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

Hi

Just typed a long message to you, then the stupid H2G2 said I couldn't post cos I wasn't logged on!

I hope Jason will be broadcasting while I'm visiting my sister during the school holidays. I usually sleep in the same room as my sister's computer, so I'll be able to listen to JR at any time of the night!

Now you've heard JR, which Radio 2 deejay (or other personality) does he sound like?

Music in the library - only on Sundays, 10am to 4pm. It's part of Suffolk County Council's plan to get more people to use the library, even when those people work 9 to 5 Monday-Saturday.

The Sunday library assistants aren't allowed to issue books, but there are two self-service terminals, each with a bar-code laser beneath the screen, which are very easy to use, with a receipt printed out to remind you of the due date. Sounds more complicated than it is!

I have a large pile of unread books at the moment, haven't read much since the tennis started a few weeks ago.

Speak to you tomorrow

Morning,

Wish you hadn't asked me who JR reminds me of because I've been trying to think of that ever since I heard him.

I've got to go to the Book Group this afternoon and confess that I haven't read: "Snow falling On Cedars". I've got about half-way and it's a big book.

Like you, I haven't had much time to read lately. People would say: "You could be reading NOW", and that's true, but I'd rather be "communicating".
I read every night before I go to sleep, but lately I don't get beyond a few pages. However, last night I woke up at 3-45, listened to Alex for a bit, became more and more awake and turned the light on and read my book for an hour.
Trouble is, when you start this, it becomes a pattern.I shall wake up the same time to-night, I expect.
I felt a bit peckish too but resisted the temptation for a snack.
When you see an American film they always have cooked legs of chicken in the fridge and in some Australian soaps, the fridges are stacked with food to feed everybody who comes in.
Mine isn't like that. All I had was the gubbins for bubble and squeak and half a lemon tart, some bacon, cheese and ham, but I wanted a chicken leg.

Must go and get ready.

See you soon

Hi

Tried to find a chicken leg for you in the smiley list down below, but all they had was and .

I know what you mean about "early waking" - sometimes I'll wake at exactly 5.45am (for example) every day for a whole month. Now, thanks to my warm duvet, I'm sleeping a lot later than usual, and even waking up as late as 7.30am!

That "Google and other search engines" book is full of useful tips. Today, I'm going to try changing the on-screen Google instructions from English to Klingon (or maybe Swedish Chef language from the Muppets).

Apparently, you click on "Preferences" on the Google hame page, then "Interface Language", select the new language then click "Save Changes" at the bottom of the screen... But I'll have to remember to change it back for the next library user!!

How did the book group go yesterday? Did they all enjoy "Snow falling on cedars"?

WARNING!!!

When you change the interface language to Klingon, ALL the Google instructions appear in Klingon, INCLUDING the "preferences" page when you go to change the language back to "English"! So you have to remember where "English" was, on the list!!

Hi &

I very stupidly did that very thing on my mobile phone when it was new. I managed to switch to Finnish or something and unfortunately I couldn't work out how to change it back. I very embarrasingly had to phone the Vodaphone helpline and a very bemused young man eventually got me back into English!

Hope you are both well and enjoying life.

Hi &

Lucky I noticed the change on the Google Preferences page (actually "Pwefewences", as I had it set on "Elmer Fudd" from the Bugs Bunny cartoons). If I had changed it to Klingon & not been able to change back, then the next user would've wondered what the heck was wrong with the terminal!

Mowed the grass yesterday afternoon, good timing as the weather is dull & drizzly here this morning. No snow yet - did you both hear the Drivetime business news about the new ski resort in Suffolk?!! Featuring Britain's largest indoor alp? First I've heard of it....but then, in true "Hitch Hiker's Guide" style, us townies & villagers are always the last to know about planning decisions.

PG - I see SC is in a highly confessional mood on the Pirate radio 2 board. I wonder what's up with him? IMHO Daniel is a perfectly fine, heroic first name (just like Richard!!) and the surname Nelson too. Much better than my own boringly common surname.

To explain to FBN, Scott has just revealed his real full name over on Nick's R2 site - can you resist a peek?

PS I have just been modded for doing an Antoine de Caunes impression on the CB, and there is an imaptient teenager virtually breathing down my neck waiting to get on this terminal, so....bye!

ImpAtient!

Hi

Hope you've got back on again.

