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

Hi Jen

No, I haven't looked at the JV board lately, as I don't listen to the prog very regularly. Sorry I missed Helen's appearance yesterday. I'll have to check if 'listen again' is available for several months of archives, or just for the previous week. If yesterday's prog disappears from 'listen again' then I won't be able to hear it when I next visit my sister's PC in Aylesbury. Which means Helen will have to get herself on the prog again!

Weather here has been generally dry, as it often is, when the rain blows in from the west. Heavy rain very early Tuesday morning, & drizzle Tuesday evening, which probably did some good for the strawberries, blackcurrants & plums currently growing in the garden.

Just before I left the house this morning, I saw the successful "evac" of four baby blue tits from the nesting box on our shed. The babies all managed to fly from the box, across the lawn to the neighbour's fence, so there was no chance the cat was going to catch them (unlike the dopey baby blackbirds who never have the sense to fly away...)

Just taken three books back to the library. I'm currently reading Meg Gardiner's second Evan Delaney novel, "Mission Canyon", which follows on from events mentioned in the first book, "China Lake". The plot seems slightly contrived this time, and not so much tension as I felt in the first novel, reading about a potential child abduction. I've only read 100 pages out of 426 so far, maybe the plot will pick up soon.

Also reading a short book of Red Dwarf memoirs by the actor Robert Llewellyn (aka Kryten the robot, & best known nowadays as host of "Scrapheap Challenge"). This book suggests that Craig Charles, Chris Barrie & Danny John-Jules are even wackier in real life than their TV characters. Apparently, rehearsals used to be very quiet, so that Craig & Danny could sleep off the previous night's partying...

Morning Rich.

I think Craig Charles is brilliant and under used and under rated.
Why are black birds so dozy ? I have 4 cats and the next door neighbour has 2, and the blackbirds sit in the middle of the lawn pulling up worms or finishing off bits of bread. Sitting ducks !

The baby blue tits were up and running yesterday. Sat and watched them from the window and there were loads of them it seemed. Got the binocs and saw the parents feeding them. So sweet.
How many books do you read in a week on average ?
Sun shining, choc ice in the freezer ready to eat, must get outside.
love

Jen

Hi Jen

Choc ices all eaten up now around here, plus a few dubious 6 month old frozen sausage rolls, as it was time for the half-yearly defrosting of the fridge-freezer yesterday. We don't put much meat in the freezer, apart from frozen chicken pies & the occasional spare sausage, so we aren't like a few people we know, people who have to throw out entire turkeys or legs of lamb which have lain forgotten at the bottom of the freezer cabinet for 4 or 5 years.

Number of books that I read per week: anywhere between zero (the usual) and five (very rarely). It helps when a book is short enough to be read in six hours or less - e.g. most Robert B. Parker and Elmore Leonard crime novels. Also helps when there is very little on TV.

Actually, ever since I read Stephen King's excellent biog, "On Writing," I've been trying to follow his recommended guidelines for reading: stop suckling at the glass teat (SK's disparaging term for couch potatoes) and read 70 to 80 books a year. Over the past 12 years, I have read anywhere between 11 and 63 books in a year. This year I am "behind schedule," as it were, because I didn't read anything in Feb & March when I was having my glasses trouble.

Found a new (to me) lawyer-turned-author yesterday, James Grippando - better than Grisham according to the back cover of one of the books, although the two books that I borrowed are both American imports, not published in the UK. More opinion when I've read them.

Evening Rich !

Catching up on my e mails and have run out of red wine. Thought I had a bottle somewhere, but nothing.

I have 2 small freezers, and apart from a dwindling supply of choc ices, I only have bread, pasta and veg languishing there.

Been on the R2 boards this evening, but very quiet and only Ruth and I left at the end.
I don't think there is anything I want to see on the telly tonight. I watched a little bit of Bill Oddie, which was very interesting, but nothing else appealed.

Are your eyes all right now. It really must have been dreadful for you when you had the problems with your glasses early on in the year.

I always used to borrow 3 or 4 books at a time from the library. I originally worked part-time/term time. Then, when circumstances changed and I went to work full time, I was usually too tired when I arrived home and started to cook, wash and iron that I just slumped in front of the box.

Then I decided I would leave work completely, get a different perspective on life, and see how I managed. Now I fill my days and nights but haven't gone back to reading. I still do crosswords and word games though, just to keep the brain cells ticking over !

