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

I like Gothly's parents: they're so... *normal*. So... you know, humdrum and "middle-class". I used to think such people only existed in books by Enid Blyton. They live a quiet life in a detached house in the countryside, with a conservatory where visitors can sip lemonade and gaze out at Gothmum's flowerbeds and miniature fruit trees and tomato plants (which really *are* tomato plants); they own a jacuzzi, and matching living-room furniture, and dining sets which never get thrown at the walls; they go abroad twice a year, and regularly set up a projector screen so that other family members can fall asleep to their holiday snaps of footpaths, distant mountains, picnic tables and shrubbery. They like to talk about literature, science and philosophy, only without banging any tables with their fists, or shouting anybody down, or needing regular recaps of the whole conversation owing to being too trashed to remember what they're talking about. Yes, Gothly's parents are wonderful--but sometimes, I feel a little out of place.

Three weeks ago, Gothly's sister had a baby boy, and a stream of relations came to stay with Gothly's parents in order to meet the new arrival. Gothly and I went over there last weekend to socialise. Inevitably, the conversation turned to my tarantula, and thence to other phobias.

"I don't like worms," opined one of Gothly's uncles in the theatrical baritone he uses on and off the stage. "Anything little that wriggles, I don't like; but big snakes I don't have a problem with at all."

"When have *you* had an opportunity to hold a big snake?" asked Gothdad.

"I was at a leather bar," said the uncle, "watching a man do a nude snake-dance; I bought him a drink, and he let me hold his python."

Normality.

"Normality."

Well some sort of approximation to it anyway - assuming a survey would put those behaviours in the centre of a normal distribution. The snake bit was an uncle rather than a parent. So perhaps that doesn't count.

I'm not sure what was so inevitable about the conversation turning from baby boy to tarantula though. Has the baby got more legs than typical for a human or is it rather hairy and/or shedding a skin?

Oh, whenever there's a gathering of people and I'm there, someone brings up my spider and says how gross it is. We were waiting for mother and baby to arrive, so it was the obvious thing to talk about, after the weather.

The baby's got a fantastic name. I wish I could tell you all what it is. A lot of people have said, "he's called *what*? How do you even spell that? He'll be picked on in school, you know."

It's surprising how many people think it's imperative to submit to conformity to avoid amusing small children they haven't even met. How spineless is that? If kids are going to pick on each other, ordinary names are not going to protect them.

"The snake bit was an uncle rather than a parent. So perhaps that doesn't count."

I've been coming to terms lately with my mother's tendency to live like she's gonna die tomorrow. At least she's having fun. (And at least I'm not there to see it.) Gothly's uncles met her once, and they think she's a darling. Now I know about the snake dancer, I see that perhaps they're on the same wavelength.

Incidentally, my uncles and aunts are all mad as boxes of frogs. I think perhaps *all* uncles and aunts are as mad as boxes of frogs.

Of course, that now includes Gothly and me.

"whenever there's a gathering of people"

Ah a long-standing family or community tradition/custom. How quaint.

"all mad as boxes of frogs"

Hmm... I thought the frog pills were supposed to cure madness. It must be different if they haven't been reduced to pill form. Perhaps there's some homeopathic effect at work.

*hehehe*

Believe me such normality palls when it is what you grew up with
Ah well, the grass is always greener etc

I knew a South African man who would use the phrase "mad as a box of button spiders". The implication was that button spiders were feisty and territorial, so they would be considered insanely angry.

What is the implication of a box of frogs? Are they common English toads, or are they perhaps a special variety.



And my family ARE the loony relations that my married sibs' kin shudder at. My bosses 3 yo daughter came into work one day due to nanny problems, and was telling me all the sounds of birds, so I had to add in my imagined sound of hunting Pteranodons, which startled her mother and co-workers quite a bit.

"I had to add in my imagined sound of hunting Pteranodons"

Of course you did.

Number 1 child here has been building up a very wide vocabulary which impressed the primary school but mostly for its weirdness. As a result of all us pixie people playing there, it included the names of all sorts of mythical creatures, monsters and demons - and which ones of those some of the pixie people are. When not being a cat (or dog or other animal), voice impressions naturally include fairies, wizards, sea-monsters and dragons.

" I thought the frog pills were supposed to cure madness."

"What is the implication of a box of frogs? Are they common English toads, or are they perhaps a special variety."

It's all about the legs, you see. Most frogs have jittery legs, which causes their brains to curdle. Toads, on the other hand, are more sedate and dignified, on account of the fact that they've got rocks in their heads. None of our aunts or uncles could be considered to be toads, oh, no. Frogs, definitely. Frogs with worried legs.

"Button spiders"--that's brill.

Now I wish I could hear a hunting pteranodon and a sea monster. (Do they predate each other, I wonder?)

"Believe me such normality palls when it is what you grew up with "

By "such normality", do you mean the leather-clad strippers or the high tea on the lawn?

Even high tea on the lawn would've been exotic for us
Nice and a piece of battenburg in the front room when visitors came round was as exciting as it got
gods, sounds very 1950s doesn't it

Front room? So you grew up in a miners' cottage, I take it. I lived in one of those for a year. Lots of history behind them.

And yes, it does sound very 1950s. Delightful.

But you're right about the grass being greener. If I were to look closely enough, I might find that almost every family has clowns in its closets. Nothing wrong with clowns. They just need a good throttling now and again.

Speaking of which, Gothly did a good impression of a pterodactyl the other night.

we grew up in quite a normal series of suburban houses but I guess it took a while for my parents to upwardly mobilise
the first house I remember we had a front room for best and a living room

That's why I thought you'd lived in a Welsh miners' cottage. The miners' families in the Valleys all had a front room for 'best', even when they had three generations crowded into the one house. I bet you're actually about eighty years old, and you're not letting on!

I love that:

"Mad as a box of button spiders"

I'd forgotten I'd wanted to incorporate that somewhere in my vocab!



Could have used it today in fact, ah well there's always tomora..

my dad grew up in a 2 up, 2 down in Birkenhead during the war (not saying which 1 so you'll have to keep guessing my age )

You're not fooling me. It was the Crimean.

darn, you're too fly for me