Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne ... 619708.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne ... 619708.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne ... 619708.stm

I'm a tad concerned. The ending for Mostly Harmless was a bit naff, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about someone else finishing off the story.

I thought MH was awful. Then again, I've always though Hitchhikers to be full of amazing ideas, just badly written. MH felt like Adams was shovelling out any old shit just to annoy the people who had demanded another Hitchikers book.

Oh and something else that makes my teeth itch:



They were all killed by bears?

There was a fifth?

We agree on something! Except the "semi-" bit.

If it's crap it will be forgotten about, if it isn't - Bonus!

The Matrix 2 and The Matrix 3 were so bad they went back in time and made The Matrix stink too.

SEE ALSO: Lucas, George.

My eyebrows are quite literally raised in anticipation.

Eoin Coifer's actually a really good choice, thinking about it. He has some brilliant turns of phrase in Artemis Fowl.

What's that noise?

Oh that'll be Douglas Adams spinning in his grave.

Mostly Harmless was better than SLATFATF, surely?

Get out, now.

I do hope I'm not the only person who thought the whole Hitchhiker's guide series was a progression of feeble puns and trying-to-hard-to-be-surrealist set-pieces strung together with juvenile jokes and a non-existent plot. Yes? Oh....

I can see where you're coming from, but strung all together it was much more than that.

If you look hard enough and *really really want to see it* you can see a deeper meaning in a greasy spoon's menu, though.

Sorry, it's just one of the two sets of books that gives sci-fi/fantasy a bad name with the normals of the world. The other being the execrable LotR, of course. With many a merry Tom Bom bombadil-dildo!

I don't mean some kind of deeper meaning, I just mean in the way that a whole is sometimes greater than the sum of its parts. It's difficult to explain, but the way he wrote it all was the most brilliant thing about it.

This is why it worries me that someone else is going to try to emulate his style, as it will most probably just come out as a progression of feeble puns and trying-to-hard-to-be-surrealist set-pieces strung together with juvenile jokes and a non-existent plot.

Yeah, I see what you meant, but I guess I just didn't get that. And after slogging one's way through all that lot, I was desperate to see some reason for having done so. And reason was there none.

You could say the same about a lot of things. I think the whole point of the HHGTTG books was that everything was futile in the the end and nothing has any point. It's quite nihilistic in a way (not to mention the world's longest shaggy dog story).

See! See! Scrabbling for some meaning to it.

It was also one of the first science fiction books that simply tried to be funny rather than shove its head up its arse, was it not?

ZOUNDS TEH IRONING etc.

I think it's head *was* up its arse, just in a "hahahaha, aren't we terribly clever and ironic and mocking the sci-fi nerdlings" way, rather than the po-faced "space is terribly big. Oooh! A wormhole." way.

I don't see what's wrong with that, frankly.

Nothing, had he actually written a funny book.

From now on, when I want to form an opinion of something or make a decision, I think I will ask Mr Chris what he thinks and then do the polar opposite. It'll be quicker and more accurate than my own judgement.

I think you are tremendously nice chap, Mr. Chris, so it pains me to find that you are so wrong about this. So, so, so wrong. Your sheer level of wrongness here has me worried that I may never find you to be 'right' about anything else ever again, ever.

The only real trouble with HHGTTG is that it gets so much love there never seems to be any left for the equally brilliant Dirk Gently novels.

He's not even a useful solicitor.

He claims to make a good Thai curry, but I've yet to see any evidence of this.

Screw you guys, I'm going home.

EDIT - ps it's "judgment", gaywood. HAHAHAHAH pwned j00.

I'm too angry for correct spelling!

Is it? See, something else I do not know

I would have spelled it with the first 'e' in place, too.

He knows he's lost when he's stooping to pedantry.

You can't "lose" at having an opinion on something as subjective as literachoor, myps. Well, you can. Being Mr Big Wrongy Wrongface from Wrongtown.

ANYWAY - sorry for derailing the thread, so do all get back to discussing how wonderful Adams was and how any new book written by someone else will be so much worse than his masterpeices, and you can all put my interjections behind you*.


Fnarr

Actually, what this whole episode has taught me, and I think Myp said something similar earlier on, is that the plot of the HHGTTG books is less important to me than the way Adams wrote them. And by having someone else take over, that incredibly important ingredient is going to be missing by default.

But hey, it might end up being really good!

Has anyone read the new James Bond novel that Faulks did? Did that work?

Then again, the "tone" was less important (and, indeed, individual) in Fleming's books than Adams'. I think you may, therefore, have a good point, Zio - if the main ingredient is the style, then unless the person doing the new book is an incredibly good mimic, it will either (a) miss the point entirely or (b) be a complete rehash of the existing books.

See, he knows he's lost. What a loser.

So's your face.

Which is fine. Judgement is today considered a variant spelling, and is the historical British form. If you write 'judgment' by default, chances are you also write 'specialize' and 'color'.

Not so much, no. "Judgment" is very much considered the correct, "English" spelling in legal circles, and you will never see a judge refer to his "judgement". I believe this is true even in older 1800s cases - I will wander down to our library later and have a flick through some King's/Queen's Bench reports and check.

However, you will never, EVER see lawyers use "specialize" or "color". They would have their wigs burned by their colleagues.

EDIT - I've just had a look, and the 1800s cases all refer to "judgment" - how much earlier was "judgement" the generally used version? Language development is fascinating.

The Hithchikers books are massively overrated and deserve their reputation at exactly the same time. Which is, I suppose ironically appropriate.

They are badly written, badly plotted but chock full of wonderful ideas. They aren't particularly sci-fi, not particularly comedy yet wonderfully British.

Like Patrick Moore?

Exactly like Patrick Moore.

It might also be worth noting that the great man didn't actually like them that much either (I met him several times and he was a lovely, warm, very intelligent man) and that they were in fact a radio play first, before being novelised. He actually was very baffled, bemused and a little begrudging that they were so so successful that they had almost become a burden to him.

I think a lot of what you think about them may depend on when you read them. I was about 13 or 14 when I first read them and thought they were very funny. I suspect I wouldn't feel the same way now.

However, I thought LotR was gash when I read that when I was 14.

I may be the only person in the world who still enjoys the BBC TV series.

Was the film any good?

*ducks*

As much as The Boosh?

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, actually, but it wasn't great. It did have one wonderful original joke though ("He's locked the gate! We've gotta go round, we've gotta go round!").

DB -- I had no idea you met Douglas Adams. Damn your eyes.

My mate owns and runs a kids indoor adventure playground - I met him there a couple of times a week over one summer about ten years ago with our kids. He was a genuinely nice guy and VERY tall.

Much, much more. And I only like the first two series of Boosh. I also think the film was good as well - perhaps I'm just easily amused.

It would explain why I frequent here so often.

That doesn't surprise me, but then the majority of 'American' spellings were used in the UK around that time, too. With a word as important in legal documentation as 'judg(e)ment', it's hardly surprising it's not changed over the years. In most cases, it's actually British English that's changed, with American English remaining stuck. Anyway, bar perhaps legal documentation, 'judgement' is a perfectly acceptable British English spelling, and it's down to individual publication style guides whether it gets amended or not.