The weather is lovely here. The garden is so full of colour, the birds are going loopy and the kitten's chasing butterflies. And, the best thing is, it's all free. Oh, I am going off into one of my philosophical moods

See you, Rich, have a lovely day on Friday, 4 June.

Jen

PS Try to think of me at 2.00 as I am having an unpleasant session in the dentist's chair. Should last all of 30 minutes he says

Hi Jen

Haven't looked at the R2 MBs yet. Perhaps there will be some feedback today on Richard Allinson's final evening show. The music he played was pretty good, especially "Magic Smile" by Rosie Vela from one of the shortest & best albums of the 1980s, and "New York Minute" by Don Henley.

I'm trying to remember which early Friends episode includes "New York Minute" in the soundtrack. I think it's the one where Marcel swallows the Scrabble letters (M,O,K,E & Y if I remember correctly) and ends up in hospital. The song is played when Marcel grabs Ross's finger at the end of the episode.

Did you stay up for Channel 4's Top 6 Friends Episodes Voted By UK Viewers, last Saturday? I only saw a couple:

#6 "The One Where Everyone Finds Out" - Chandler & Phoebe seduce each other

#5 "The One With The Embryos" - Phoebe gets fertile and Monica bets the apartment on Ross's game of "Know Your Friends" - an episode which didn't seem all that funny to me this time, apart from the quiz.

Brad Pitt episode was #4 of course (I wonder where it'll be in the top 200 when Brad & Jen inevitably divorce?), and I think the #1 UK choice was the American Football episode, boys against girls plus Chandler.

Still haven't fully sorted out my own Friends Top 10, but in the meantime, here's...

Five Things I Won't Miss About Friends:

#5: Dialogue that the actors just can't pull off (e.g. Joey's answers in The Pyramid Game)

#4: Episodes where Chandler suddenly can't do something he's been able to do in the past (suddenly Chandler can't cry; suddenly Chandler hates dogs; suddenly Jack & Judy Geller hate Chandler though they've never shown it before...)

#3: Joey's wacky schemes (Giant Poking Device, Identical Hand Twin, etc)

#2: The transformation of Ross from nice guy to whining, shrieking loser, which was complete at the start of series 4 (Rachel's letter at the beach house)

#1: HELEN BAXENDALE - maybe Kelly Brook would've had more comic potential and, um, acting ability...

Controversial, I'm sure you won't agree. All my top 5 hates seem to be from post-On-A-Break episodes, probably why most of my top 10 will come from the first two-and-a-half series.

Good luck at the you-know-what today. Re: glasses - I'm used to them now, but if I take time to think about it, yes they are a bit blurry still...

What happens is, as the writing gets worse & worse, I read faster & faster so I can get the book over with...!

Hi Jen

Another book done & dusted - the second in Nancy J. Cohen's Bad Hair Day series, "Hair Raiser" featuring the Florida salon-owner-turned-detective Marla Shore.

This time, Marla is involved in a culinary/environmental/medical-waste/inheritance plot, peppered with the usual unintentionally hilarious lectures on haircare and pool safety (an infant once drowned while in Marla's care - this incident is referred to so often, I'm beginning to think it was a real-life event, and not just character motivation...).

Nancy Cohen has improved her plotting slightly from the first volume - the suspects now gossip more about each other than about themselves. Otherwise, "Hair Raiser" is a feeble mystery, with great wodges of information inserted as non sequiturs in the dialogue, and a lack of control over characterisation. Marla the heroine is shallow and judgmental, except when she really OUGHT to be! She's blissfully unaware that her elderly neighbour's limericks fail to scan on almost every line, and she doesn't bat an eyelid at her dinner date's embarrassing outburst over an incorrect restaurant bill.

I have finally caved under pressure, after reading so many book reviews on Amazon featuring the phrase: "...but it wasn't anything like The Da Vinci Code..." Found a fresh copy of that book in the library so I will give it another try, and maybe I'll buy the totally 100% unofficial A-Z companion guide, Cracking The Da Vinci Code by Simon Cox, which is in WH Smith this week.

Hope your weekend is as sunny as Suffolk at the moment

Rich

Hello dear Rich,

Weather is boiling hot here in Somerset. Or should that be in Zummerset. I am not a native to these parts and my Northern accent is a bit too much for the locals at times.
There is one guy I know who regularily laughs at my mis-pronunciation of the names of the little villages in the neighbourhood. But in a nice way of course ! He has handle bar mustachios and rides everywhere on his bike.

