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

I've just had a thought. At the moment I've got 25 entries in Peer Review and 16 entries that have been recommended from Peer Review and are awaiting the front page, which means I've written a total of 41 pending entries.
If my entries make the Front Page at the rate of one a fortnight (I don't think anyone can cope with more than that much rubbish without their brain melting), I've already written more than enough to fill h2g2 until mid 2018.

Time to put my feet up for 18-months or so...

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Saturday was a fairly typical day except that both our shed window and the washing machine have broken. The window had cracked in half, probably because of all the stormy wind we've been having, and the washing machine refuses to do anything other than make a gruesome noise and flash all its lights like a Christmas tree. We've had the washing machine a few years and it has often had problems, which the washing machine repairman has said is because we're in a chalky, hard water area – like most of southern England. It has long been on its last legs and now it has given up completely.

So after nammet my daughter and I walked carrying a week's worth of washing (I did the carrying) to the shop to buy washing powder before putting the laundry in the laundrette next door (they don't allow tablets in their washing machines, not sure why) for an hour. Then we walked to B&Q where she kept getting distracted by the Christmas Trees and light decorations and inexplicably wasn't interested in the acrylic sheets I was measuring to see which would fit. After purchasing the new acrylic sheet we walked back home where I fixed the shed window with the new sheet while my daughter provided moral support through the medium of bouncing on a trampoline, and then walked back to the laundrette in time for the machine to finish and allow me to carry all the clothes back home (using two big blue Ikea bags).

I think the novelty of going to the laundrette is going to quickly wear off.

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There was an open day at Eastleigh Works, where the Watercress Line are restoring their Merchant Navy class engine 'Canadian Pacific'. The Eastleigh Works opened as a railway carriage and wagon works in 1891 and in 1903 the 42-acre London & South Western Railway's locomotive works opened. This built locomotives for the railway and was the most modern locomotive works on the creation of Southern Railway in 1923, and so became Southern's principle locomotive works, with locomotive work continuing today.
Among the locomotives built at Eastleigh were the Merchant Navy class, built 1941-1949 and nicknamed 'Spam Cans' due to the air-smoothed casings. Their designer, Oliver Bullied, was desperate to build new passenger express engines and the Merchant Navy class (each one was named after a merchant navy line that operated during the Battle of the Atlantic) was the closest he got as due to the war, he was forbidden from building express engines and so claimed they were 'mixed use' instead. At a time when other railway companies were building austerity engines, the Merchant Navy class were extremely innovative, some useful such as using the steam to generate electric lights (including ultra-violet) inside the cab and an ergonomic driving cab design as well as extremely light but extremely strong driving wheels, and other innovations not working anywhere near as well as had been hoped, but after they were rebuilt after the war the class was extremely successful.
'Canadian Pacific', the oldest surviving member of the class, is known to have reached speeds of 105mph in service. Affectionately nicknamed 'Can Pac', she is now being restored in the same building as she was built back in 1941 by the Watercress Line, who plan to have Canadian Pacific as their flagship locomotive. The total cost of restoration is expected to be £1.5 million. When I popped round they only had the frames and enormous wheels on display, as the upper half of the engine – the boiler, firebox and cab – are currently being restored at Ropley. Still, it was fascinating to see the bottom half of the engine as well as the inside of Eastleigh Works.
Tragically inside the works they were scrapping brand-new 1960s Underground stock – they'd be perfect replacements for the Island's 1938 stock trains.

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Sadly our readers will likely not have a choice, and will see a <BB< Entry at least once a week at some point - if you write 3/4 of all the Entries in Peer Review, they will be published sometime (but that is a good thing in my opinion, as you have written some gems and others that aren't gems are perfectly adequate )

Sorry to hear about the washing machine with an identity crisis wanting to be a instead...

The Eastleigh Works open day sounds good indeed

28.11.2016 – Unleash the Power!

We were talking earlier in the week about things deleted from the BBC archives. In many cases off-air recordings survive, as well as telesnaps (photographs of the programme as it is broadcast, used by directors to put in their portfolio). For a few years the BBC have used animation (often with the telesnaps as guidelines) to recreate missing episodes of 'Doctor Who' where most of the serial still exists except for an episode or two. They have recently recreated an episode of 'Dad's Army' and, to tie in with the 50th Anniversary of Patrick Troughton's portrayal of the Doctor, have for the first time released an animation of an entire Doctor Who story, in this case Troughton's debut, 'The Power of the Daleks'.

Due to the Christmas post, Black Friday sales and the fact that HMV sold out the instant it was on sale on the 21st I wasn't able to get a copy for a week but it is fascinating to see something I had only ever had the soundtrack to.

