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

I heard about that on the radio a few days ago Paul - thanks for letting me know I wasn't dreaming it Of course a modicum of sunlight is good for you - it helps the body to make vitamin... D? I think it's D. Excessive sunlight is not good for you. Two words - Brigitte Bardot

Actually, the main reason why people stay out in the sun is the desire for a tan. George Hamilton has discovered a way to have a great tan without all the sun. Brigitte Bardot could have done the same.

What's his secret?

He sells a type of makeup that makes you *look* tanned if you rub it on your face, hands, etc.

Ah, paint-on tan.

I haven't read this thread in ages!

But I didn't read that much of the backlog. Maybe I'll go back and read the rest of it later, but I do have to put in my on the stuff I saw...

Parents can't bring homemade goodies to school fund raisers because they might not have been prepared and stored perfectly? Oh sure - as if the bakeries are known for keeping their places perfectly clean and sterile, using ingredients that have been stored perfectly and never having anyone get sick off of them. What's the point of selling store bought bakery goods at the fundraisers? Might as well just give the school the money you'd spend on the item and be done with it.

As far as the types of ingredients used - all those artificially produced ingredients aren't a bit better than the real stuff, and usually end up being much worse, such as the way they suddenly found out that the transfatty acids in hydrogenated oils were worse for you and even more likely to cause heart disease than real butter, after pushing margarine for decades as a way to avoid heart disease.



Then there's the sun.... It always amazed me that the schools here schedule these fun game days to be held outdoors in the blazing sun, usually in the hottest weather, during the middle of the day when the sun is most likely to burn you, and yet barely provide something for the kids to drink to replenish body fluids, forget them providing any sort of sunscreen for the kids to put on. And yet in the same breath they'd be preaching stay out of the sun and use a high SPF sunblock when you need to be outdoors. So even though I'd send sunblock to school with the kids (doesn't do any good to put it on them before they head out the door in the morning, since you need to reapply it every so often), they'd often forget to put it on before going out (not that they'd be given time to do so anyway), and not get a break to put it on again (or even be allowed to take it with them) while they were outdoors on these "fun" days.

I seem to be becoming rather tan, myself... Not that I'm *trying* to get a tan. It's just sort of happening, because I have skin that tans very easily and I swim 5 days/week. And I keep forgetting to put any sunblock on, not that it would stay on while I'm in the water for 1-1/4 hours anyway, especially if I don't remember to put it on until right before I get in the water. I'm not getting burned though, so I'm not too concerned about it, and the only time I'm spending in the sun is when I'm actually in the water. With very few exceptions (like when there's someone I need to talk to for a few minutes), as soon as I'm done swimming, I hit the showers and head home.

Those people who spend the day sitting in the sun were actually sitting around one day talking about all the melanomas and keratosis they'd had removed, and yet they were still sitting in the sun for hours and hours every day! Some of them had sunburns at the time and were still spending more and more time in the sun. What is *wrong* with these people?! Their skin already looks like brown leather, and it's only early June - can you imagine what they're going to look like by August?

This is sickening:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/3777633.stm

Why do people do this? WTF?

At aguess, I'd say their families didn't teach them right from wrong, and respect for life. A diet of tv violence every day doesn't help.

I don't suffer from Cuddly Animal Syndrome myself, but I do and always have had a respect for life. I suspect I got this from my granddad who took me for nature walks when I was very young and opened my eyes to a world out there beyond the twenty-six inch diagonal rectangle. I don't see what effect even that kind of upbringing might have on these sadistic little s**ts, though.

People who torture animals usually go on to doing the same to people. Jeff Dahmer was an example of this. It's fairly important to find out who has done this damage, for the good of society.

And then kill them.

They can await trial in the same cell as Saddam Hussain.

If he's already overbooked, put the female ones in with Martha Stewart. Martha will teach them how to start their own businesses and become superb*tches.

superb itches?

If you wish.

Sorry.... that was lousy....

You mean there were lice on it?

Ok, so now there's a pill that helps you lose weight (right ) with fibre. You take two of these pills before a meal and they 'expand in your stomach, filling it with healthy fibre so you feel fuller and eat a smaller less food'. Thirty bucks a (small) bottle, first bottle absolutley free!

Or you could just eat food with plenty of fibre in it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3806961.stm
"House prices may start to fall, the governor of the Bank of England has warned, saying people should be wary of taking the plunge into buying property."

"So anyone entering or moving within the housing market should consider carefully the possible future paths of both house prices and interest rates."

I really don't know where the to begin with this. Firstly, I have never yet had anyone explain to me in a way I can believe, why it is a good thing for the price of property to rise, whilst it's a bad thing for all other prices to go up. What happened to homes for everyone? People of my parents generation were able to put a fiver down and get a £495 mortgage, thus buying a house on one income. Nowadays married couples can barely afford a mortgage with two incomes

Oh, and that house that cost $500 just after the war? It's now worth a quarter of a million. Yeah, a regular suburban semi on the outskirts of London. A £249,500 profit in 50 years... just short of five grand year.

But wait a minute, I though homes were living in. I know that there are such things as property speculators, but not on homes - they take on bigger buildings, like Centre Point, right? This must be some legacy of the 80s housing boom... and subsequent crash.

To be honest, I've never been keen to own my own place because I've never had a sufficient and stable enough income to have the confidence to take on a mortgage, although once in a while I do think it would be nice to have a place I could decorate how I want, and a garden to grow my own veg in... and a little cactus garden

Even when I was living in London in 1981 and one bedroom flats were around £18,000, it was just out of my reach. Eighteen grand for a flat in London You couldn't buy a garden shed for that now Eight years later those same £18,000 flats were going for eighty or ninety grand

So tell me Prime Minister, Chancellor, Governor of the Bank of England, how is that a good thing?

I recall that at the very beginning of the introduction of the concept of "fibre in your diet", there was some cereal or bread comapny who touted their product as chock full of fibre....

It turned out that the "fibre" they were using was cellulose.... in the form of finely milled sawdust. Yummy!!!!

The result was that not only did the government have to deliniate "dietary fibre" but then companies had to list their ingrediends. That was the one of the calaysts for the move to add ingrfedient lists on packaging.