HTH (or A Journalistically Plausible Piece of Nonsense)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this guy’s the dog’s bollocks. Ah! Sorry, gentle readers, I have jumped the proverbial gun. I shall start at the beginning. I was nosing around in Matlab forums for a piece of code and I finally found a thread with the answers, provided by this guy who signs himself as HTH. This is probably a good point in the narrative to ward off any blood-seeking gender activists by the following disclaimer: It could well have been any other gender, but to hell with that – I’m sure it’s a guy. Anyway, so this guy had the answers. I allocated him space in my crowded brain and filed him as ‘the Matlab guy’. Three days later, on a search for a solution to pesky ArcGIS problem, I find the answer being provided by, no surprise, the very same bloke (sceptical readers can find him here: http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/12284/how-do-you-find-linear-mileage". Now this is something, I said to myself. ArcGIS and Matlab? I promptly enlarged his allocated space in my brain, renamed him ‘the geek’ and moved on. Now, this is where it gets interesting – a week on, I was looking at a Python forum (don’t ask me, gentle readers, why I was switching between languages like an undecided fly – the answer is disappointingly banal) when who should provide the answers, but none other than the geek, HTH. He has since occupied half my brain (3/8 right and 1/8 left, to be specific) and goes by the alias ‘God.’ Now that his omnipotence, omnipresence and omnibenevolence have been conclusively proven (gosh, proving the existence of God doesn’t get easier, does it!), I shall go on to relate to you, my readers, one of his exploits.

HTH, for he is benevolent enough to allow free use of his Christian name, went on a date once, when in the Old Blighty. He acquiesced to his partner’s demands and went to a wine and cheese night despite being particularly unfond of blue cheese, because he’s a decent chap, but mainly because the disadvantages of a strong after-taste far outweighed the disadvantages of an empty eye-socket. And of course, a few extra glasses of wine on a date never did one any harm. As expected, the after-taste got less and less sharp and more and more likeable, helped along by the increasingly companionable attitude of his partner. And, Stilton is after all, the king of blue cheeses. To cut a long story short, the cows of Leicestershire and the grape vines of Bordeaux had their existence thoroughly justified that night. Now as we all know, the unmoderated consumption of Stilton before one sleeps can result in strange mental goings-on. In fact, there is a direct link between the consumption of Stilton and dreams populated with vegetarian crocodiles. If you do not believe this claim, gentle readers, I refer you to
"http://web.archive.org/web/20060115000115/http://www.cheeseboard.co.uk/news.cfm?page_id=240" and hope that this shall, for once and all, put your natural scepticism to rest.

In fact, that night, in the throes of a Stilton-induced dream, HTH saw himself wrestling with a Greater Flamingo while trying to save the life of a vegetarian crocodile that had got lost while attempting the Annual Nile Run and ended up in the Guinean mangrove swamps of Sierra Leone. HTH sat bolt upright in his bed. His partner murmured, what’s wrong, honey, all that cheese? Do you know something absolutely startling I read the other morning? Scientists have found, and I do not speak lightly or for that matter kid you, that a proven way of losing weight is to eat less! Can you believe that? If you can’t (my gentle readers), here is incontrovertible proof: "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14882832". No, said HTH, it’s something far less startling. There is a mission I have to undertake. A vegetarian crocodile is in trouble. He seeks answers on ‘how to subdue a Greater Flamingo’ but doesn’t have access to the internet and cannot get on to the usual forums. Now you may be thinking, my dear, and be all too justified in doing so, that this is bunkum, but this lizard of the Nile is in fact a distant relative of his Indian cousin (mentioned here: "http://www.thehindu.com/arts/magazine/article2512203.ece") though he doesn't share his passion for rice balls." "Hmm," said his partner. "That might be because basmati rice well-cooked is the olfactory cousin of tiger piss. It's a territory thing." "What nonsense." "No, look here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11787325." "Goodness, these are strange times we live in. Gosh, I must go now. I’m sorry, darling, don’t keep the breakfast out. I’ll be back for lunch. Goodnight." And as the partner watched, HTH vanished.

He took a few minutes to get to Sierra Leone, having stopped off en-route in a Tesco’s for a fish-wrap, a Go Outdoors for an oxygen tank and a Nalli’s in Chennai for a lungi (for the uninitiated of you, a lungi is a colourful piece of cloth wrapped around the waist, worn by males). For the place he was going to was no ordinary West African town as you shall soon see for yourself. He landed, he wore the lungi and he laughed out loud until his lungs were empty, he fixed up the oxygen tank and laughed out loud for a few hours more. And only then were his omnipresence, omnibenevolence and omnipotence re-established. For, he was in the land of Lungi-Lol. Now if you do not believe the existence of said land, my gentle readers, I refer you here: "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13688683". And he went forth, this God, to the swamp where the vegetarian crocodile had got lost, a victim of extensive landscape changes caused by profiteering land-grabbers. He gave the crocodile the fish-wrap and his I-phone, specially equipped for access to the internet regardless of where you are. The crocodile googled how to subdue a Greater Flamingo with a fish-wrap (I shall not bore you with detail for I am sure you are no longer the sceptics you once were). He found an answer signed HTH, and needless to say, all, my gentle readers, is well.

Hope That Helps.