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

Hey DJ, where's the bass?

hiya,

I was just trying to log out and ask for my password so I can change ID's and that, but I was unsuccessful.

I followed the help guide and I think I did what it said. Problem is, it says Spaceman Spiff is not a valid Username!

Could it be I have a BBC Username that I have managed to completely forget?

Any suggestions? I am pretty keen to get it sorted, coz obviously Jay-Dubya (do you think he minds me calling him that? ) would like a bit more practical input on the page and I don't mind trying my hand; but I *can't*.

Anyway,
Seeya
Spiff

My expert opinion would be: email the h2g2 Staff. But I thought you already did that?

"Problem is, it says Spaceman Spiff is not a valid Username!"

"Could it be I have a BBC Username that I have managed to completely forget?"

Yes, quite possible. Remember that your h2g2 nickname can be changed to anything through the preferences, but that you have a separate, less flexible BBC login name. This would be the one you used when you first signed up for BBC. I can't remember if you were on h2g2 before BBC took over, but when they did, we were forced to register with BBC before getting back into our old h2g2 accounts.

So think of other login names you might have used when you signed up with BBC. It might be something totally different from Spaceman Spiff. Which would explain why it claims that Spaceman Spiff is not a valid Username.

Anyhow, I would have thought that you could tell h2g2 Staff your U# and ask them to email you with the official Username and password that you have forgotten. They will send the info to the email address you originally gave when you signed up with BBC. If that email account is closed, then you'll have to ask them what else might be done.

If the Staff can't help you sort it out, I don't know what else to suggest.

You could try looking at the "my profile" section here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/mybbc/mybbc

(Just early morning lurking on the <./>Info</.> that brought me here. Didn't mean to butt in. )

Thanks, coelacanth. After 20 minutes fiddling with myBBC, I remembered to come back here and tell Spliff that this just might do the trick. When I clicked on the "my profile" section, it automatically filled in my BBC username and the email address that I must have provided about a year ago.

Thanks for joining the conversation, coelacanth. Have you ever seen that commercial about the two workers in a tire-shop looking in the trunk of a car and expressing their shock at the full size spare tire? The older, wiser worker says he thought full size spares had gone the way of the coelacanth. It was an ad for the brand of car that considered itself extraordinary just because it supplied a standard, full-sized spare tire.

They probably didn't have the same commercial outside of the US, so none of this will make sense to you unless I clarify that a "tire" means a "tyre," an "ad" means an "advert," and "trunk" means "boot." What the hell do Brits call the hoods of their cars? Cap? Chapeau? Helmet?

Glad to help! You can change the email there too I believe, without having to make a new ID (which had caught lots of people out in the past).
The ad sounds like it made a good point. Just when you thought there was no such thing anymore, up pops an old dinosaur. That's kind of how I appear around h2g2 these days.
Hoods are called bonnets in the UK.
Just don't get me started on the whole pants/trousers thing.

Hiya,

Thanks for the tips. I'm sure I'll get it some time soon. I had tried the myBBC page and I *did* sign up for the BBC movie message boards initially (that was my first experience of on-line discussion and it doesn't compare with h2g2!).

Thanks Coelocanth for taking an interest and offering your friendly advice.

By the way, Dei, (I just love those rhymes! ) were you kidding about cap, chapeau etc. The uk word is indeed 'bonnet' which in French means 'cap', or more specifically, one of those winter wooly type hats that you just pull on. In the uk you could call it a 'bobble-hat without the bobble'; but I'll bet 'bobble-hat' is gobble-dee-gook in the US anyway, so I think I'll give up on that front.

In France, if I'm admiring someone's wooly hat and say to them in French, 'Il est beau ton chapeau.' They'll usually say, 'Mon bonnet, tu veux dire?', without any trace of irony. They just don't mean the same thing.

Meanwhile, the French word for US_'hood'/UK_'bonnet' = masculine noun 'capot'. This has a number of meanings (including 'hooded great coat') and also near-identical variants (feminine noun 'capote' = prophylactic sheath; 'decapotable' = 'convertible' as in cars)

Voila, la leçon de français est terminée! Got bit carried away there.

A plus
Spiff

Coelacanth,

I'll avoid the pants VS. trousers controversy, but could you explain how "pants" became a slang adjective meaning "bad?" For example, a member of the h2g2 staff has admitted that the Search Engine for BBC and h2g2 is "a bit pants" and that they tend to use Google to search this site instead.

(Trousers doesn't sound very odd to me. My Texan wife calls them "britches." That's odd.)

Actually, Spiff, I forgot that the real term was "bonnet" in the UK. I was trying to follow the logic: if the rear end of an auto is an article of clothing at the bottom of your body, then the front of an auto should logically be an article of clothing at the top of your body: cap, helmet, or given y'all's proximity to France and that whole "William of Orange" thing, maybe even "chapeau."

