The nicest juvenile delinquents in the world

I had a real Mark Corrigan (sorry about the ads) experience last night.

As I walked through the Monkmoor estate in Shreswbury, wearing my warm old-man's clothes and dragging my fencing bag behind me, I met a group of kids, who must have ranged from 8 to 12 years old. 'Oh no', I thought to myself. 'I've seen this episode. They ask menacing questions then call me a paedo and kick me up the bottom. Then I lock myself indoors and resign myself to a lifetime of bitter hate and fear'.

Sure enough, they gathered round me shouting something. I remove my earphones (Philip Glass's Heroes symphony). They're not calling me a paedo or laughing at my garb. They're asking if they can throw snowballs at me. I'm so stunned that I find I can only reward their good manners by acquiescing. 'Sure', I tell them. 'But not the face'. They keep their side of the bargain, and we all walk away happy, and reassured that society hasn't yet descended into barbarism.

Here's another similar experience from the sublime Attila the Stockbroker.

Quite enough for one day

I'm off. Food, then Isy Suttie's doing stand-up tonight. She was Dobby in Peep Show. I'm only going because my chum Phil, who books the acts, thinks it would be hilarious to have a photo of me taken with her. Because I allegedly look like Mark Corrigan. Humph.

For all you hoopy froods

I am not a hoopy frood. In the HHGTTG galaxy, I am more Dentarthurdent (if you aren't familiar with the world of Douglas Adams, imagine Arthur as the proto-Mark Corrigan) than Ford Prefect. They both own good dressing gowns and exist in a state of befuddlement with the world's degradation. Only Mark has eaten a girl's dog though, and Arthur's essentially kind.

Today is Douglas Adams appreciation day, known as Towel Day. This is because 'a towel is the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have', and if you know where your towel is, friendly types will lend you anything else you may have mislaid.

I will be donning dressing gown and towel today, because I'm a huge fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide radio series, BBC series and books. They're more than a collection of Adams's one-liners about tea, cricket and technology - there's real heart in there, and serious (though sentimental) liberal-left values. Arthur is a man out of time, baffled by the shallowness of the Porsche-driving advertising executives who stand in for friends. A cup of tea, a girlfriend and peace and quiet is all he needs, yet the universe keeps intervening - blowing up Earth, for instance. The series is essentially a howl of pain as Adams observes the gentle liberalness  which he saw as encapsulating Englishness ripped apart by capitalism and the Tories.



Adams' other books are also bursting with emotion, ideas and funny jokes - Bach and Coleridge are key cameos in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Douglas also cared hugely about species loss, what we've done to the planet, and Apple Macs. He died at the age of 51 in 2001. He's also responsible for my PhD-writing motto:

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by".

This Friday's conundrum

A nice one this week.

Who are your fictional heroes? With whom do you identify or admire? I'm opting for Arthur Dent ('I seem to be having trouble with my lifestyle'), who fruitlessly and accidentally travelled the universe in search of a decent cup of tea, which is disastrous. He also sported a fine dressing gown, as I have been known to, loved cricket and was pretty decent.

I've been accused of resembling Mark Corrigan too. It's true that he (and David Mitchell) is right about most things, worries about ordinary human decency, comes from Shropshire, wears a good dressing gown and the actor shares a birthday with me, but I'm ignoring all that. (Some people say Mark's conservative - they're wrong. He's just not a liberal). My university ID card has a photo of Mark on it. Nobody has ever challenged me.

(Today's xkcd cartoon is a lovely typography one - don't miss the mouse-over. Did you know I went to watch a film about Helvetica and own several books on fonts?).