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

Hi

Goodness me, you must be a very fast reader. It takes me ages to read a book. I think that is because I read as if I'm reading out loud to someone else. When I was at school and the teacher had to leave the classroom, I had to read to the other children, and I still read like that. I go through all the actions. "He raised his left eye-brow" and I have to do it! Pathetic! I can't get out of the habit.

I've had rather too much of the Chilean red wine this evening and it's getting late. My friend has done the washing up and is doing a crossword.

Pity you don't like soccer, Rich, there's do much of it at the moment. I can take it or leave it myself, I don't really understand all the rules. There are so many nasty characters in football, aren't there? Notexactly gentlemen.

Hope you have a lovely week-end. Be seeing you.

Love

Hi

I'm quite shocked by Mike Reynolds's admission that he was 37 yrs old yesterday - that means I am 3 1/2 months OLDER than him! And he was born in the Year of the too! Kept it quiet, didn't he!

I know plenty of nice famous females who were also born the same year (1967):

Pamela Anderson
Julia Roberts
Carrie-Anne Moss (from the Matrix movies)
Anna Nicole Smith
Faith Hill (who sang "This Kiss")

I was going to invite that lovely bunch to a combined 40th birthday bash, sometime in 2007 - guess I'll have to invite Mike too!

Funny about my reading habits - quite often, when I'm reading a long novel (200,000 words) and I start hearing great songs on the radio, the part of my brain that enjoys reading will suddenly switch off, and I'll just be buying & listening to records in my spare time for several months. The worst case of this was in 1999 when I bought about 40 CDs and only finished 10 novels, even though I was buying & borrowing books all year long.

In case you're wondering, I do make a note of books I've read, and the date I finished them - I've been doing this since 1993. Last night, I saw that I'd just read 21 books in 31 days!

I made a word count of one of the thrillers I'm reading (just the number of words on an average-looking page times number of pages) and I discovered that it's 420 pages but probably only 95,000 words long, compared with the average science fiction or fantasy novel at 200,000 words!

I've got a theory that most adventure thrillers are designed to be read in seven hours - i.e. one hour a night. You buy the novel Saturday afternoon, finish it Friday bedtime, buy a new one the next day...

Hope Daniela wins the tennis!

Hi

I'm sorry Daniella didn't win at tennis. Has she got large feet???

It's funny about reading, I have long periods that I don't read books. Just newspapers and magazines. Then, suddenly, someone recommends a book and I'm off again.

There are times when I watch all the soaps and at the moment I don't watch any.

Perhaps we'll all much the same.

Watched Holland lose the footie this evening, it was a good match.

My friend has just come in, we're going to play cards!!!

See you again soon.

Hi

I couldn't find Daniela's shoe size on Google - big feet would probably be a disadvantage to a player's mobility around the court! And, of course, Daniela is a stick-thin blonde, whereas I prefer the larger brunette (such as the model Kelly Brook or Frida from ABBA).

Sorry to hear about your football team - are they out now?

Meanwhile, very definitely back IN: "Scott C_1"... On the Radio 2 board AND the Coffee Bar! I wonder if he has been allowed back by the moderators, or whether it's an illegal entry?

This Sunday morning in the library, the part-time library assistants are playing "The Joshua Tree" by U 2 - one of my favourites from the 1980s.

Quite a few brand-new paperbacks in the library this weekend, including one of those "Jack Reacher" thrillers by Lee Childs - "now with extra added violence"... Well, that isn't what it ACTUALLY says on the book cover, but that's the general impression that I get.

I'll probably borrow it, along with Wendy Holden's "Azur Like It" which seems to be like Evelyn Waugh but without Waugh's profound hatred for his characters and his readers and Mankind in general.

Sunny but chilly here today - I'll probably cut some of the garden hedge this afternoon, as my hayfever isn't so bad today.

Have a good rest-of-the-weekend,

Hi

I suppose it's Good Morning,

You are very lucky to have your pick of the books, aren't you? Ihaven't heard of Lee Childs. I must look out for Wendy Holden as I love Evelyn Waugh, although it's ages ago I read him. He was one of my husband's favourites, but what a strange man.(Waugh, not my husband)

I saw Daniela and thought she was quite a big girl with very strong legs. But then again it may be my new T.V., it is "wide-screen" and everybody looks fat with large noses. The shop sold me "Freeview" and swear that now the picture is perfect, so how come the world is egg-shaped?