Sorry I haven't answered before, but it's all getting very busy, isn't it?
I tried to get on Nick's site but couldn't get logged on yesterday. After an e-mail to Nick, all was O.K., but it all took time. I still don't know my way around there yet, but I did find the "confession" with a HUGE photograph like the one we saw before.

Funny about names. I have some lovely neighbours called Dee and then you expect everybody with that name to be likewise. Same as I know a woman called Margaret who upsets me quite often, and then, when I meet another Margaret I'm quite suspicious at first.
I don't think your name is common OR boring.

You and GP are very brave, messing about with those languages. I get in enough trouble trying todo "normal" things.
For some reason, since my computer crashed, it now believes itself to be U.S.English. I keep altering it, but it insists. When I type a letter in Dutch I have to change it to Netherlands Dutch, otherwise the whole page is full of squiggles.

I remember how proud I was when I first discovered how todo that.

The book-group all enjoyed "The Cedars", they had all persevered with it and thought it was beautiful. I think that I would have appreciated it more if I'd had more time and didn't have a pile of books that I REALLY wanted to read.

But it was a nice afternoon and I just remember, I left my jacket behind,must get in touch.

Take care,

Hi

Just popped back into the library this afternoon to return a book & I found that this terminal was vacant.

I should confess that when I mentioned my boring surname... Dee isn't my real surname, it's my middle initial (D.) - and my actual surname is the boring one. But my first name is definitely Richard!

As for my CB message being modded for use of non-English... I wouldn't have minded if it had been modded automatically by some sort of language-recognition software.

But the message was on the board for at least 20 minutes until it was removed, so the mods must have looked at it, seen that it was inoffensive stuff, written in easy-to-understand "Franglais", and then they removed the message anyway.

: If you're reading this, I saw your complaints about your joking references to drugs being removed from the sci-fi thread.

There are definite double standards on the MBs. Vitriolic and abusive arguments are allowed as long as they lead to heavy use of the boards, whereas harmless comedy fun is eventually modded due to the R2 mods' lack of mature judgement or (more likely) their fear of litigation.

As a result of all this... Well, I can't "promise" that I will never ever ever post on the R2 MBs ever again (stamps foot) -

But I am certainly not on speaking terms with the CB at the moment.

Hope your Wednesdays are going well, and all jackets have been retrieved safely.

Now I think I'll go & pick up that biography of that nice Queen Noor to cheer myself up.

Hi

I wondered what the bit meant and then realised you wanted to do: bracketlovebracket, which results in a heart.
Nothing is a simple as it seems, is it?

I've just been to the garden-centre because I needed a bag of compost and was going to wheedle to get it delivered, but they OFFERED. Lovely, so I also bought a load of plants which will be delivered at the same time this p.m. They are having a sale and all plants are half price. I just wanted a bit more colour in my garden. So now I can look forward to planting 25 plants!!!

I finished "The Lovely Bones" yesterday. I was quite affected by it, but towards the end I was a bit disappointed. Isn't that often the case with books?
Have you ever tried writing, Rich?
When I was younger we used to meet up, 2 couples and a single chap, and we wrote short stories, one each week and then we would get together and read them out. It was great fun, but I found that it was easy enough to start and get a middle, but to hold the attention to the end...
Eventually my short stories resulted in a book. Hilarious (I thought) stories about my neighbours and people I've known. It could neber go anywhere, I would have been sued right, left and centre, but we laughed a lot.

If I don't see you again, I hope you have a lovely week-end.

Lots of and

from

Hi

Don't know what I just did - I just pressed a key and deleted my whole reply to you! And this morning the library server went down just as I was about to post a message to JYY, so I lost the whole of that one too

Came in to the library this afternoon (Friday) while I was in town returning a rented DVD, and saw your reply.

I have been published in the early 1980s, in fan magazines reviewing Dr Who, Blake's 7 and other British TV shows. I was flattered when a couple of local editors read my stuff in one magazine and asked me to contribute to theirs. Maybe they should have been stricter with the editing - my reviews used to ramble a lot, and they included a lot of obscure in-jokes that I didn't bother to explain to the reader.

The one time that I wrote a piece of fiction for a college magazine, the editor read the story, then he asked me "So what was it about?" Which I took as a bad sign!

I never used to bother with characterisation or mood or pacing, and was rubbish at plotting. And didn't have enough life-experience at the time. Have you noticed, nowadays authors have to have some kind of gimmick in their personal background - they're a teenager or a drug addict or a con man or a TV celebrity. "Normal" folks like us don't get a look in!

