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

Guess you're still not speaking to me.

Jen

Hi jen

Are you back? Are you really back?

I've been busy in the past 7 days, decorating that downstairs spare room to get rid of the dampness - scraping off tiny bits of wallpaper stuck fast to the wall because my dad used to paste the paper AND the wall!

I managed to get rid of the last few flecks of paper when I was undercoating yesterday, I guess I'll have to paint the skirting board next, then try to work out how the paint roller works. I have been advised to wear a hat when I do the ceiling.

Also been perfecting my pumpkin soup recipe, which I will get to you shortly.

Oh, Rich !

My favourite one's back ! I never went away you little ! I thought you were an Estelle

You must wear a hat when you do the ceiling otherwise all the bits of emulsion will fall on you. They will spoil your hair and make you look grey and old (Robbie song)

What are you watching on the TV ? What are you reading ? What shall I read ?

So little time. So very happy that you're back

Don't worry about the pumpkin soup recipe. I have my own !

Love

Jen

Hiya Jen

I don't have to worry about white paint on my hair, as my beard stubble is already turning prematurely white, and the hair beside my ears too. Soon I'll look like that professor from Time Team!

Currently reading "The Sucker's Kiss", the debut novel by British film director Alan Parker. It's a very fast-paced memoir of a pickpocket from San Francisco in the early 20th century. The author has to squeeze 25 years of the character's life into 340 pages, but I would have preferred a bit slower pace & more detail of all the exotic locations.

Didn't read much last night as there was too much to watch & listen to: Nick Barraclough previewing the yearly country music awards, Mike Harding with the Chieftains, an episode of Crime Scene Investigation that I hadn't seen before, and part 4 of the very funny documentary-style sitcom "Arrested Development" with guest star Liza Minelli.

It's been raining on & off since 4pm yesterday, heavily since 6am, but this is the first serious rain we've had for months, cos most of the rain usually gets dumped over Wales & the Midlands before it reaches us! That's the advantage of living in the East of England... But of course, you don't get the winter winds blowing in from the Urals!!

Rich

Hello

You are sounding a chipper and very pleased little

Do you never think about dying your hair ? You could look years younger and perhaps it would help with getting a girl-friend

Crime Scene investigation is good isn't it. I don't like Liza Minelli, and could never watch anything in which she featured.

Rich, I need to talk to you in private. Do you remember you were always asking me to come and talk to you somewhere else ? And, if I did, I would see a photo of your library ? Well, please look out for me. Or, even better, I will ask Bc to tell you !!

.
Bye, Rich,

Jen

Bc will tell you..........

Rich, would you like me to talk to you about getting in shape

I am like Trinny and thingie. I can support you. (Nothing surgical, don't worry)

Jennifer

Hi Jen

I am intrigued and more than a little worried....

Actually, re: hair... As I've got a receding hairline & a large bald patch, I was thinking of buying an electric razor & shaving it quite short. (Not Scott-short, but maybe 5mm instead...)

What do you think?

Sorry Rich, busy week or two.

Right. Shave all your body hair. (Pretend you've got alopecia)

You might look like a boiled egg to start off with, but we can work on that. (oh God)

Are you slim ?


As always, love,

Jen
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Hi Jen

Funny you should mention alopecia...

My old college roommate (from the Midlands, but he now lives in Suffolk) used to boast that he had inherited his family's strong teeth & thick hair. Then earlier this year, ALL his hair fell out, including eyebrows & eyelashes. He still doesn't know exactly what caused it, maybe job stress (?), but it looks like he will be entirely bald for the rest of his life, and now his fingernails are going funny too...

So, nowadays I am not so worried about my own receding hairline & bald crown.

By the way, yes I am a skinny wimp. 5' 6" tall and just under 10 stone.

Hi Rich

In such a hurry today. No time to myself you see.........

Sorry about your friend. Same thing happened to a friend of mine when he was only 19. He's 44 now and still hairless.

His head is like a brown chuckie egg.

Nothing wrong in being skinny, Rich. In fact you seem perfectly proportioned !

Catch you whenever. What are you reading. I'm reading Pride and Prejudice again.

Love

Jen

Hi Jen

Just got my sticky mitts on the latest annual volume of the year's best Fantasy & Horror stories - 44 stories & poems (including a new Stephen King)....

.... Also, the book's editors Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin Grant provide ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY pages of recommendations of novels, story collections, art books, comix, manga, TV, DVDs and folk-related music that came out last year.

Apparently "Bangkok 8" is an excellent thriller - but I just missed it in the library last week.

The great thing about all these recommendations - if I follow them up on the web, I usually find a whole load of new weekly review sites that I've never seen before. So therefore I find even MORE recommendations!!!

