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Hacker
A dedicated young computer nerd, frequently mischievous but fundamentally harmless, who spends entire nights clacking away at the keyboard with only a bag of chips for companionship. Ranks with gremlins and leprechauns on the Societal Menace Index, while the cyberpunk rates a place alongside investment bankers and Attila the Hun. |
Hair
The primary medium of self-expression for young people who have little else to express, and who generally choose to express it in the manner approved by their peer group. Also said to be a status indicator among the white women of Texas, with the honours going to those whose bouffants most nearly approach their total body mass. |
Half-life
The span of time required for a thing to deteriorate to 50 per cent of its original potency: about twenty-four thousand years for plutonium atoms ... a few centuries for great civilizations ... three weeks for a hit song ... four days for your child's enthusiasm over a new £60 toy ... twenty-four hours for the fresh sense of purpose acquired at a motivational seminar . . . fifteen minutes for the warming afterglow of a 'feel-good' movie ... ten seconds for a sudden impulse to shove the papers off your desk, slug the boss and board the next plane to Tahiti. |
Handgun
An indispensable fashion accessory among American big-city schoolboys. |
Health
A delicate equilibrium that may be upset by smoking too many cigarettes or reading too many alarming medical studies. |
Health Club
A modern temple attended by those who worship the pumped-up trinity of abs, pecs and biceps. |
Health Food
A family of bland, marginally edible grains, beans, sprouts and other vegetative matter that presumably fortifies the body as effectively as it wilts the spirit. |
Heart Attack
A painful modern medical disorder, commonly accompanied by death, that is known to afflict midde-aged men who strive valiantly and hopelessly against their natures, towards goals that make them sick. |
Heavy Metal
Amplified noise for teenage boys who feel they must dabble in the Satanic to get a high on Saturday night. |
Hedonism
Addiction to a merciless drug called pleasure, which is frequently mistaken for happiness. Future slaves may be fatally hooked by a scented bubble bath or by a reckless ride in a Fiat with a sunroof. In the terminal stages they may be seen to dive out of small airplanes, sail off cliffs or jump from bridges while attached to long rubber umbilical cords, as the addict demands ever-higher doses just to attain the pleasure level of a frog catching a gnat with its tongue. |
