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

Hello Rich

Well, what a performance. My computer went all funny on me, it's been all day trying to clear up my clusters.
Yes, I'm flabbergasted too.

I had so much help from Mike and Nick and BDG, I wanted it to get back to normal for their sakes as well as mine.

I've told BDG to give you my e-mail no.

Glad the pumpkins are doing well.I've gota lot of hollyhocks in the front, they are all self-seeded and very brave. But it hasn't rained for so long now, everything is so very dry and I';m outthere with the hosepipe and the watering-can every night.

How are you enjoying "Anna" now you're well into it?

See you soon

Hi

Hope your computer is better. My sister's PC is often breaking down just before her kids' homework is due.

Always something new to enjoy with Anna, as there are many different plot-strands involving each major character. Last night, I really loved the "scything the fields" chapter featuring the character of Levin (the character that Tolstoy based on himself).

I've now completed Part 3 Chapter X - page 272, I think. Oprah should have finished Part 5 this Friday (today), so I'll keep reading at a fairly quick speed until I catch up with her.

Don't know if I've bitten off more than I can chew, but I've borrowed a new copy of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" from the library. Oooooh!

When I started reading it, I was getting a bit worried, fifteen pages into the translator's introduction, because he seemed to assume the book was meant for Dostoyevsky experts ("As we have seen in his previous novels..." etc), and I couldn't undrestand much of what he was writing about. Fortunately, the actual novel is very easy to read, even if it's hard to interpret.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of the alcoholic's rambling speech which carries on for 14 pages. I'm glad to see that "Crime and Punishment" is a lot shorter than Anna : 200 pages less, and larger print on every page!

BTW I looked for Elizabeth Buchan on the library shelves, they'd got one of her books in stock, but not the one from your book club.

Look forward to getting your address

Hiya Rich

I've sent BDG another e-mail to remind her, so you should get it soon.

I expect you've gone home by now, sitting there in the shade enjoying your "Crime and Punishment".
But does it seem like punishment for you? You said you were glad to see it was a lot shorter than "Anna", but if you REALLY enjoy a book, you don't want it to stop, do you? Or, at least, that's how it is for me.
Maybe you're just looking forward to starting the next one. Something in that too.

I'm reading Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones' Diary) latest. I shall be glad when it's finished. Load of rubbish, IMO. But then, that's MY opinion. Shouldn't even bother to read it if I were you. Trouble is, because I don't care about it, it's taking me forever to read. When I have a book I enjoy, I can't wait to get to bed and read, but now, a few minutes reading and my eyes get heavy. Referring back to Helen Fielding, I think a lot of people have just one book in them and when their publishers clamour for the next one, they are doing them no favours.

What do you think?

See you again soon.

Hi

Got your e-mail address, thanks BDG I'll send you mine when I've finished on H2G2.

The one you're reading at the moment - is it "olivia Joules"? I've seen some bad reviews for that novel, but haven't even read Bridget Jones myself.

My theory about publishers, especially British publishers: it seems they want each author to write variations on the same hit novel, over and over again.

"Crime & Punishment" is quite hard-going at times - first, I had to get through a fourteen-page rambling speech by an alcoholic, then there's a letter from Raskolnikov's mother which lasts for numerous pages, and is made up of just two paragraphs. And, to get the full meaning of the novel, it has to be analysed on many different philosophical levels, which I'm too lazy to do!

I read another 35 pages of Anna last night, now finished Part 3 Chapter XX (page 307). Last night's segment was very much a compare-&-contrast exercise from Tolstoy. Anna's husband & her lover were both seen putting Anna out of their minds while they deal with work-related problems. For Karenin, this meant planning various government committees to investigate other committees (his chapters are purposely dull & bureaucratic)... whereas Vronsky was trying to divide his 1,800 roubles of savings into his 17,000 roubles of debt! Sounds familiar...

More compare-&-contrast with the croquet party that Anna joined (though she left to see Vronsky before the actual croquet began). Two young female guests at the party: one blonde, one brunette, each followed around by both a young man and an older (married) man. The character descriptions in that chapter are well worth studying & emulating.

See, that proves I'm actually reading it

News from the garden: tiny pumpkins, half an inch diameter, beneath a couple of the green flower buds. And, in the middle of the eighteen-inch-long leaves of broccoli, one inch of actual broccoli!

I'll e-mail you soon

Hi

E-mail received and answered!

Yes, it is "Olivia Joules". On my way home from the shops I deceided to toss it to one side and start another book. It's soooo hot outside, Perfect day fro lazing about with a book.

Don't think I've got the concentration for what you're reading, it's too much hard work, isn't it?

I suppose you have to have the patience of a saint to be a gardener. And I haven't. The only thing I've grown from scratch was runner beans, and then somebody else planted them for me. I'm not the "nursing" type, I think.

See you soon,

Hi

I find gardening very restful - but only vegetable gardening! Flower gardening is still a mystery to me, and there are several flowers in the garden which are many decades old, and far too overgrown. Vegetables, you just grow them, use them, the dig them up! Very neat & tidy.

Quarter to twelve, must be going soon - library opened late today due to staff shortages. Must check the CB for any holiday revelations from JYY, then off home for lunch.

Two e-mails for you, which you've probably seen.

Hi

9.04 and it's practically dark outside. Where has the summer gone?

We are kept busywith our e-mails and postings, aren't we? Gardening: I mostly tidy-up all the time. Weeding and cutting bushes into shape, it's never-ending. Each year I say that I'm not going to have any more pots outside which need watering all the time. But in the end I relented, I bought 4, then had 2 given for my birthday and won 5 at our garden fete.