Off to rent a DVD now, probably something Japanese so that I can converse knowledgeably with my manga-mad 20-yr-old nephew when we visit at Christmas.

Then back home to paint the final two walls - hurrah!

Rich

I love fantasy and horror stories !

Will the DVD have sub-titles ?

Must run, speak tomorrow

Jen
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In other words - Hi Jen

I rented the Oscar-winning Japanese movie "Spirited Away", about a young girl who is forced to work at a very weird bath-house in order to rescue her parents, who've been turned into pigs after eating the food of the spirits.

Some very strange stuff in that movie: a stinky sludge monster which is really a polluted water spirit... a flying dragon attacked by a flock of paper planes... three bearded bouncing green heads... There are some very funny moments too, such as the little soot creatures that carry the coal to the bath-house boiler.

I was disappointed that the DVD only had the basic features: no commentary or making-of documentary, just the choice of scene-selections & language.

I watched the English-language version, which included the voice of Cliff from Cheers.

Then, after I'd seen the whole film, I tried to watch a bit of it with subtitles, and I had to wrestle with the remote control for 15 minutes because my DVD player wasn't set up properly for subtitles!

I'll have to see what other Japanese movies are at my local video store, and also at the comic shop in Colchester. Plenty of time to go there now, as the decorating is almost finished - just a bit of tidying-up left to do.

Don't forget tomorrow morning's (1 a.m.) eclipse of the moon!

Had an automatic e-mail last night, saying I'd got a new private message on Nick's site.

When I logged on - no new messages.

What's that all about, huh?

Rich,

I don't want to be hurtful and rake up any sad memories, but did you and your American girl-friend write to each other via Nick's site ?

If so, perhaps it could have been her. But I have no idea where and how messages disappear.

Do you think Nick's is safe. Scott said someone had been tampering with his details

It's a big worry to me.

Jen

PS Try to be positive

Morning Rich.

One of my favourite actors is Kazuo Hasegawa. Try to catch him. Matsishimo Nanako is a great Japanese actress. You would love her !

The film you watched last night sounds brilliant. I just love those subtle films where you have to really concentrate to find the inner message.

I believe the stinky sludge monster was Liza Minnelli and Frank Sinatra was one of the paper planes. Of course, I am speaking metaphorically here.

Good luck at Block Busters. (I believe you can keep them for 2 days - a good window for you to perfect the old Japanese)

Bye Rich,



PS Hope you weren't too about the missed message

Hi Jen

No, Miss America & I communicated by good old fashioned e-mail - she published her address on the web, which means that loads of other blokes saw it too!

The private msg on Nick's site was either PG or BC, I reckon.

My local video store is actually a "Choices Video" - if we had a Blockbuster, it would probably be out-of-town (like our McDonalds & KFC), and therefore only accessible by car.

Yes perhaps lots of blokes were writing to her.

Yes, maybe Bc or PG tried to contact you. Who knows. Perhaps it's a safer place for you.

Bye Rich,

Jen

Hi Jen

Just finished the 150 pages of recommended reading & DVDs in this book, and started on the actual stories.

First two stories are both terrific:

"At the mouth of the river of bees" by Kij Johnson, about a woman who suffers a bee sting, then has the urge to drive east from Seattle, and finds that the Montana highway is blocked for days by a seething torrent of bees...

Second story is "Why I became a plumber" by Sara Maitland, featuring a character who is both post-menopause & post-divorce. She thinks her new home is a retirement home for her & her husband.... but, actually, she discovers that it's a retirement gift just for her, because she's being laid off by her hubby!

I've just reserved the Sara Maitland collection, "On becoming a fairy godmother", and I see that she has a few other books in stock in the library too.

That's the main reason why I love reading all of the many "year's best" anthologies - all those great new (or old) authors waiting to be discovered by me!

The other good news - both of those stories were chosen by the book's two new editors, Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, which bodes well for the future of the series...

Why don't we celebrate with a couple of today's fresh steaming Hot Yemenite Wraps!

Ah, Sara Maitland. Prescribed reading for women of 'a certain age' or maybe all women.

Have you read 'Home Truths' ?

You are introduced to the main character six months after she returns from a holiday where her boyfriend dies climbing a mountain and she has lost her hand.

Back with her family she comes to terms with both these recent loses and one loss she has buried since childhood.

Her discomfort with her prosthetic hand and her dislike for it is put into a new perspective by her deaf nieces' love for it is one example of how her views of her family members happiness and how they cope with challenges life gives them is put into a new perspective.

I need a wrap now please Rich.

Jen
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