Oh - I'd hoped it'd be Ringo. But still, Ronnie Wood - he's a Face and a Rolling Stone, so that's still good.' Then Paul revealed that he was going to play with his long-lost original 1961 Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass for the first time on stage since it was stolen in 1972. Now that was a real treat.
They also used the MAL software to isolate John's performance from the Get Back concert to allow him to duet with Paul in a performance of 'I've Got a Feeling' (a song comprising two songs, one that Paul wrote and one that John wrote put together.) as well as a live performance of 'Now and Then'.
And then right at the end of the performance, during the encore, RINGO CAME ON STAGE to perform two Beatles songs. So that is absolutley, definitely 100% something ticked off the bucket list - I definitely have seen Paul and Ringo performing songs live, with Ringo playing drums. I do feel sorry for Paul's regular drummer Abe, who must have felt very overshadowed and redundant. His band have been the same since 2002, so I have now seen them three times. It includes Douglas Adams' close friend Paul 'Wix' Wickens on keyboards (sadly I couldn't get a good photo of him as he was furthest away from me and in black) - he has performed with Paul McCartney since the late 1980s and did the music for the later series of 'The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy'), Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray* on guitars, and Abe Laboriel Jr on drums.

The only downside was that the concert did last longer than expected, which meant that by the time we returned to Waterloo we missed the 11:30pm last train home, with the next train at 5:30am. Which led to another issue in which my son and I went to three different hotels near Waterloo, which actually had vacancies, but discovered that because we arrived after midnight, there was no way that we were able to hire a room as this could only be done via the app, and the app could only book for the forthcoming night that would start in 20 hours, not the night that we were actually in the middle of, and that staff had no way of giving me a keycard that would work in any room tonight.
During the 6 hour wait for the next train I must admit I ended up using up all my mobile data, so that by the time we got home I had no mobile data left.

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* Not to be confused with Brian May.

Hurray! Great to see you online again That was a saga about the box disintegrating... Typical, too, about needing the internet to get the internet - like when there's a power cut and you need to turn a light on to see how to fix the fuse box to turn the lights back on. Strange indeed what does and doesn't need the internet these days - that is annoying that you can't just use photoshop on your computer because of the licences. Does show how we rely on the internet, too - I go on iPlayer daily (not to mention h2g2), and BBC Sounds etc regularly, and I've now got the internet landline, too, so internet is almost as important as electricity.

Yes, it was a funny few days all round, but I got confirmation today that the account has now been activated so the training is scheduled for January Hopefully we can have a lunch in January, too, as that will be good

Oh wow, that's amazing that the concert was better than you could have dared imagine Already good for you to see the band, and the long lost guitar, and then excellent that John's voice was able to feature. Fantastic that Ringo and Paul got to play together, too

Shocking about the hotels not being able to book rooms after midnight, though - just goes to show reliance on technology can cause problems as well as opportunities... I can imagine they were 6 long hours waiting for the train, but you couldn't have missed that concert, so it was worth the effort. Disappointing that they weren't able to help everyone plan ahead - if you had been able to book something online at 11.59pm or earlier, that would have been more pleasant, but I suppose they couldn't be sure that would be necessary.

I hope you all have a good Christmas I'm bringing my devices to my parents' house this time, so hope to get online for a bit at some point

You're right that I had the choice:
Catch the train, but miss Paul and Ringo perform together, or
Catch Paul and Ringo perform together, but miss the train.
I chose the former and have no regrets whatsoever, and didn't at any time during the night following it either.
In many ways it felt that all my Christmasses came at once that day.
I put some photos and even some videos of the concert on - I did some videos on my phone, some on my SLR and the Ringo performance was captured both by my SLR and my son's phone, so there is a variety in quality. (I also had wondered where to best store the videos as the file size was too much for the laptop and making it impossible to use Photoshop with it giving clear cache errors and refusing to do even the simplest tasks.
This way I can share them with friends (not sure how many friends would want to watch them as there almost certainly is better-quality videos available on YouBend) and, more importantly, have them available for me without my laptop completely clogging up.

