The restaurant at the end of the Universe does not close in 2012...

25 May is a special day in the lives of fans of the work of Douglas Adams (1952-2001). Since I am one of those fans, I’m indulging in ponderings about his writings which, as I have discovered over the years, are close to the hearts of many of my friends and acquaintances  as well.

I am not aware of many other authors who have a special commemorative day that is celebrated all over the world. But on Towel Day, the annual celebration on 25 May, Adams fans around the world – and presumably the rest of the universe - proudly carry a towel in his honour. If you forgot to do so this year, then there are about 360 days left to plan your outfit (plaid dressing gown and slippers are strongly advised) and get your towel laundered.
The subtle British humour of Adams is not to everybody's taste. Some people somewhat mistakenly refer to him as a science fiction writer – indeed, to compare his writings with most other science fiction authors, would be comparing apples and pears.

He was first and foremost a master humorist although he also wrote and spoke about many other things, including the environment and an insightful analysis of the effects of the Internet as early as 1993, he will always be associated with that unique trilogy in five parts, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (or HHGTTG) is about travels in space - but it looks at that subject in a similar way that P G Wodehouse looks at upper crust English lifestyles.

Adams had an excellent understanding of science and the meaning of science for humankind - better than many science fiction authors and sci-fi movie script writers, who often make statements that have no bearing to real science, but try to convince movie goers or readers that there is a scientific basis to their fiction. It then takes scientists & others a lot of effort to explain that the story/movie that is getting everyone all worked up is based on bogus stuff or misunderstandings of the actual science. Just think of the fuss that has been created by the movie “2012”, which has spawned various books, websites and even has NASA devoting a page to debunking this unscientific nonsense.

Adams did not pretend his creations were "real" - but ironically his characters became real to his fans because of his skilful way of creating absurd yet loveable images. His world is one where the characters tell universal stories and make gentle fun of us all.

Few if any scientists ever felt the need to debunk his writings, because his was a world of fantasy and humour, but grounded in the principles of science where relevant. His fans included among others Richard Dawkins (who wrote the eulogy for Adams' funeral service and who dedicated his "The God Delusion" to Adams).

Most fans know that he did not start out as an author of written fiction. His fame came as a writer for that most wonderful medium of the "theatre of the mind", namely radio - and that is also where HHGTTG started out. He was one of a group of exceptionally talented people who, during the same era, gave the world Monty Python, the Red Dwarf series, The Goon Show etc. Probably the best way to explain why Towel Day is celebrated, is to refer to Douglas himself:

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.


“More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.” - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

And here are some more favourite quotes:

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”


“The Answer to the Great Question... Of Life, the Universe and Everything... Is... Forty-two,' said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm."


"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen. "


"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."


"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."


"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. "


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


"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."


"The Guide says that there is an art to flying,” said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."


"It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."


"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."

Douglas once said "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be."

Indeed he is – in the hearts of his admirers all over the world.


25 May 2010