Hope you can do some gardening this weekend. Your plants won't go without water (rain) will they! I have heard a few excuses for the bad weather, most of them astrological.

Speak to you soon

Hi

That's happened to me a few times, a long reply gets deleted, and then you just don't feel like starting all over again.

I thought you would be good at writing, Rich, why don't you have another go? Or join all these people on hootoo, have you read any of their stories?

My trouble is, I think of something and want to put it down there and then, but I realise I should work towards it more gently, give more background etc.
It's like telling a joke, I can't wait to get to the punchline, while real story-tellers take their time. I'm not relaxed enough.
Perhaps I think that if I don't blurt it out quickly, people's attention will wander.
Oh dear!!

I see SC/Nelson is in te CB

What do you make of the Belgian fruit and nut?? Do you believe he's Belgian?

Plants haven't arrived yet. Lovely, warm and sunny here at the moment.

Take good care

See you soon

Hi

Haven't been to the CB recently. Thursday morning was quite busy in the library - by the time I'd checked my e-mails and written a message to BDG, my first half-hour session was up and there were other people waiting to use the terminals. And yesterday of course the server went down.

My own theory: Belgian Chocolate is either:

a. Belgian
b. Jason!

BC can't be Scott... because BC can spell correctly!!

I have two main problems when I'm thinking of fiction. I tend to be most creative at about 11.45 at night, when there are no distractions, then I'm awake all night going over and over particular scenes in my head. Also, I tend to want to write about things I don't know enough about, places I've never visited & people who have interests that I know very little about.

Last year I had a massive blaze of creativity between April & October when I thought up a large number of interesting characters, but since then I have lost the "creative urge", and realised that I would have to visit a lot of the places I wanted to write about. And as you know, I am not very well-travelled (I've been to France on two school trips, Portugal once, and the furthest north I've been was Bradford for just a couple of hours for a company interview.)

Most feasible idea I've had is a series of stories featuring a female character in North-west London - I used to live there, sharing a house with three Irishmen - but the female character would have to come from another country that I haven't visited yet, in fact I haven't been in an airport for 14 years!

I agree with you about the temptation to rush through a story - I also feel the urge to get right to the punchline straight away, instead of pacing the story properly. And if you read Stephen King's biography, "On Writing", he suggests that you don't plot your stories AT ALL, you just go with the flow, so that you are as surprised by your story as your readers will be!

As you can tell, I have given this a lot of thought already.

Stories by people on HooToo? Please tell me who & where.

Happy planting!

Later that same Saturday morning...(11.15am)

I'm making a quick return visit to the library because, guess which book has just become available?

Yes!

"The Secret Life of Bees"!

At last!!!

Hi

I'd forgotten about "The Bees", hope you'll like it. I did.

Perhaps Stephen King is right about writing, I can imagine that happening, but for people like you and me, who don't sleep too well, all these characters would drive us insane, I think.

Perhaps we should turn it around, write at night and sleep by day, but then, you won't be able to go to the Library.

Maybe we'll know when the time is right.

Why do you have to have characters from another country?

I sometimes look at "Who's Online" and just click onto a name I find interesting and very often they belong to the writers club. It seems they write short stories and publish them on there and ask for comments etc.
Have a look if you have time.

That's the thing, isn't it? We're always short of time.

To-day is one of the best days of the summer for me: Our Fete and Flower Show, a real "Village" affair and i just love it.

See you later, Rich

- you are my muse!

Which one? Probably Erato, the muse of poetry...

I kept wondering, what type of house would my female character live in? Obviously, duh, it would be the SAME house I LIVED IN, when I lived in NW London! And I came to that conclusion after you told me you wrote about your own real life!

It's funny, but I always think I have to invent absolutely everything in a story, all from pure imagination, instead of using elements of my own life.

I guess this is because I'm used to reading a lot of science fiction, where "Write what you know" doesn't always mean "Write what you have experienced in your own life."

In science fiction writing, you have to "Write what you have researched thoroughly, so that your readers don't catch you out with major errors." That's why I believe I have to research a lot & work from pure imagination rather than real life.

As for the female character coming from a different country - the story involves an airport - that's all I'm saying.

I read the first 80 pages of "Bees" yesterday, excellent so far - my only criticism would be that some of the metaphors & fancy descriptions are a bit too distracting from the action. But other passages come under the category "Wish I'd written that!"