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We were talking earlier in the week about things deleted from the BBC archives. In many cases off-air recordings survive, as well as telesnaps (photographs of the programme as it is broadcast, used by directors to put in their portfolio). For a few years the BBC have used animation (often with the telesnaps as guidelines) to recreate missing episodes of 'Doctor Who' where most of the serial still exists except for an episode or two. They have recently recreated an episode of 'Dad's Army' and, to tie in with the 50th Anniversary of Patrick Troughton's portrayal of the Doctor, have for the first time released an animation of an entire Doctor Who story, in this case Troughton's debut, 'The Power of the Daleks'.

Due to the Christmas post, Black Friday sales and the fact that HMV sold out the instant it was on sale on the 21st I wasn't able to get a copy for a week but it is fascinating to see something I had only ever had the soundtrack to.

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On Tuesday my wife was going out for the evening. As the kids have swimming they came home very tired and went straight to bed by 6:30pm, which meant I had the house to myself and could finally watch the commentary for the 'Terminator 2: Judgement Day' special edition, which I've been trying to get time to myself to do for months. Before she left my wife said, 'Can you phone and find out when our washing machine will be delivered?' Foolishly, assuming it would take under ten minutes, I promised I would do that.

I was on the phone for 1 hour 44 minutes. At the end of which I was informed the answer was 'Hopefully this weekend, we won't know before Friday'.

I didn't have enough time left to watch 'Terminator 2: Judgement Day' before 'Modern Life is Goodish', so that will have to wait for another day in which I get the telly to myself. And because I was on the phone for so long, my dinner burnt.

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The big, red Coca-Cola lorry was parked outside the Uni's SM building (officially the Sir James Matthews Solent Conference Centre), so at lunchtime I had a wander over to look at it for a bit. It's in Southampton briefly as part of its UK tour and apparently is off to Manchester tomorrow. (They say 'UK Tour' but they're not taking it to the Isle of Wight or Northern Ireland, and of all Wales it can visit it is only popping to Cardiff for an afternoon).

Whether or not it was one of the original four or five that were in the 'Holidays are Coming' advert I don't know, but people seem quite excited. The queue to officially stand next to it stretched all the way round the block – so I went for the 'stand unofficially quite near it' approach instead. I was also given a free can of Zero. One of the microscopic-sized cans previously only ever seen on aeroplanes.

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indeed about being on hold for that long... What was it that you were cooking?

"One of the microscopic-sized cans previously only ever seen on aeroplanes."

Reminds me of the only time I decided to have cola on an aeroplane - surprisingly it was a full-sized 330ml can, and surprisingly also it must have been subjected to quite a bit of turbulence before it reached me. When the stewardess opened it for me, about half the contents (ie 2 microscopic-cans-worth) ended up being sprayed all over my trousers... I can't say I enjoyed the remaining 7 hours of that 8-hour flight, but the return journey was better, as I chose still water instead...

As I have said before, many of the laws in the US very greatly from state to state, and somtimes by county or city.

Most big things; murder, rape and theft are pretty well universal.

Lesser moral laws vary a great deal. There are some 'dry counties' where the sale of alcohol is entirely outlawed.

In South Carolina the sale of liquor from an open bottle is prohibited. If you order a mixed drink the spirits are not only served in a single serving bottle, usually found on airplanes, but each bottle must be opened (breaking the tax seal) by the customer. After the bottle had been opened the server is allowed to pour in into the glass with any mixers.



F S

Just caught up with post 90.

"So, this is Southampton. What do people do for fun around here?"

"Oh, we go and look at the Coca-Cola lorry"

As long as the water isn't Dasani – the sperm-flavoured cancer-causing bottled tap water for plonkers. (For a reminder, see: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/05/time-coca-cola-tried-sell-bottled-tap-water-england-hilarity-ensued ) Mind you 'Smartwater' is by Coca-Cola too…

My worst flying experience involving liquids was when we flew back from Cyprus. We'd run out of nappies the day before and bought some local ones, but discovered on the flight back that they leak… Nappy changing facilities on aeroplanes are practically non-existent.

Thanks for telling me that, FS – goes to show there are weird laws in the world

When I went home after work the queue to see the lorry had grown enormous, even though it was dark and cold. The whole square was packed with people, and they were selling lighting-up glowy things too. The lorry itself, though, was a bit disappointed. When I got home I saw the 'Holidays are Coming' advert (I always wondered why Coca-Cola were talking about the summer holidays coming when Christmas was only a short time away) and the lorries in that definitely had much more impressive lights.

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