I saw SC in the CB last night, I was horrified. One day last week he turned up on R2 and somebody asked if he had been allowed back. He said he was allowed back on BBCi but didn't know if he was allowed on that particular board.
Well, he disappeared again. I don't know if they keep finding out about him or if somebody complains.
He puts my teeth on edge, apart from his ravings I find him extremely vulgar.
I've always just ignored him.

Did you get your hedge cut? I have a friend staying with me who is a bad sleeper and this morning at 6-00 he was weeding my garden. Very useful!..
watched the Grand Prix and the fooball and my eyes are tired now, so I'll say good-night, Rich.

Speak to you soon.

Hi

Too windy & wet yesterday for hedge cutting. (That's my excuse!)

I've discovered that my pumpkin plants have got to be planted out in the garden before the end of June, and there's only one empty four-feet-square weed-filled patch of earth in the garden at the moment! If all the plants grow to the correct size, I would expect each plant to occupy FIVE feet of ground... So maybe I'll just plant out one of the pumpkin plants in the empty space, then wait until the potatoes are dug up next week & use that piece of ground too.

Watched the MTV Movie Awards on Channel 4 yesterday afternoon. Very peculiar. Each couple of presenters had to do a tedious three-minute sketch based on a movie - complete with explanations of each joke for the audience members who hadn't seen the movie, and a yawning chasm of silence between each joke and the audience realising that they were supposed to laugh...

Also saw the Grand Prix, tedious as usual. All those safety cars, and no American driver at the moment - that's probably why Formula 1 isn't popular in the USA.

I looked at the Wimbledon timetable on Freeview and I was disgusted to see that Daniela hasn't been given a court yet for her afternoon match. She has to wait for a court to become free after 5pm! Outrageous!!!

The thing I notice about my widescreen TV picture - the sides of the picture are slightly distorted. It's very noticeable on 'Frasier', where the characters enter 'stage left' through Frasier's apartment door. As they move across the screen from the door to the sofa, they look squat and chubby like fat Hobbits!

Off to look at the Amazon customer reviews for Lee Child. His writing style is quite simplistic. Long paragraphs filled with five-word sentences, each sentence beginning "He was..." or "It was..." or "They were..." The book is actually a brand new reprint of a 1998 novel which won a readers' award from WH Smith, but it didn't win for the quality of the writing!

Hi

Don't know anything about pumpkin-growing, but when you think of the size they get to by autumn, they must be very fast growers.

Like me, really, I have a friend staying at the moment and I am expanding by the day. I must admit I enjoy rich food, but I don't often permit myself to indulge in it unless I have a good reason, which I have at the moment.I have a friend staying for a fortnight.
He lives alone and doesn't cook much for himself, so I am spoiling him with all the things I fancy myself. He just loves my trifle, but I dread to think how many calories it contains.

These wide-screen T.V. screens are a joke, I have a "menu" where I can choose a "normal" picture and when I do there is a large black band on both sides of the screen. On "panoramic" the whole thing gets stretched. On "Freeview" it's slightly better. On "normal" T.v. (not freeview) it looks like heavy rain all the time.

My old set was a Swedish make, the firm doesn't exist any more, but the picture was beautiful, I really miss my old friend.

Have a new book to read for my book-group. "Snow falling on cedars" by David Guterson. Have you read it? I'll let you know what I think, but it's a big book and I don't have much time at the moment.

Speak to you soon.

Hi

I've heard of 'Snow Falling On Cedars' but haven't read it.

Lots of Lee Child thrillers on offer in WH Smith at the moment, but I'm still not convinced by his writing. He tends to write using the 'passive voice':

Active voice: "I shot him."
Passive voice: "He was shot by me."

Looking at the Amazon reviews for Child's first novel "Killing Floor", I see many readers were annoyed at the constant "shrugging" from all the characters. Sounds like there was a shrug on every paragraph! Lee Child is definitely a love-him-or-hate-him author.

