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

Apparently I've been reclassified. I'm a homo!

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1693365,00.html

It says in the article that the higher primates have human rights in New Zealand. There's an ethical paradox here. Presumably they're constantly having to arrest (real) bonobos for lewd public behaviour. Alternately...maybe homo sapiens should be given primate rights. We'd be allowed to throw our faeces at people and have all the PG Tips we can drink.

Didn't someone call us (me and all the other h2g2 researchers, but not you, Edward) The Third Chimpanzee, because humans are closer related to chimps than chimps are to the other apes?

Jared Diamond wrote 'The Third Chimpanzee'. I think the title was a response to Desmond Morris's famous book 'The Naked Ape', in which Morris pointed out that a non-human naming the human species would certainly class us as apes. Diamond is pointing out that we're close enough to the two chimp species to be a third one.

Zube

Jared Diamond also wrote 'Why Sex Is Fun'. So there's another bonobo connection.

Cue http://www.wintemper.com/andrew/chimpanzee.mp3

A song I wrote in 1968 and never thought . . .

>We'd be allowed to throw our faeces at people<

It'd certainly make up for never having had the opportunity to see G.G. Allin perform.

Interesting info, Edward! And to think I knew nothing of bonobos before I met you.

I think Edward knew nothing about bonobos before he met the h2g2 community.

True...and I felt particularly welcomed when The Encyclopaedia of Gnomon first informed me of their proclivities.


By the way...I *do* apologise for the gratuitous Howard Jones reference. Or was it Nik Kershaw?

I don't recognise it, so it must have been Nik Kershaw. I think I know everything Howard Jones did.

>> I think I know everything Howard Jones did.

You have my sympathies, then. Although...have Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw ever been seen in the same room?

However...I've unearthed a mystery. In my head, I can hear the line 'Only human after all' being sung in a vapid 1980's pop song. I'd assumed it was by Kones, and remembered a song called Human Racing. However...that's the title of a song/album by Kershaw...except it doesn't seem to feature the line. More recently, it's the name of an album by Daft Punk, obviously a back-reference - and that would fit in with the Jones/Kershaw theory (man/machine an 'a tha)...only Google isn't helping.

Ah...gottit! Level 42!

So an even bigger apology is due.

Good grief, Edward. Level 42?

Have you had a blow to the head recently?

Then again, I actually used to like Nik Kershaw when I was a young'un. I believe I still have an album of his.

Hey! I didn't say I *liked* the song! A dreadful band. Although I think I did once see them live at my University. 'You had to make your own entertainment in those days'.

Sure, yer man was/is a tricksy bass player *but that's not enough!* I'm now trying frantically to remember the name of the bass player from Chic. Nile Rodgers was the rhythm guitarist...


(Best university gig? Definitely Billy Bragg's 'Country and Eastern Tour' with The Hank Wangford Band and Frank Chickens. Sadly I was away in Canady when The Smiths played, and I had to wait a couple of years until I caught them in Brixton.)