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

I've been feeling oddly impulsive of late. An inconsequential, throwaway remark the other day turned into a forthcoming holiday on Rathlin Island. And then again today, an inconsequential chit-chat on Twitter turned into a holiday booked in Donegal.

I wish I'd the time and money to be *properly* impulsive, though. Maybe go to Austria for a week tomorrow, and then on for a couple of weeks in Havana, perhaps. Or just fly in to Paris and take it from there, see where I end up.

Then again, who needs the fancy stuff. Rathlin has more puffins than Havana or Paris, after all!

Take pictures of puffins. I want to see them. So do 's readers.

Share your impulses.

If money is no object .....

Sadly I've probably missed the puffins this year. They usually leave around mid-August. It should still be interesting, though - all the autumn and winter visitors will be starting to arrive!

The only place I've seen puffins was in Staffa in Scotland. That was before I got the camera with the 1200mm lens.

They are a really interesting bird. They just don't look like their design should work. They look more like a bird you'd expect to be flightless, or at best a very clumsy flyer, but they fly very well. They breed in burrows, but spend the winter out in the middle of the ocean, and then there's the amazing, colourful bill, which they shed after breeding. They are like something drawn for a comic strip, but it works!

OK. I'll meet you in Paris, just say when

2legs, I'm not meeting you in Paris unless I can take a bodyguard.

I love puffins, we were lucky enough to see some when I lived in Pembroke.

Have a good trip. And then have another good trip!

You know what I love?

That kind of mad idea that's just sort of conceived and born by accident.

You know, when you're just sitting with someone, and you're both idly waffling, just daydreaming out loud. Someone starts with "imagine if blah blah blah..." Then someone else elaborates it a bit, adds a little bit on.

Then before you realise it, you're both simultaneously shouting "Bloody hell, yeah! Let's actually do it!"

It only happens when the right kind of minds collide.

It happened on Twitter once when what started with a bit of idle chatter went further and further...then before I know it I'm out at under cover of night with someone I never even met before turning a piece of wasteground into a wildflower garden of questionable legality...

It seems to happen me a lot with Twitter. One thing leads to another and all these mad schemes come about with no conscious intent.

In college, I once went to new York with some friends to audition for a summer stock company.

In the mid-90s I flew to Rochester to visit a friend on the spur of the moment.

Last Summer I committed myself to a mad, exhausting plan to plant gardens all around my neighborhood.

Yeah, I know what that's all about.....

for once you're doing something inspired by Twitter that's not my fault.
Result!

impulses are often the best...

Which reminds me; where are you? I'm standing by this big tower thing.... and everyone nearby is speaking French.... I think I'm in Paris....

What did you get me doing via twitter, Sho? Seat covers or was there something else I'm forgetting about?

Why are daft ideas always the most appealing ideas? Mala was always a good hootooer to hatch mad plots with.

2legs, I think you're in Blackpool...that's why the language sounds odd...

I've not gotten any real good madhattery underway of late - Though I am threatening William, that I'm going off on a little holiday one week soon; back to my anchestorial home, of Kingston Jamica which I've nw decided is my ancestoral home, after discovering ric e n peas for the first time recently - I figure hanging about in Kingston for a week, oughta finally prove that I'm imoral... err, imotal ... or not, of course

Here's another impulse I keep getting.

The ceiling in part of our office is quite low - at a guess about seven feet - and it has those sort of loose-sitting polystyrene tiles, that just sit unanchored in a sort of metal grid.

Every time I walk under this part, I get the most compelling urge to jump up and pop the tiles out of the ceiling with the top of my head.

I have this feeling it would be as satisfying as popping bubble-wrap to go along bopping all the ceiling tiles out.

Madhattery is fun to just watch.

Traveller in Time on the non polystyrene tiles
"Do not hit those tiles!

They are not made out of polystyrene as that would be a fire hazard, most likely they are made of stone wool or even worse glass wool. They will break when you hit them with your head, as though they are only supported by the metal frame, they are most likely snug fit under the supporting wires. As soon as you touch them you will leave a stain. "

Oooh someone on pre-mod? I thought we only had upstanding and rule-abiding folk in this corner of hootoo!