Hurrah - I cut all the garden hedge yesterday, after my nearby cousin loaned me his electric hedge trimmer! I don't own one myself, and cutting 50 yards of hedge with hand shears is very hard work. Using the hedge trimmer, the hardest job was filling the black plastic bags with all the piles of 8 inch clippings. Now that the job has been done entirely, perhaps the hedge won't grow much more this year.

Planted one of the pumpkin plants outside on Monday, but it isn't growing as fast as the two on my bedroom window-sill.

Yesterday afternoon's choice of TV viewing: either "Tiger" Tim Henman's first-round match, or a Danielle Steel TV movie starring Teri Polo...

So, Teri plays a young law student who...

Hi

So sorry, just noticed that I hadn't replied to your message.

You must forgive me, I've had a house-guest for a fortnight, waved him good-bye this morning and am trying to get the house back to normal.

He has done masses of gardening, he is a bad sleeper and several mornings was up at 5-00 and on his hands and knees outside.

We went out a lot and played cards a lot. And then there's the shopping and cooking. He isn't the least bit interested in computers and didn't want to know, apart from reading PP's jokes, yet he would do really well as he has a wide knowledge of all kinds of music and the sort of mind that sees a pun everywhere. He has even written a book with all his own jokes, people would be glad to share them, but he wants to write another book, so he wouldn't let me tell the new jokes on here.

I must get on with the cleaning, Rich, no time to read, not even the paper.
I don't want to read the book-group choice: "Snow falling on cedars", so I'm dipping into it here and there so that I know what it's all about.

See you soon,

Hi

Your houseguest sounds like my late uncle - up at 6am every morning to walk the dog. Actually, my uncle suffered from narcolepsy so he could drop off at inopportune moments...

I'm just making a little post-lunch trip to the library instead of the usual Sunday afternoon walk by the riverbank.

How I came to see Scott's photo: I finally realised what all the fuss was about on the R2 MBs - people complaining that Scott has been made a moderator.

It's a new unofficial site of Radio 2 messageboards created (I think) by Nick Birse. If you type "Nick Birse Radio 2" into Google or other search engine, you should be able to find the site. Most of the members have photos by their names. Moderator Scott looks alarmingly like my younger nephew! There's also a photo of PG, though she doesn't look like she did a few months ago on her hubbie's website photo. On that previous photo she looked like my own older sister!

I am currently reading 'Snow Falling On Cedars' myself - I'm up to page 170 now and I will continue. I've also read several of the book reviews on the Amazon website - a lot of readers were annoyed because 'Snow Falling On Cedars' isn't as easy to read as John Grisham!

Two pumpkin plants in the garden now, so I'll keep you up to date on their progress. Sadly all the broad bean plants were flattened by last week's wind. But next week, the raspberries & blackcurrants will be ready to pick.

Don't work too hard - it is Sunday!



Rich

Correction - Scott looks like my younger COUSIN.

Oops!

Apologies for leading you astray once again...

You CAN'T find the new Radio 2 forum using Google - I've spent the last 30 minutes trying!!!

The new website is at: www.r2fm.co.uk

Click on Scott's name to see his scary picture!

Rich

Hi Rich,

Thanks for all the information.

I'll have a look and come back to you. I have this mental picture of him and wonder if it matches.

Speak to you soon

Hi again

He wasn't actually as scary as my mental picture. Looks a hard nut, though.
Isn't it interesting to see what people look like? Are you going to join?

I was just about to look at PG and received an e-mail, so I forgot. I must have another look and see what they're all talking about.

Spend too much time on these boards as it is, but, thank you I couldn't wait to see what Scott looked like. Looks like he's back for good on the boards and many people will stay away.

Wish you could see my garden now my friend has sorted it out. All the weeds gone. Wonderful. I know I should keep it tidy now, but there is so much to do and then there is all this, which I prefer doing.

What do you think of "Cedars..." There's not enough action for me, I'm skipping a lot.

See you soon

Well honestly Rich. I hope your sister isn't too much older than you or I shall be mortally offended.

The picture on the Pirate Radio 2 Forum is of Tripitaka from Tales from the Water Margin. I would never publish my own photo on a public forum! Scotty's is plenty scary enough.