Anyway, hope you have a fantastic Christmas tomorrow. I won't wish you a Happy New Year - not 'cos I don't wish you one, which I do, but because I expect to liaise with you before then

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It's that time again when I'm starting assembling a , so I thought I'd share this with you:

A comic strip of a person pointing an object
A cartoon of a person talking to a doctor
A cartoon of people in a lab
A comic strip of a person talking to a building
A comic strip of a person and person talking to a printer
A comic strip of a mouse
A cartoon of a classroom
A comic strip of a person on a bicycle
A comic strip of a person and a bear
A cartoon of a pregnant person and a person
A cartoon of a mouse in a kitchen
A comic strip of a person using a computer
A comic strip of a student shop
A cartoon of a mouse and a christmas tree
A cartoon of a bear and a bear by a window
A comic strip of a person and a dog
A cartoon of a bear and a bird
A cartoon of a bear and a dog
A cartoon of a person holding a baton

As far as I can tell, the same character is variously described as a 'person', 'mouse', 'bear', 'dog' and even 'bird'
Obviously my drawing is getting worse...
(There is the usual inability to count, of course).

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I had a quick look at fb today and saw your video album - I look forward to exploring the footage on my home computer That is excellent that you can store them online for yourself and for friends who are interested to see what you saw

I hope you all had a good Christmas, too - we did. I got lots of useful goodies that will keep me going during the year, and we enjoyed our usual team effort Christmas dinner. Quite foggy weather, but pleasant for my Christmas Day walk. The Boxing Day Morris Dancing was excellent - as well as some traditional dances, they did a Mummers Play featuring a cat, which was fun, and also did a sword dance (my favourite)

Yesterday I picked up some Christmas cards in the sale - the garden centre shelves were surprisingly bare so I was lucky to find some good cards (people must have arrived very early to buy so much stuff before we arrived). I went food shopping today for a few bits and pieces, and it wasn’t very busy, but I did meet several members of staff who I recognised, so it was good to say hello.

Today I cooked A88059009 and it turned out rather well - tasted quite close to how my dad used to cook it

Glad you are making progress with but that is very strange about a person being described as a bear and a bird Intriguing - I look forward to seeing it in due course

I should have said a huge thank you for the for my children - very thoughtful which I am sure they will appreciate, so thank you once again.

Glad you've had a good Christmas and Boxing Day, with walks, Mummers and Morris Dancing. And tasty treats to eat too

Talking of the - as well as the pdf issues (the uni has removed Adobe from work laptops, annoyingly ) did I send you the "missing" pages from the last work one? The original "Loonyversity Strikes Back" was 50 pages long, but for the public version I took out 14 pages and added 4 more to make a 40-page version, did you ever see those four pages?

Yesterday the Toby Carvery round the corner from our house burnt down, which was a shock. I liked that Toby Carvery and indeed went there for my birthday last year, so I'm hoping they'll reopen it.
Today I went for a with my friend Chris - I'll send you the route on

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Glad the card and contents arrived safely Your usual to me will be on its way to you in the new year with some treats

That is annoying about Adobe - I find it exceedingly useful for work, as pdfs are so common. . . Now you mention it , I haven’t seen those 4 pages, no

That is a shock about the fire - hopefully the carvery can reopen soonish indeed There was a fire in a venue on the Wirral a few years ago, and that has not yet reopened as far as I am aware, but there were potentially some suspicious circumstances around insurance or planning permission so that will have delayed things.

Glad you have been able to get out and about running over the festive season

2024 was a bit of a strange year, one way and another, with illness and weather and suchlike, but the highlight was definitely going to Titchfield Abbey - my relative didn’t think we could do it, but we even got there and back with the unnecessary bike and coat, so that was an achievement indeed, not to mention setting a record for my step count Great to learn about the Yellow Car Game, too - ongoing fun

Best wishes to you and your family for the New Year

Happy New Year! If you celebrated, hope it all went well. We didn't really do much, but I started the year with a very wet and muddy parkrun this morning...
Who knows what the year ahead will hold?

I've sent you the missing pages on , but of course they ended up posted in the wrong order . So the first page starts with opening dialogue, 'I would like to welcome' followed by 'I would like to assure' and then 'I've found you' with 'Neil! Thank goodness' the last page to read. These pages won't be in the next .

Do you remember my saying last year that I had an idea for a Christmas story set in heaven? I still can't remember what that was, but this year I had a similar idea and I actually have started drawing it this time. It'll be a short, maybe about 10-page story and not too complicated and I'm having fun doodling it.

Back to work tomorrow - can you remind me what I do?

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Happy New Year to you, too! My family and I had a good evening - we went to bed early as usual, but played card games (UNO variations) before then, so that was pleasant Glad you managed to get round parkrun OK - it certainly was wet overnight on 31st/1st...

