Hitchhiker's guide
May. 10th, 2005 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnI know it hasn't been well reviewed but I liked it.
I didn't find the love story part of it particularly jarring, and Trillian is a million times better than the Trillian in the TV series (though admittedly Ford Prefect wasn't as good).
The thing that surprised me was that all the reviews were saying '70's story and characters - has dated badly' and I can't see that at all. The story is the same one, but it's also very much a product of Douglas Adams' later years - it very much fits after 'last chance to see'. The original was about travelling, seeing new places in a state of fuddled bewilderment - the earth is kind of boring and full of bad parties and places like Taunton and Guildford (though the fjords are good).
Whereas the film has been given a message, and the message is that the earth is a really, really incredible planet. I am clearly a hippy, because I don't think that this message dates. (It is a bit sickly sentimental, but I'm not sure it's possible to be really sickly about your love for an entire planet. It's too big. I am reminded of Captain Vimes 'city is a woman. Never said it was a small woman'... ) Hmm, this para seems to have run on and there is really no good way to end it other than sheer violence. Here we go.
My squash and pumpkin seedlings are just starting to show their leaves. They've taken so long I was sorely tempted to pop them in the heated propagator, but I have this theory that if I let them germinate at their own rate in the (unheated) greenhouse, they will be tougher and should be ready to plant out at the right time, rather than too early and be weakened by the shock of going outside too soon. I notice that the automatic window opener in the greenhouse did its thing for the first time yesterday.
There are 25 young green figs on the fig tree, and they all look healthy! Could it be that this year I have got the timing right? Figtrees tend to produce figs whenever we get a warm spell - they don't ripen properly if they get frosted, but they do sit on the tree for ages stopping it from producing another batch. Last year I pulled all the visible figs off in November, I think, and it started making new ones early this spring.
I didn't find the love story part of it particularly jarring, and Trillian is a million times better than the Trillian in the TV series (though admittedly Ford Prefect wasn't as good).
The thing that surprised me was that all the reviews were saying '70's story and characters - has dated badly' and I can't see that at all. The story is the same one, but it's also very much a product of Douglas Adams' later years - it very much fits after 'last chance to see'. The original was about travelling, seeing new places in a state of fuddled bewilderment - the earth is kind of boring and full of bad parties and places like Taunton and Guildford (though the fjords are good).
Whereas the film has been given a message, and the message is that the earth is a really, really incredible planet. I am clearly a hippy, because I don't think that this message dates. (It is a bit sickly sentimental, but I'm not sure it's possible to be really sickly about your love for an entire planet. It's too big. I am reminded of Captain Vimes 'city is a woman. Never said it was a small woman'... ) Hmm, this para seems to have run on and there is really no good way to end it other than sheer violence. Here we go.
My squash and pumpkin seedlings are just starting to show their leaves. They've taken so long I was sorely tempted to pop them in the heated propagator, but I have this theory that if I let them germinate at their own rate in the (unheated) greenhouse, they will be tougher and should be ready to plant out at the right time, rather than too early and be weakened by the shock of going outside too soon. I notice that the automatic window opener in the greenhouse did its thing for the first time yesterday.
There are 25 young green figs on the fig tree, and they all look healthy! Could it be that this year I have got the timing right? Figtrees tend to produce figs whenever we get a warm spell - they don't ripen properly if they get frosted, but they do sit on the tree for ages stopping it from producing another batch. Last year I pulled all the visible figs off in November, I think, and it started making new ones early this spring.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Figs
Date: 2005-05-10 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 08:38 pm (UTC)Last year I tried pulling off all the young figlets in autumn, which seems to have stimulated the tree to produce new figlets much earlier this year. They are now well over an inch and look fat and green rather than a bit battlescarred and weary as they did last year. I am hopeful they will ripen this time round.
I am not sure what variety of fig mine is - it was a £1 'label fell off' special, so yours might be different. If it's a mature tree, it will probably be correctly sync'd with the seasons anyway - mine is a youngster, and I think possibly early life in a greenhouse had got it confused. However, a number of people on uk.rec.gardening have reported the same thing, so it's not unusual. I suspect it may depend on how sheltered the fig is - mine is on a southfacing wall, but it's fairly windy and we do get gales coming over from Bodmin Moor.
Didn't you have a grapevine? How is that doing? Mine is just budding nicely.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 02:38 pm (UTC)Luckily the fig and vine are right up to the house so are in the relatively trim bit. I am trying not to think about the buttercup/raspberry/strawberry situation: it's a jungle up there...