Hiya Catherina. I hope that the visit went well and that you're not feeling too flat now that he has gone. At least the footie must have kept your spirits up!

Don't forget I'm always around for a chat.

Hi Pondy,

I haven't got around to seeing your picture yet, I was so curious to see Scott's. I actually imagined him to be even more scary than he is.
I'll be dropping you an e-mail when I get my act together, washing & ironing like mad, PLUS a bad back!!!! Yes...

Will be telling you all about it.

Hope all is well in the pond.

I saw SC was at it again on R2, how come he was allowed back? It's the same old story all over again.

Speakto you soon.

Catharina

Hi PG

About my two sisters...

The Aylesbury-based one was born in a certain Year of the Fire Rooster

And ...



My SLIGHTLY maturer but ALTOGETHER ENTIRELY YOUTHFUL LOOKING oldest sister was born in the Year of the ..........

(Water Snake)

Oooh look - a large table filled with



PS Catharina - I've got 120 pages left to read of 'Cedars' - will let you know if it was worthwhile on Tuesday. Please let me know your next title - I'll also have to read 'Mort' before next Sunday's Radio 4 Book Club...

Hi Rich

Spookily, I am a Fire Rooster too which means that I look older in my picture than I should TBH it's not the best photo of me and I have lost quite a bit of weight since it was taken, so I'll pass on the if it's all the same to you! What is irritating is that PB is three years older than me and everyone thinks he is yonger Check out the latest pictures of him in a wet-suit on our website.

I think that perhaps the age of my soul is showing!

Busy day today, speak soon!

PG

Morning

Would you believe it? It's 6.44 a.m. Bet you're still in the land of dreams.
I awoke long before 4.00 this morning and eventually got up at 5.00. I've got a lot to do, it was playing on my mind and I decided I might as well get up.
Doing the most pleasant things first!!

I think I would enjoy "Cedars" more if it wasn't such a long, thick book. The descriptions are really marvellous, there's just too many people and such a lot of detail, which I enjoy really, but I'm also impatient to get to the real story. I don't have a lot of time to read nowadays, the garden takes up a lot of my spare time and at the moment I'm involved with new curtains and maybe new 3-piece suite, or loose covers.
AND I'm out every day this week.

Wonder what you think of "Cedars" when you've finished it.

Next book I want to read is "Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold, another Book Group one.

Are you going to register on the new forum? I don't think I will, it seems to be more of the same thing we've tried to avoid. What's your opinion?

Tme for breakfast, I think. Join me in a and crunchie cereal?

Bye for now

Hi

Yes, I was fast asleep at 6am - after trying to break in a new thick pillow last night, and glancing at my watch at 12.30am, 1am, 1.30am, 2am...

I finished Cedars last night. I read the whole of it & I agree with you: excellent scene-setting and characterisation, but the dramatic courtroom tension was interrupted too often by the reminiscences & flashbacks, particularly the two-hour lunchtime recess that lasted from page 133 to page 220!

I wasn't interested in Ishmael & Hatsue's romance, and I even kept imagining them as little kids in the cedar tree when they were supposed to be 18 years old. The fishing & WW2 reminiscences were far more interesting to me, because those chapters taught me a lot I didn't know about those subjects.

As for the central murder mystery, it seemed more of a courtroom drama really - the truth of what happened was always obvious to the reader, so the drama lay in whether a correct verdict would be reached. I felt that the crucial evidence (the lantern) appeared too late in the novel, though thankfully the author avoided the cliche of a Hollywood-style race to the courthouse at the end.

I have been meaning to read The Lovely Bones for ages, but I've always had the maximum number of books on loan (10) when that book has been on the shelf. I'll look out for it this week.

Today I should be finishing the second thriller by Meg Gardiner, "Mission Canyon" featuring a legal journalist/country fan/part-time science fiction author called Evan Delaney. The author now lives in Surrey, but her novels are set in her former home of Santa Barbara. I really enjoy the characters in the novels, particularly Evan Delaney's sardonic humour. The first novel - "China Lake" - is about a child custody battle against a right-wing doomsday church. The second explores the road accident that turned Evan's boyfriend into a paraplegic. Third novel "Jericho Point" is out in hardback next month.

Running out of login time & still a bit of family news to deliver...

Rich