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@saintwright.bsky.social

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Reposted

Gemma Arrowsmith

@mmaarrow.bsky.social

Haha! Love this letter from Douglas Adams to his US editor about not Americanising the text of Hitchhiker's Guide. 🐋🌸

Date: Monday, January 13, 1992, 5:26 pm
To: Byron Preiss
Dear Byron,
Thanks for the script of the novel. I don't know what happened to the
first one. It may have been a victim of the office move (see above).
I'll respond as quickly and briefly as possible.
One general point. A thing I have had said to me over and over again
whenever I've done public appearances and readings and so on in the
States is this: Please don't let anyone Americanise it! We like it the
way it is!
There are some changes in the script that simply don't make sense.
Arthur Dent is English, the setting is England, and has been in every
single manifestation of HHGG ever. The 'Horse and Groom' pub that
Arthur and Ford go to is an English pub, the 'pounds' they pay with

are English (but make it twenty pounds rather than five- inflation) So
why suddenly 'Newark' instead of 'Rickmansworth'? And
'Bloomingdales' instead of 'Marks & Spencer'? The fact that
Rickmansworth is not within the continental United States doesn't
mean that it doesn't exist! American audiences do not need to feel
disturbed by the notion that places do exist outside the US or that
people might suddenly refer to them in works of fiction. You
wouldn't, presumably, replace Ursa Minor Beta with 'Des Moines'.
There is no Bloomingdales in England, and Bloomingdales is not a
generic term for large department stores. If you feel that referring to
"Marks & Spencer' might seriously freak out Americans because they
haven't heard of it (or because Marks and Spencer owns Brooks
Brothers) we could either put warning stickers on the cover ("The text
of this book contains references to places and institutions outside the
continental United States and may cause offence to people who haven't
heard of them") or you could, I suppose, put 'Harrods', which most
people will have heard of. Or we could even take the appalling risk of
just recklessly mentioning things that people won't have heard of and
see if they survive the experience. They probably will - when people
are born they haven't heard of anything or anywhere, but seem to get
through the first few years of their lives without ill-effects.

April 7, 2025 at 8:35 AM

Reposted

Dare Obasanjo

@carnage4life.bsky.social

The coolest thing I’ve seen today is that a bunch of volunteer public health professionals and developers have restored the CDC website from before January 20th 2025.

This differs from an archive in that they want to rebuild the links between pages and replicate the full website.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

restoredcdc.org

March 9, 2025 at 1:11 PM

Reposted

Guy Rowland

@guyrowlanduk.bsky.social

The Lucy Letby case is going to be infamous for decades to come. New leaked information from inside a police operation which created a serial killer out of thin air.

unherd.com/2025/02/why-...

Why the Letby case isn't closed

unherd.com

February 1, 2025 at 7:00 AM

Reposted

Anna Landre

@annalandre.com

Do you know a UK-based wheelchair user who works in a lab and would be willing to user-test our prototype of what is believed to be the first-ever lab coat adapted for wheelchair users?

Please share far & wide! Interest form: forms.office.com/e/66FhcQjqRT

More info: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-east/new...