42
If that number doesn’t mean anything special to you, you should probably stop reading now. For the rest of you… did you know it was 30 years since Hitch-Hikers first appeared on BBC Radio Four?
I came to the party late and didn’t get into HHGTTG until the second book (Restaurant At The End Of The Universe) had been published, but I was immediately hooked. I devoured every little thing that Douglas Adams produced - re-read them a gazillion times, until I could quote verbatim from the books. At school, we’d greet each other with a line from one of the books - and the correct response was to quote the next line.
I remember how picky we got when the TV series was produced, and none of the cast looked as we thought they should (except for Arthur - Simon Jones was always perfect casting for that role. Martin Freeman can’t hold a candle to him). Sandra Dickinson for Trillian? Puh-lease!! And why couldn’t they get Zaphod’s other head to work properly?
What I loved about the whole HHGTTG phenomena was the flexibility in the narrative, which made it different in each media. There’s stuff in the radio series that has never been in anything else, the books are different from the TV which is different from the albums which are different from the film. Essentially, Douglas Adams had one idea (whilst lying drunk in a field) and was able to re-sell it to everyone.
Check out this BBC story for a discussion on what 42 really means.
Far out in the unchartered backwaters of the Western Spiral Arm of the galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly 92 million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet who’s ape-descended life forms still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
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