Thank you for the images - the run was fun to see! Good to see the extra 4 pages, too - I particularly enjoyed the VC's reaction to the unisex toilet Excellent silhouette artwork. Glad your doodling is going well, even though it isn't exactly the original story idea

showed me one of your Paul McCartney videos - superb spectacle, with all the special effects Glad you had a good view of the stage from your seat - wheelchair spaces are generally lower down, so give a different view. I look forward to finding more of your videos Excellent to see photos of the Mediaeval Baebes at their concert, too

Coincidentally I saw you had taken a photo of a Bah Humbug hat, then I read John Finnemore's latest newsletter and he mentioned a Bah Humbug hat. This builds on the coincidence of John Finnemore mentioning Northanger Abbey in his newsletter just as I was writing about Northanger Abbey (I joined his spendy squad so I could comment about the coincidence, and he replied ).

Back to work for me as well - I put notes in my calendar to remind me what I do, but most of it I do tomorrow anyway I hope you managed to find something/someone to remind you what your current job is

Ah, the classic that is Uno. I played Uno yesterday - we got another new version for Christmas. I still prefer the classic one, and my least favourite is Uno Flip as the other colours are very confusing...

Glad you enjoyed seeing the stuff I bombarded you with on . The unisex toilet page hopefully came across as a bit threatening with the silhouette, and possibly a cliffhanger leading to the next work-themed . It is a bit bittersweet for me, as all the names listed on the page are people who I worked with until the summer, when they were pushed out.

Ah yes, the Bah Humbug hat was on top of my step-grandad, who was my grandmother's second husband but they married before I was born, so I grew up effectively with three granddads. He's my last surviving grandparent, though he isn't related by blood. He's still on the Island, living in Binstead, though his health and eyesight are both declining.

Glad to hear that you've had a response from John Finnemore - that sounds like meeting a hero.

Today at work I've had the challenge of trying to get Adobe - particularly Acrobat - working, which with the aid of two members of the IT team managed to figure out that my laptop thought that it was working offline when in fact it was online all along. So at about 3pm I finally got Acrobat back, hurray! Which of course means I've now turned my latest into a pdf and uploaded it to Lulu .
In other news, did I say that just after Christmas chewed through my keyboard wire, meaning I was forced to actually type on the laptop? Well, today I was browsing when it announced something useful: Visit Eastleigh were giving away old keyboards free! I thought, "I need a new keyboard, and I don't really want to buy one if it'll get chewed again" so went along and managed to pick up a useful keyboard so I can type in comfort once more. It is a bit clunky, but it has "Play" &c buttons that are handy when listening to music, so I'm delighted.

Other than that, today's been quiet. Most people take today and tomorrow off so there wasn't much work, and what I'd intended to do I couldn't do without Adobe anyway, so I can get back on it tomorrow.

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We got another new version of Uno for Christmas, too (No Mercy) but the gameplay was strange - one player was out after 5 minutes, but the game carried on for 25 more minutes until I was out and then the remaining two players worked together to finish it (while the other player was doing the washing up, tidying, etc) otherwise the game would have carried on even longer. Uno Flip colours are tricky indeed, and the games can be variable in length, but it is clever how gameplay is influenced by being able to see both sides of other people's cards at various times. Uno Flex was another one we had a few games of - much clearer colour-wise, but complicated with options for what people could and couldn't do. It would be good if the Uno Flip cards could have the colour symbols on them like the Uno Flex cards have (and it would also be good if the small numbers could be in all four corners to allow for left-handed fan-holds as well as right-handed).

Congratulations on getting Adobe back Strange how tricky that is - I must admit I had trouble a couple of months ago where it said the licence had expired, and the IT team had to do some sort of update to enable it to recognise my login. That is extra strange about online/offline, but glad it was sorted eventually. I can imagine it is bittersweet about the 4 pages - a lovely tribute to your colleagues, but a sad reminder of the way they were pushed out.

Also good news about giving an old keyboard a new home after ate your other one. That is handy about the music keyboard buttons Yes, quite quiet here again today, but I managed to get something done (even though some other stuff has been pushed to Monday's tomorrow because of relevant people still being out of office).

A good task I did do today was setting up my bird list and photo album Not the most fruitful garden birdwatching I've done, but not bad to be on 16 species after 3 days. The weather forecast for the weekend is not good, but it might just be 'lovely weather for ducks' I hope you all have a good weekend, and I hope parkrun isn't too muddy

Devastating news here - our Milo is missing, and he'd never been outside before.