Isn't the Da Vinci code supposed to be a really good read ?
I know what you mean about read-speeding. I used to be like that. I never ever bought or borrowed a book without reading every word. It was totally irrelevant whether it was pleasurable or not.

Hey, on a lighter note, I see you have been masquerading as A. N. Other on the boards. How come they all sussed you out so quicky

Dentist in the morning and stitches out. The hospital have lost some of my blood, so had to endure another session at the docs.

Thank you for still writing to me as often as you do,

Love,

Jen

Hi Jen

The pleasure is all mine (What a creep...)

I signed off on Dave the Democratic Donkey with "Rich", which might have been a giveaway. Also, the "Dee" in my screen name is actually my middle initial "D." which stands for the name of a certain mop-haired Mancunian singer of a manufactured American band that my two sisters were keen on, and who were number 1 the week before I was born. Have you guessed yet?

Hmmm: Dan Brown, author of Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. There seem to be divided opinions in the Amazon customer reviews:

70% of readers say: ***** (5 stars) "A cracking page-turner, and I learned sooo much from Dan's fascinating research."

5% of readers say: ***** "Hilariously bad. Cliched descriptions, wooden melodramatic dialogue, inept academic characters. Can't wait to read Dan's other books."

25% of readers say: * (1 star) "Here is my list of the dozen basic factual errors that I spotted in Angels & Demons, to add to the dozens of errors spotted by dozens of other reviewers, and I am blazing firecracker angry that some readers believe Dan Brown's books are educational and informative."

I would place myself in the 5% group here - I have two problems with the first 120 pages of Angels & Demons:

1. The hero, Professor Robert Langdon, is meant to be BOTH the puzzle-solving genius (like Sherlock Holmes, Jonathan Creek, Dr Who) and ALSO the naive assistant asking the questions that the reader wants answered (Dr Watson, Caroline Quentin, various female assistants). Langdon often asks questions that he should really be knowledgeabole enough to answer for himself, and he spends a couple of chapters silently watching two other characters arguing, without adding any information or help himself!

2. The author Dan Brown teaches creative writing, but he uses weak, banal, generic and fairly absurd verbs & adjectives in his own writing, the type of writing that (yes) Stephen King warns against.

In Dan Brown's world, technicians "scurry" (they're too busy to type on keyboards or scribble on Palm Pilots - they're all scurrying...), wheelchairs "accelerate" (faster & faster!) and (of course) "screech" to a halt.... Unrealistic, lazy writing.

As for the factual errors: apparently they include incorrect layout of Rome, incorrect Vatican procedure, bad Latin & Italian, bad science (at 600ft, gravity is not 30% less, it's only 0.3% less...) etc.

Most of the current 5-star reviews of Angels & Demons are taken up by hurling insults at the nit-pickers (you're sad & lonely like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons), and repeated assertions that these errors DON'T MATTER as it's ONLY FICTION....

Which is like saying "It doesn't matter that the author keeps saying that London is on the WEST coast - it's only a story..."

Phew!

No time for what I've actually read this week - brief roundup tomorrow maybe!

Have a great Friday

"knowledgeabole"??? Oops!

Ah, Rich, you were scurrying with your typing methinks.

Lovely day here again. I must congratulate you on your pumpkin seeds. The packets of seeds I sowed earlier in the year are still mainly in thick clumps, and are now 6" high. Still no idea what they are going to be. I think some may be cornflowers, but not sure.

Next door neighbours have had great tits in their nesting box and today the fledglings flew. Unfortunately, one of them was immediately pounce on by her cat. Drama enflolded as somehow the little bird managed to escape and jumped through a gap in the mesh fence into my garden.
Then, one of my cats pounced !! Luckily we managed to wrest it free from its mouth. The bird seemed unharmed (understatement of the year) and we popped it back on the fence and ....IT FLEW
By this time there was a barrage of neighbours out and we all gave weak, choked laughs. My cats are in the house for the immediate future and so are everyone else's within a 2 acre radious.

Must go to the library and return unread book.

Jen
x

Hi Jen

Same blue tit trauma here - the last baby was caught on a hair in the nest & couldn't escape. When released, it flew in to the hedge and the cat raced after it. Don't know what happened after that.... Fortunately, we haven't found any dead & bloodied pigeons in the garden this year - that's the cat's usual calling card.