To us, a "bonnet" means a light cloth hat worn by a baby, or women held over from 100+ years ago, something you'd see in "Little Women" or "Little House on the Prairie."

It's doubly amusing to think that a car wears boots (masculine association) and a bonnet (archaic female association). Gender-bending vehicles. "We're here! We steer! Get used to it!"

Now describe a "bobble-hat" for me. You're right that it is "gobble-dee-gook" to common Americans, although our standard spelling of that other word is "gobbledegook."

"'decapotable' = 'convertible' as in cars"

So when you say "bonnet," are you talking about the roof, the part of the car covering your head when you are inside, or are you talking about the lid of the motor compartment? "Hood" in America means the lid of the motor compartment. Maybe hood is not equal to bonnet????

Je ne comprende pas pourqois nous n'avons pas voire de moderation de nos conversation en Francais. (My grammar is probably horrible, and I'm guessing that "moderation" and "conversation" mean the same things to them as to us.)

Bonnet is the bit you lift up to see the engine. I did it today to top up the washer bottle. Brrr. Icy again here.

Pants. As in "pile of..." "load of..." or just "pants". I first heard this about 8 years ago, but then I do both live and work with teenagers, who use the phrase all the time!

Perhaps it has something to do with this, from http://www.dictionary.com
Nmmed after a 4th-century Roman Catholic saint, pants can be
"traced back to Pantaleon, the patron saint of Venice. He became so closely associated with the inhabitants of that city that the Venetians were popularly known as Pantaloni. Consequently, among the commedia dell'arte's stock characters the representative Venetian (a stereotypically wealthy but miserly merchant) was called Pantalone, or Pantalon in French."

Now, just don't ask about the whole suspenders/garters/braces thing.

Yo DJ!

Howyadoin'?

Bobble-hat, eh? Okey-dokey -

Chambers says:

*Bobble*, the movement of water in commotion; a woolly ball for trimming dresses, hats, etc - v.t. and v.i., to bob rapidly or continuously; (US) to fumble, to bungle.

*Bobble-hat*, a usually knitted tapering hat with a bobble at the top.

Spiff says:

One of those funny wooly hats with a fluffy ball on top that people wear in winter (or at least, *used* to wear in winter!)



Since we've been on the French thing, here's some blatant publicity for my latest h2g2 caper; A694497 - The French Connection.

I am hoping to create a hub for all things French related - if there's interest for such a page. I've got an open invitation out on ask h2g2, if you fancy it, or just dive right in and start your own thread on the page! Tu serais le bienvenu!

Don't know how I ended up back on this thread, but there you go.

how-dee-doo-dee

seeya
spiff

Dear me! Not much going on on the Spiff/DJ connection...

... not to worry. Time ahead of us...

...seeya

...spiff

You DJ,

just read the Parents section of your pain of childhood piece. I saw that film late one night in a hotel in Marseille and didn't know what hit me. It's Randy Quaid as the father and it was a real headjob! I was watching coz I couldn't sleep but that night I wished I'd counted sheep!

I'll get round to reading the rest sometime, but I don't know about watching the subject matter if Parents is anything to go by.

seeya
spiff

Those movies are all delightfully grotesque. My Life As A Dog would probably be bearable to most people, but the other two are probably too freaky for most.

Randy Quaid does a good job of trying to act like Ward Cleaver, but being menacing and misguided. He's like the kind of dad who would tell you your ding-a-ling will fall off if you touch it too often.

hiya Dei, don't mind me. just dredging the depths of the conv list to recover potentially worthwhile threads...

Dredge, dredge, dredge, dredge -- whoa! Found Jimmy Hoffa!

Hiya,

just to let you know that this had sunk to the 'show=25;skip=3825' page of my old convos!

You spoken to Jay Dub recently? AggGag has been on 'holiday' since June!

There was a post on the 'contribute' page recently, and Jay replied that it might be getting going again soon... I haven't been over to put my hand up yet, coz I was totally absent for the first six months of this year, and feel guilty about Jay and Tonsil doing all the graft.

Still, i'm not a great one for promising to 'do better' - or maybe i am, but never *do*.

anyway, I was, as i said, just dredgin, and thought it fitting to send this back up from the depths once more.

wonder how long it'll take to sink this low again,
cya
spiff

In fact, jwf just dropped a message on my personal space asking how the Underguide was going and what kinds of things might still be suitable for CAC. I haven't been scouting, only polishing, so I don't really know what the field of possible entries looks like (for UG or CAC). I invited the rest of the UG miners & co to jump into the conversation at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F23777?thread=330022 See you there maybe! Later, Deidzoeb