Woke up early this morning and at 7.00 I was out there with the hosepipe. Felt very virtuous. Wish we'd get some rain, though, it's been weeks. It smells lovely when I've watered everything, and the weeds love it. Must get another glass of wine now.

Have a good Monday.

See you soon,

Hi

A bit muggy here today. There's supposed to be storms across the UK this week, good for the garden, as they say. I love it when I look round the garden after a week of rain, and all the veggies have grown.

My mum's best friend has 100 pots & planters around her bungalow!

Hi

Thunderstorms? Oh, how lovely, can't wait.
The day started out very sunny and soon got hot, but with a lovely breeze.
NOW it's very still, no sun, muggy and unpleasant. It looks every day as if we might get a storm and it never happens.
Is this the global warming? Or all the pollution?
Our village does its fair share. On a day like this a very unpleasant, "farmy" smell hangs over everything. Wonder if I'll ever get used to it, I'm a townie really, I liked living where no bonfires were allowed and where there were no silage smells and no muck-spreading days.
Where do we find "fresh" air? (having a good old moan, aren't I)

Hi

I know what you mean about countryside smells. Every single year, around the end of harvest time, the people in this town start complaining about the "funny manure smell" coming from the fields. And we are in a river valley surrounded by fields! You'd think they would be used to it by now!

Having grown up in the countryside, I was certainly seduced by life in London when I went to college there in the 1980s and also with the first job I had in Harrow later that decade. But the end result of the speed & pollution of that life was me having a mental breakdown (true) - so now back to the life of the smaller countryside towns.

Off home soon to hear part 2 of "Little Women" on Radio 4. Do you listen to much R4? I ususally tune in to the discussion progs between 4pm & 5pm. But last night I heard an excellent documentary about Italy's trash problem. The "eco-mafia" are charging only 8p per kilo to get rid of industrial waste (normal fee is 40p per kilo) then the mafia mixes the toxic waste into house bricks, to build houses in Southern Italy. The Italian government's solution to this scandal - export all the waste to Albania!

Hi

What a strange world we live in.

Yes, I LOVE London and always said that if I were rich I'd liketo live in Knightsbridge, but although I still love visiting London, I've slightly changed my mind, you hear such awful stories.

A small town would be lovely.
Our village has 3 pubs and a hotel, and a little corner shop, but no life-saving fast-food outlets or such. So, in winter you have to keep your freezer stocked up, as it's often hazardous to get out of the village.

AND we have NO street-lighting, so after dark you see the odd person and dog with torches.(not the dog!)
But at least we can still walk our streets in the dark with a torch without fear. Although you wonder when you see a torch coming towards you!!

I don't listen a lot to the radio, I confess, that's why I have to sit quietly in the corner when they discuss R2. I love music, but seldom know who or what it is, I'm happy to let it glide over me.

The rubbish we all produce is frightening, isn't it? And the pollution, not at least from cars.
I was surprised a few years ago when I was in Holland how "environmentally" aware everybody was. Not burning more electricity than they have to, not washing anything above 40 degrees and not using any bleach in the house. "Not good for the environment" I kept hearing. Even coloured toilet paper was supposed to be bad. In this country we seem less aware of all that and in America even more so.

Window-cleaner just appeared, had to to get a top on.

Enjoy the rest of your day,

Hi

That bit about the window-cleaner.... was it more than I needed to know?!

After 7 years of living in the London area, I definitely miss the ameneties - particularly the various cinemas (my home town doesn't have one) and all the bookshops around Charing Cross Road.

Nowadays, I shudder to think of myself walking back home from the tube stations in Harrow: one station was outside a deserted tree-lined park, and the other was outside a fairly rough estate & railway bridge. When I was in my early twenties, I was pretty much heedless of danger.

But, of course, it doesn't really matter where you live nowadays. There are good children & criminal children everywhere. A few years ago, an elderly lady was mugged practically outside our front door, by two young children, and she forgave them in the local paper because she's a churchgoer. What good would that do? The muggers were never caught.

And the newspapers would rather blame violent computer games for creating violent children...because you can legislate against violent computer games, but you can't legislate against the real cause - bad parenting!



Ah well, I hope your windows are sparkly today.

Hi

Saw you're online. 10.50 am Sunday as I post this.

Got your mail, thanks, & replied.

Will be on here until about 11.30.

Hi

Monday, 9.45am, I'm in the library, sheltering from the heavy rain, the first rain in Suffolk for several weeks. Hope your barbecue was dry.

How are you getting on with Marika Cobbold?

I almost gave up on the book at page 90, as I didn't feel any connection to the heroine, I felt that Marika's view of the world was totally different to mine, and I was annoyed that some passages in the book were superbly written whereas others were clumsy.

But then the husband & mother-in-law turned up, and at last I had a reason to cheer Grace on.

Currently on page 169, and I'll probably finish the book today.

Also just finished part 3 of Anna Karenina, so I can read Oprah's comments on that section. Didn't realise that the book has to be finished by September 3rd.

Interesting discussion on this week's Radio 4 "Open Book" programme: Books that can be read in one sitting; are they worthwhile? One of the speakers was a Booker Prize judge, who had to read 120 books in four months - one book a day! He said that he wished he could have slowed down his reading when he found a book that he really enjoyed, but he had to keep up a fast pace to read all the rest of them.

Rain stopping now, and no more thunder, so I'm off home to listen to "Little Women" on R4.