Yesterday, I finally figured out something about that series of crime novels I'm addicted to. I was watching an old Cheers rerun, the episode in which no one believes Woody has met the actor Robert Urich. The episode was titled "Woody for hire, and Norman of the Apes." Here follows my thought process:

Boston bar ->

Cheers ->

"Woody for hire..." ->

Robert Urich ->

"Spenser: For Hire" TV show (1985 - 1988) ->

Boston-based "Spenser" novels ->

Author Robert B. Parker!!!

Don't remember ever watching the TV show, but I'd guess the novels contain far more swearing, intentional mockery of racial stereotypes, and deliberate political correctness.

Been on a bit of a reading bender recently - I read the library's two famous James M. Cain novels: "Double Indemnity" & "Postman Always Rings Twice". "Indemnity" far more complex & better written than "Postman", even though there's only 2 years between their publication dates and both novels well under 150 pages long.

Currently reading "Their Wildest Dreams" by Peter Abrahams - Arizona mom is lumbered with a $100,000 IRS bill thanks to her husband's dodgy dealings, decides the only way she can pay it back is by stripping at a club on the Mexican border. Gets involved with a shady Russian mobster, a former Ultimate Fighting Champion and an author suffering writer's block who shares her love of the song "When Rita Leaves" by Delbert McClinton (one of Nick Barraclough's very favourites).

Session running out!

Just have to add:

Director Ron Howard has been selected to make next year's blockbuster movie version of "The Da Vinci Code." I wonder if he'll get the Parisian authorities to alter the layout of the city so that it matches the incorrect layout described in the novel...?

For long lists of all the basic factual errors in the novel, go to Google & type in "Dismantling the Da Vinci Code" - fascinating article by Sandra Miesel, a "veteran Catholic journalist" it says. Also, lists of non-religious errors if you select the one-star customer reviews of the book on www.amazon.com (the American version of the site). Plenty of errors in the prequel "Angels & Demons" too - sadly, I couldn't find the Amazon review which takes the pee out of the unintentionally hilarious "HazMat Vault" scene. Dan Brown's characters tend to restate the bleedin' obvious for his hordes of less able readers...

Evening Rich, on the evening of 17th June.

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in your last comment hmm.

Been to the library and returned Gerald Seymour unread. Couldn't remember the full name of your author Parker, and took out Black Water by Jefferson Parker. Managed to get up to p13 ! (Have you heard of him ?)

Browsed through my own 'library' last night and took Ruth Rendell's 'The Face of Trespass' to bed. I've had the book for donkeys years but can't remember ever reading it.

Do you like Minette Walters ? I can thoroughly recommend 'The Shape of Snakes' The last page is almost guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye.

Didn't watch the football, but was pleased England won their game.
On Sunday my sister phoned to say it was absolute mayhem in her neighbourhood. Painted faces, BBQs, pubs all open etc. After the match, she went down the road to water a little patch of open ground which belongs to nobody but where flowers are blooming. The only smiling face she saw belonged to a Frenchman who came out of the local shouting Vive La France ! She confessed to almost swiping him with her watering can !

See you,

Jen

Hi Jen

Sarcasm? Me? Yes!

Funny you should mention Minette Walters. I haven't read her myself, but she was the subject of last week's monthly Radio 4 "Book Club", in which a small group of listeners gets to queation an author about a particular book.

The book for this month was 'The Scold's Bridle' - the audience was very careful not to mention the name of the murderer - but they revealed the number of suspects, the names of the suspects who WEREN'T the murderer, and the SEX of the murderer! D'oh!

I wasn't impressed with Minette Walters herself - she seemed very eager to praise her own writing talents, although the way she phrased the praise (?!) it sounds as if she believes the novels are somehow independent of her. (Compare this attitude with Stephen King who believes an author is merely an excavator of pre-existing tales...)

Book Club is on Radio 4 listen again, if you ever get time.

I'd better steer clear of talking about soccer, as any opinions of shaven-headed moronic millionaires may be liable to offend.

You can ask me about tennis (Go Daniela!), also the upcoming Tour de France (Go Lance!), and even the summer training camps of the Miami Dolphins & Houston Texans (Go...er, Jay Fiedler, I think his name is...)

Off to the CB to see what damage I caused yesterday...

Rich

Hi Rich,

The Scold's Bridle was the first Minette Walters' book I read (I think), and I will probably read it again.

It's funny how knowing more of the background of an author can make you either like them more or turn against them.

Ever since I saw Ruth Rendell and heard her left wing politics, I have read her books and saw her political bent which kind of puts me off.

But Patricia Highsmith, what a strange lady, I just loved - even if I did find her books frightening.

