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

You sound awfully busy... I guess that's how people fill their evenings when there's no college?

This is me having a break!

Weren't you popping through the USA in January? Was thinking about it because we're about to get over a warm spell, so if ever there was a good time to tour NYC it was last week.

I was vaguely thinking about going to see my brother in Florida, but it hasn't worked out. He said he'd be working six days a week anyway, so it's hardly worth it. He's taking a road trip up to NYC in the spring, and there's a minuscule chance of me making it over to see him then.

Still, it was a nice idea, with the benefit of hindsight and a time machine

Six days a week! They work you hard at Disney.

Which reminds me what I should be doing at the moment...

I work six days a week, and often seven through the summer! he is working hard, but it sounds like he's enjoying it. Can't wait until he gets home, though.

Why would he do that? I mean, is it a short-term job?

I like my two-days of downtime. Remind me not to work for Disney. Is he a mechE? Doing rollercoasters or something?

Oh, PS: are either of us waiting on the other at the moment, re Uni project?

Well, it's the land of the free and all that, isn't it? And he's young and free, and quite happy to flip burgers for a winter in the sun

I think you're mostly waiting for me - you had 1250-1450 to read, but I had a whole Entry to write. I'll get to it asap.

He's flipping burgers? I thought you said he was an engineer.

Am reading the last entry while waiting for a to help me with my ASP.NET programming.

No, he's just a *qualified* engineer. See, what you do in the UK is spend your formative years working really had and getting into debt to get a proper qualification. Once you've done that, you get to go and flip burgers. If you went straight from school to flipping burgers, people would presume you were motivated in some way, that you accepted that you were vocationally rather than academically gifted, and you wouldn't be trusted. Good burger flippers here have to be drop-outs.

>>Navarra ruled the mountains and foothills of the far north-east, and included the Basque country.
- not so elegant.


>>This kingdom was particularly interesting, because it included the coastal area of Cataluña, an outward-looking state that was superior to Aragon in many ways.
-And you're not going to mention a single one, I suppose.


>>It is often said that Portugal just managed to hang on to its independence while Cataluña did not.
- Is this necessary?


>>The Kingdom was edging its way to the fore, though it would prove to be its own worst enemy.
- Oooh...



>>The young kingdoms had a range of problems to face.
- Just wondering, can you write this paragraph and/or the next to come more from the contemporary point of view - meaning them? Rather than looking back and noting stuff.
If not this one, definitely the next.


>>On Alfonso's death, Castilla's powerful aristocracy supported his son Sancho's claims to the throne against his father's former wishes - Alfonso wanting the line to pass to the sons of his deceased eldest son, Ferdinand de la Cerda - and a succession crisis began. Sancho executed many of his opponents, and the situation turned critical when his uncle Juan invited a north African tribe, the Marinids, to invade Andalucía. One of the most famous stories in Spanish history came from this time, when Tarifa came under siege. The invaders threatened to kill the Castillian commander's son if he did not surrender, but Perez de Guzman replied with a typically Spanish response. He threw out his knife from the city walls and shouted 'Here is the knife to do it, but I will never surrender!' Eventually, the revolt was put down and the Marinids defeated at the battle of Rio Salado in 13402. <<
-Ditto for most of this. Take it like a reporter covering the events immediately after they happen, and see how it comes out.


>>the Jews were routinely blamed for economic crisis.
- crises?


>>The Castilians developed the ports of Sevilla and Cartagena, although they were not experts.
- experts?



>>even established a Catalan-speaking Duchy in Athens which lasted for 60 years!
- exclamation point necessary?



>>That was still a century away, though, and the lean period showed no signs of coming to an end. By 1500, the political map of Spain had changed very little; what had changed was the balance of power. Across Spain, weak kings had gradually ceded power to the aristocracy. Juan II, for example, ruled Castilla for almost 50 years between 1406 and 1454, but the actual power lay with his court favourite, a nobleman called Alvaro de Luna. The king simply signed anything his minister put in front of him, until Alvaro was accused of murdering the king's accountant and beheaded. You can make what you will of Juan's later pronouncement that he would rather have been 'born the son of a workman than the king of Castilla'.
- Are you getting bored? Repeat previous request about paragraphs.


Well you've left so many "hang in there cuz there's exciting bits coming" that you had best get them tied up in the next one pretty fast.
g'night.

I'm still missing something. Is he a dropout or a graduate who flips burgers?
We have a lot of those around here too. People graduate from college and their part time minimum wage job becomes full time with a minor raise to acknowledge the degree, and they begin to wonder why they paid all that money.

If you're *really* lucky, you can get a minimum wage job in the industry you trained for.

Great stuff, thanks very much!

Yes, he's a graduate burger-flipper. He did have jobs lined up here, but they were pretty dull and close to home, and he went for the excitement. If was Orlando or Chipping Sodbury, which would you choose? I mean, if you'd been in Chipping Sodbury since you were 10, obviously...

I can't blame him, really. Apart from the graduating bit, I did the same.

Nice catch there. Being from the East Coast, where cities have names like Brookline and Danbury, Chipping Sodbury sounds exotic. If I was from the West and lived in towns with names like Hell's Gulch, Kisser's Point, or Truth and Consequence, I might opt for Orlando. It's got to be pretty interesting working down there anyway.

Ready when you are, re entries.

Oh, poo. Sorry, I had a busy weekend. I will get to this asap...

I may not get the last one done before I go away I've got Bob's project finished, but still have Jordan's to complete, and it's a Post week next week. I've got a few notes sketched out, but nothing actually written as yet.

Maybe we could get the first ones to you asap, then if I do get time add F&I to the project over the next week? If I don't get time, I can put it through PR at a later date, but I'll be pushing you for time if I hang on much longer...

Oh, yeah, and I love the tag

You've got plenty on your plate, and I'm transitioning into a new university - how long you gonna be away? If more than a few weeks, then yeah, let's see if we can swing some sort of something whereby I get the project and you can add an Entry later. If less than 2.5 weeks, then let it wait.

...and yeah, I'm beginning to understand this Grump position. How did that Effers (is that bad language or some strange British nickname?) put it? I was being nitpicky about the facts? What's the world coming to? No idea, but let me tell you, if this keeps up it's going to the dogs. I don't want to be around when... etc etc.

Right, it's all clear now. I can't get anything written before I head off to The Gambia tomorrow night. I'll be there for two weeks, and given a week's grace on getting home to catch up on RL work, it could be a month before I have F&I written. I'm a bit annoyed with myself, because that Entry should have been the crowning glory, but I just haven't had time to get it done.

If you want to sub a history of early Spain, please just go ahead and ask for the rights to it. The alternative would be to hang on for the rest, but I have no idea when it would be complete, and I don't want you to be waiting for weeks for one final entry...