On Friday night without warning he dashed outside and disappeared in the dark, and we've not been able to find him since. Which considering he's never been outside before and the weather has been cold, wet and sleeting since is definitely worrying. When our other cats were young, they were very nervous about being outside for the first time, never venturing further than the doorstep the first time, and Milo's a nervous cat around strangers. The only thing we can think of is that he is getting to that age where he is facing the urge to mate for the first time, so might have dashed out looking for a female cat.

We've put posters up on lampposts and in the pub and cafe noticeboards, walked up and down all the local roads and the playing field and I even waded along the river but no sign, and in this weather it will be hard for him to follow his scent home as I'm sure it would have been washed away. He is chipped, though, so if found and taken to a vet, we should be contacted.

I said I'd join the club with a spot of club tourism to Swindon's Seven Fields for parkrun, and they ran their B-course, which was all on paths rather than round the fields.

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All the best with the search - I saw the poster on Facebook, so hopefully someone will find soon

Glad you were able to do a non-muddy parkrun. Yesterday was difficult at the supermarket, as people were panic buying because of the weather forecast, so there were some empty shelves and the queues for the tills were like it was Christmas Eve. However, mum and I managed to get enough provisions so it was no problem, and we had a good chat with the checkout person while she was beeping the items. Not 'lovely weather for ducks' so Burton Mere was closed - no problem, though, as the snow was so deep I could hardly get out of my house, never mind get to the nature reserve. I went round to mum's house and helped with taking the decorations down instead, so it was a good afternoon.

It was one thing after another over the weekend, with my granddad being rushed to hospital on Sunday with problems breathing and not eating. Meanwhile we were doing everything we could think of to find Milo. We put up posters on lampposts and in the nearby pub and cafe, knocked on the doors of our neighbours, searched the roads and carparks calling his name several times, registered that he was missing with local vets, social media groups and a national database, contacted his microchip company, I slightly trespassed in the nearby field and even waded half a mile down the nearby River Barton, which is flowing fast with all the rain and in January was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, which is how deep it was too.
The last thing on the list, which I had planned to do this morning, was phone the council's environment agency to ask if they had had any reported cat deaths since Friday - as inexplicably when a cat dies, they don't check to scan the microchip and inform the owners (!)
But after 4am this morning I heard a hissing noise, which went on for about 10 minutes. I assumed that Calico was hissing at Ollie, as both had been outside our room when I went to bed, and when I opened my eyes I saw a Calico-like shape in the dark, only for Calico to walk in. I thought "Two Calicos....?" knowing it couldn't be our older cats as they have very white faces, turned the light on and it was Milo back, as if he has not been away.

Despite desperately missing him all weekend, Calico doesn't recognise him at the moment. He must smell different somehow. She's hissing very strongly at him. Needless to say he is very much grounded, and back in time for them both to be neutered on Thursday. I suspect that his hormones kicked in and he was led away due to a mating instinct.

Also, grandad is much better, he has been discharged and given antibiotics for a lung infection, and he's eating again, so that's a relief.

We didn't have snow here, but it did sleet which made Milo being away all weekend worrying, as it wasn't the weather cats normally like being out in and I worried the sleet and rain might wash away the scent of where he'd travelled, making it harder for him to find his way home.

Well done on sorting the decorations, won't be too long before they're out again. Maybe our bin will have been emptied by then, too...

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Wow, that was an epic weekend for you - glad things settled down. The episode with was very educational, but you would rather not have needed to investigate things like the powers of the environment agency (I didn't know that, either) and national databases.

Amazing about finding his way home as if nothing had happened. Glad he is OK after being out in the cold. Strange about other not recognising him, but that makes sense about hormones and different scents from the outside world.

It was very wet here yesterday, with snow, then rain, hail and sleet - not doing the gutters any good, as we are trying to get them replaced, but what with leasehold delays and weather delays it is taking rather longer than hoped - should be possible within the next month or so

Yes, all the indoor decorations are tidied away, but the outdoor one (lovely winter wreath handmade by a family friend) will stay until Candlemas Hopefully your bins will be emptied before next Christmas indeed

Yes, a lovely, nice and uneventful day today - except I didn't want to check outside to see whether the bins have been emptied due to the weather.

I can go back to doodling my latest short-story, which contains the line, "I hear your carol covers Christmas from a seafood perspective?" so you can probably pick up the plot from that. (Your basic 'lead character wanders around for a bit meeting various people until the story ends' one.) I'm also enjoying putting absolutely no effort into the backgrounds whatsoever so I'm just doing people and dialogue. While sometimes I enjoy seeing how detailed I can make a background, other times it is a relief to just not bother.