See Tim's out of Wimbledon. Poor bloke, I feel sorry for him carrying the nation's hopes on his shoulders. He did his best and that's all that matters. I am a great believer in 'it's not the taking part it's the winning' because I feel that a great deal of competitiveness (?) being knocked out of today's youth.
One of the local junior schools has abandoned sports day completely. Good grief, the sack race, egg and spoon races were such fun.
Another junior school has a better idea; the children say which event, or not, they would like to enter. And believe you me, there are some strange categories !

Oh no, Catharina has just posted that Holland are out.!!

Adieu

Jen and

Hi Jen

It's true - I have long lost distant cousins in Vancouver, last heard from them in the mid 1970s when they sent a letter to my Mum's stepmother (by then, my Mum's father had been gone about 5 years).

We've got some great family photos of my great aunt & uncles on their Canadian farm (just a barren field with a horse & cart) after they emigrated in the 1920s. I love looking at old photos, don't you? My favourite is a photo of my Mum's Aunt Maggie outside her bakery, dressed in her Sunday best except for a black grease stain on her skirt... because she's sitting on her motorbike!

Tim Henman - hmmmm... I've grown up watching tennis on TV, still a big fan, but there's something about Timbo. Perhaps the way he always tries to shrug defeat aside without showing his true emotions. I guess I can't blame him really, as the tabloids would have a field day with "Tim Sobs On Centre Court" etc...

Can't wait for THE ladies' semi-final this afternoon, though score in the ladies' final is likely to be Serena 6-0 6-0 against Sharapova, or 6-0 6-1 against Lindsay Davenport!

Running out of login session time - will mention books tomorrow...

Rich

Rich,

Can't remember if I told you, but I have long lost relatives in Canada. Last heard from I think in the 1980s, when my mother was contacted by a Canadian solicitor to say an uncle had left his estate to be shared between all his surviving nieces and nephews.

Unfortunately my mother died in 1992, so I am unable to find any more information about my overseas 'family' I have two aunts well into their 80s, but they say they can't remember anything !!!Comes to us all doesn't it.

Have a lovely week-end,

Jen
x

Hi Jen

Which part of Canada - Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver?

Mine were last heard of in Vancouver.

My oldest niece went on a school choir trip to Toronto, a couple of summers ago. Sadly she caught a food bug so was too ill to go up the tower (can't remember its name). And when it came to filming the open-air choir recital for local Canadian TV, there was a SANDSTORM!!! In Toronto in June!

Have a great weekend

Hi Rich,

I believe it was Toronto. Must ask the most lucid aunt for details (again, bless)

Are you all right ? I haven't seen you on the boards lately. I have managed to post a couple of frivolous messages and have enjoyed reading the responses.

Who do you think Belgium Chocolate is ? Is it a nice person or not ? I am a tad suspicious......or perhaps paranoid.

Today has been lovely. Sweet peas are all of 5" high. What's that in centimetres ? Baby robins are out and about and the parents are going beserk at the neighbourhood cat gangs.

Weather should be good tomorrow. I should have watered tonight but instead have been gallivanting.

No news really....seem to be plodding along at the moment. Calm before the storm it feels like.

Have a good Tuesday, Rich,

Love

Jen aka Estelle

Hi

I've just posted a couple of CB replies to Briant. As you know, it's difficult for me to post in the afternoons when the library is very busy (even more so during the upcoming summer hols when all the kids come in here). Sometimes on Saturdays, I have to get off the terminals before the CB's 10am opening time.

I haven't "spoken" (or typed) to Belgian Chocolate yet - I suspect he is genuine - apparently, he had a message pulled yesterday because it was written in Dutch.

It's difficult to know who's genuine and who isn't, without speaking to people & seeing their photos. Did you see Scott's photo on the r2fm.co.uk site, before he changed it to a photo of Blobby? I got confused when I saw PG's "photo" on the site, didn't look anything like her photo from a couple of months ago - but of course the new photo isn't her, it's a character from The Water Margin!

If you want to imagine what I look like - think of a shorter, skinnier, balder version of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore! Okay, now you...

Recommended novel of the day: Actually, I read this one last year, but it is relevant to the upcoming baggage handlers' strike. The novel is:

Hard Landing by Lynne Heitman

It's an "airport union v. management" thriller - the author worked as an airline manager in the USA, so you can guess who the villains are, out of "unions" & "management". Definitely seems to be a case of the author writing what she knows. Never again will you want to part with your luggage at the desk...

Bye

Joey