Hope you enjoyed your fete - there was a stupendous thunderstorm here in Suffolk at lunchtime yesterday, hope you didn't have it.

By the way, which area of the country do you live in? I'm on the Suffolk/Essex border.

Rich

Hiya

I'm highly flattered to read I'm your muse. But.. "Erato"? I had to look it up, (not being of the intellectual type) and read: Erato: goddess of erotic poetry. Have you been reading my private jottings? Or can we call it ? Oh alright then.

Had an email from PG yesterday telling me of her party and saying I should visit your page to read all about it. It took me ages to find. Wonder why some messages don't come up when I click onto "my page".

I haven't seen any of the boards yet so I can't say who I think you're impersonating. Interesting! Not Belgian, are you? Could be, actually, he CAN spell and has a good choice of words. hmmmmm.

The Airport! Can't it be in this country? I find them fascinating places, although Gatwick is the only one I know well. (btw I live in West Sussex) I just love watching people and at the airport you see them all and you can weave stories around them. Last time I was there there was an Asian chap carrying a mattrass! Don't know if he got it through customs, could have been stuffed with goodness knows what.
There was one elderly lady dressed in a bright shade of pink, long, dress, an enormous pink hat and golden shoes with very high heels. I wondered if she was going to her own wedding in an exotic country or if she thought this
was the kind of travel-gear which would get her upgraded.
Lots of young giggly girls in groups of 6 and equally loud young men in groups. Old couples looking absolutely lost, perhaps visiting sons and daughters at the other end of the world. And then my friend, my travel companion, eyes on stalks, fixed onto the board watching for our gate no. (and we had to wait for 5 hours!) So anxious she would miss it. Thought I was mad to go wandering around!

I suppose most writers HAVE to write about their own experiences, otherwise how can they describe fellngs etc. if they've never encountered them.
Science fiction is very different and very difficult, so much has been writeen, hasn't there?

Must someone arriving any minutenow.

Cheers

Hi

Have you logged on to Nick's board lately? You might find a message there, just for you!

Science fiction: My favourite writers are the ones who take a "humanist" approach. For example:

Ursula Le Guin, who grew up reading her father's anthropology journals so her stories are all about interaction between different "tribes" & beliefs

Connie Willis, a choir-singing, P.G. Wodehouse fan from Colorado

Dan Simmons, also from Colorado (and one of PG's favourites too) who gained a lot of experience being a teacher to gifted children

Philip K. Dick, who wrote many drug-and-paranoia-based novels from the 1950s to 1970s...

I tend NOT to like the "nuts and bolts" technical authors like Arthur C. Clarke, or his modern equivalent Stephen Baxter - too much technical detail and not enough characterisation...

Just discovered that a book I've started reading is reserved by someone else, and due back on Thursday, always happens doesn't it! Fortunately it's an adventure novel & very easy to read, so I should finish it by tomorrow night.

Please let me know your next "book club" book, after The Lovely Bones.

Hiya

Found your message!!
I tried to answer you in Bold and RED, but that didn't work, maybe you can't choose too many things at once.

The next book after "The Lovely Bones" is one I read ages ago, "Revenge of the middle-aged woman" by Elizabeth Buchan.
They haven't actually come to the Lovely Bones yet, I tend to be way ahead all the time.

But I don't know if I'll belong much longer. When I was first asked to help form the group I was worried about where we would meet. "In each other's houses" i was told. But there's no way I could sit 9 people in my sitting-room plus the side-tables for coffee and cake. So the bossy lady who runs the club said: "Not to worry, nobody will mind" we'll meet in our houses.
They all live in lovely big houses and for them it's no problem.

Then, last week, she said: "Maybe next time we can come to you, if it's a nice day, we can sit in the garden". If it's the sort of day when we could sit in the garden, nobody would want to sit in the full sun all afternoon, and since I lost my oak-tree I have no shade at all. She said: "Never mind, we'll have a few umbrellas". So, where do they come from, I ask myself. I don't need all this worry. I'll see what happens, I don't think the others will let me go so easily, as our "leader" isn't very popular with anybody. Very, very bossy. Was a schoolteacher, taught french and Spanish and treats us all like schoolkids.

Had a good moan now, haven't I?

I was gardening this morning, but it'ssooooo hot and very humid.

See you soon