Milo still is being hissed at by his sister. Apparently this is called Feline Non-Recognition Aggression and can last any time from hours to forever. I hope it wears off as they were so sweet being inseparable. It might be in part due to hormones so it may well settle down after they have been neutered tomorrow, but trips to the vets is likely to increase the aggression in the short term, as smelling of having had an operation is known to be a trigger for other cats who associate the smell with negative experiences.

Good luck with the gutters! Glad the winter wreath is surviving well.

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There was some more snow overnight, but not too bad for wheeling on, so I managed to go out for lunch and a bit of birdwatching for my birthday. Burton Mere was frozen solid, so it wasn't 'lovely weather for ducks'. Good variety of geese in a field, though, so my bird list is starting to fill up

Glad you're enjoying doodling and focusing on characters rather than backgrounds

I'd not heard of Feline Non-Recognition Aggression, but that does make sense about it being caused by hormones, so hopefully the operation will help My sister's two sibling kittens were OK - they had to wear padded collars for a while so they didn't disturb their wound, but they soon settled down - I hope the same is true for yours

Hope you've had a good birthday and enjoyed a spot of birdwatching regardless, even if it was only good weather for ice-skate wearing ducks.

I think I have the same problem as Charlotte Yonge in that I love creating characters, and they all have their own backgrounds and relationships with other characters in my head, but of course none of that should end up on the paper 'cos it is in my head and would otherwise overly complicate things. However I can say that the lead character is the one who was on pages 71-2 of 'The Nativities Are Restless' despite being first mentioned on page 6 of that book. So he's a character I always knew needed a story, but I didn't have one for him until now. Well I know I did briefly have an idea last Christmas, only to promptly forget what that story was, but I put him on a couple of Christmas pages last year to make up for that.

My scanner seems to have stopped working when I try to use the hp sauce scanning programme, saying there is an error communicating with the scanner, but sometimes it works if I import from the scanner in photoshop Hasn't worked today, though. I keep trying to keep cats away from it, but they seem to think of my desk as a play area...

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Yes, it was a good birthday and a good weekend - Burton Mere paths flooded on Saturday and froze on Sunday, so we didn't go back there, but had a very fruitful time at the beach instead - 9 species added to the list, including Sanderlings, small grey and white waders that I last saw in 2021

I also continued my inadvertent January tradition of taking a photo of Fort Perch Rock

Another thing I enjoyed at the weekend was watching some of the Eric Morecambe auction - quite similar to the Freddie Mercury auction, as it involved items from his house and many of the items fetched much higher prices than expected as people are still interested in him. Some people certainly think digital watches are a pretty neat idea http://hansonslive.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk/m/lot-details/index/catalog/601/lot/263258

Scanners are cousins of printers and have mysterious ways... Depending on which way I use mine, it can sometimes provide me with 10 1cm strips of an image instead of 1 10cm image. I'd not tried importing in Photoshop, but strange that that isn't working for you sometimes either Typical of cats, that they presumably have a good toybox to play with, but the non-toy computer items are more exciting

That is interesting about your visualisation of characters - great that you can use that to create new stories with existing people

Glad you had a good birthday and weekend, despite the floods and freeze. I had a delightfully uneventful weekend without drama; no missing kittens or hospitalised grandparents. I only went out the house once, and that was to parkrun. I actually had a good run, the ground was frozen so it was a solid surface to run on for once, even if rutted in places, and in fact I got what was my second-fastest time at Eastleigh for the last year, being only one second slower than my fastest time there in 2024, which I achieved last August. Still almost 11 minutes slower than my fastest time there ever, but still.

Ah yes, Eric Morecambe is definitely a timeless icon, although I do still very much think that the statue of him in Morecambe looks very lonely without Ernie Wise. Who thought it was a good idea to put up a statue of only half of the UK's most iconic double-act, who had been together from childhood to Morecambe's dying day?
I didn't realise there was an auction of his possessions. I obviously missed: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0k5kg6r Do you enjoy the drama of watching auctions now?

I managed to get the scanner working (through importing into Photoshop) eventually yesterday. I had to reset the computer twice before it admitted it was possible to communicate with the scanner, and then when it noticed it was there it worked perfectly.

In news, Calico didn't stay in her post-operation jacket for long, and fortunately she seems to be more accepting of Milo once more, being willing to eat next to him once more and when I left they were running round together. So hopefully the hissing phase is over, and maybe they'll be friends again? I hope so.

I did do some more doodling over the weekend, and realised I really am bad at drawing arms. It is just so difficult to know what to do with them. They just sort of flop off the shoulders in all directions.

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