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

Off to bed. I'll leave you night owls to it!

Which reminds me, did you see this, Rich? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7372807.stm

You know, I think you get should have a webcam so we can have the shots of you being terrified by your own reflection I was* goign to go to bed but foolishly just installed the firefox version..err three or something beta that I now have to play about with

0145: My brother comes up for a glass of wine. We stick on the Now Show for a bit. I'll never get any work done at this rate

I did hear about that, KB, but I didn't see the article. I've done some owl pellet analysis and it's great fun - to find a new species must've been really special.

0205: Realise the tie isn't strictly necessary. Remove it, and feel dressed overly casually.

Easy, tiger!

Don't go too far! There could always be a late customer! Collar and Cuffs is fine for Rockefella's, but not Chez Skank's!

I know yesterday was May Day, but when they spoke about 'Country Dancing', the 'Pole' and 'Lap' dancing was to do with European nation's social dancing? Not 'English' associated contact activities!!!

MMF

Don't worry, I'll put ti back on when the bread man comes

0225: Have drunk almost a full pot of coffee. Coffee doesn't affect me that much, so I have to drink a lot of it to get a kick. Unfortunately, it makes my stomach churn as well, so I'm starting to feel a bit ill. Why do people drink black coffee to stay awake, anyway? Surely white coffee has just as much caffeine, but has milk in as well?

Oh, I missed one:

0145: As I'm outside smoking, I watch a pigeon, still asleep, sliding down the roof of a house opposite. It wakes up halfway down and, with a splutter and a huge flapping of wings, manages to stop itself just before it falls off. I wonder what would've happened if it had fallen off. Would it have remembered to fly?

This is a huge highlight, and the bread man has a lot to live up to when he gets here. I have a feeling I may be disappointed.

0300: Ed goes to bed after a listen to Dave Gorman's Genius featuring Paul Daniels. Still no sign of the bread man. The car park lights have gone off, and the shadows on the car park are starting to lurk with intent. The PDQ machine splutters into life, updating the day's banking, and even though I've been told that this will happen at some random point and make me jump, it still makes me jump.

0320: Still no sign of the bread man. I want him to come soon, so I can watch the moon rise. I'm quite tired already, and I'm not even halfway there yet. However, I'm learning lots of things about orchids.

0325: The bread man has just been. I can see why you'd look forward to his visit if you were doing this job for four nights a week; those few moments of cheery banter are quite enlivening, even if he does end every sentence with the word 'buddy'. It's a surprisingly lonely job with almost no human contact at all, and I can imagine that you'd start to go a bit stir-crazy after a while. I was ready to be disappointed by his visit, but I actually feel quite chipper. The downside is that I have nothing to look forward to until the chefs come in in three and a half hours. That's as far away as the start of my shift, and it really does feel like a long, long haul.

0405: Feel a bit cheated. I was hoping to watch the moon rise - I found some apparently authentic website that told me it would appear at 0327, something like that - but there's still no sign of it. From the bar, I should be able to see it by now. Maybe someone has nicked the moon or something. The idea that I might have simply made a mistake doesn't bear thinking about. I was hoping to peer through my bins to see if I could see Uranus as GB suggested in her last column but, alas, no moon, no Uranus. I think I'll write a stiff letter of complaint to someone about the matter.

0425: Time for a quick security check, and I stride purposefully around the building hoping to see absolutely no signs of life. I'm delighted to report that there seems to be no evidence whatsoever of nonogenarian sexual activity, and if there has been any, no hips have been dislocated. On the other hand, the moon still seems to be missing. However, one lady has been kind enough to put her suitcase out very early, so that's one less for me at 7am.

I'm also opening a book on who I think the first UK-based Researcher to post to this thread will be. As I'm the only person betting, I can afford to give myself fairly generous odds, so I'm going to have a tenner on it being Galaxy Babe. I'll cover my bets with an each-way flutter on Venus, who knows I'm subbing her Orchid project tonight and may well check in first thing. Internationally, I have a sneaky feeling B'Elana may be first of all, as there's a time difference thing to consider, though Frenchbean is also in the running as it must be late afternoon in Queensland. But it would be crazy to to open up the betting to all Researchers, I think.

Wow. Time for another one of my special coffees, I think...

Y'know what used to keep me awake when I was driving through the night? Up All Night with Rhod Sharp on Radio Five. Unfortunately he only presents it a couple of nights each week now - Monday and Tuesday I think. The word 'consummate' doesn't come anywhere close to describing his skills as a presenter.

I'd just got off work when I fired off that earlier post but I was still *at* work, killing some time before going to see a film, and drinking a

Let me rephrase that: Calling Rhod Sharp a consummate presenter is like saying George Best weren't bad at footie.

0455: Just found the moon. Maybe they didn't adjust for BST. But you can all relax, folks - it's still there.

The binmen have just turned up. I can imagine out guests would be pretty p***ed off with that - I can hear them clanking from 100 yards away, and some of the guest rooms are a tenth of that distance.


I recognise the name, Gosho. Has he been doing it long? I've never done this for long periods at a time, but I did used to listen to Radio Five a lot, so it's quite conceivable that I've listened to him on night shifts before. It would've been before I met Lainey, though, so maybe going back to '97-99, something like that.

I think he's been doing it almost as long as Radio Five's been around - he originally pitched the idea for the show to the BBC. I was listening to him for three or four years before I left the UK in 99.

Seems like I'm only missing the South Asia desk at the moment. I can probably live without that

0505: Dawn is coming, and now the binman have gone, I can hear the dawn chorus starting outside. I go out the back and stand overlooking the gardens with a cigarette, and am surprised to find that I'm surprised as to how many birds are up now. They're mostly the thrush family - they have bigger eyes, so get up first because they can cope with less light - and there are blackbirds, robins and song thrushes everywhere. It's rather nice, and I realise how quickly the time since the bread man came has gone.

Go away for lunch and miss being the first to post back

I thought you were still on the night shift and was a bit surprised when you started this one,

me I'm going to put another computer upstairs on line for my daughter this afternoon, that one has a Japanese keyboard on it

Night 'rich.

I am still on the night shift Two and a half hours to go...

Even so, I'm only betting on UK-based Researchers. Good job, really, because I'd have lost out big-time on Gosho. You're over in Japan, aren't you?

0515: Coming in and having to cash up on a busy checkout day is a real pain, so I've got my good deed for the day in early and done it for the morning staff