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Saturday 30 June 2012

Saturday Rave: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

I was there at the beginning of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I was living in a small room at the bottom of the house of a lady who had once been secretary to the secretary to the secretary to His Majesty King George VI.

My dad had bought me a radio in case I was lonely. I wasn't, but, oh, THGTTG was the most mind-expanding, joyful, snort-worthy thing.

From being a radio show THGTTG developed into...well, more or less everything, really. Books, a towel, a television series, a film. But it's the book I'm raving about at the moment.

THGTTG is a book about Life, the Universe and Everything. It's gob-smackingly intelligent, massively original, and hugely, inspirationally silly.

As well as being the book of the radio series (by the way, the THGTTG trilogy happens to be made up of five books) THGTTG is also the book of the book: THE book, that is, the guidebook called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is produced on Ursa Minor Beta by Megadodo Publications and, as I seem to recall, has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed on the cover.

If you don't know the story of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the paranoid android then...well, you've got a treat in store. Really. I haven't got enough superlatives for this one.

By the way, if you read all five books you'll hear God's last message to creation.

It'll make everything all right, too.

Word To Use Today: hike. This word appeared in English in the 1700s. No one is sure where it comes from, but there's a Maori word, hikoi, which means a walk or march, especially a protest march.


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