The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Joey Shabadoo]

https://h2g2.com/ was my first go at message boards. Very similar to here in many ways, but with a focus on writing rather than cycling. I think I wandered in around 2005(?) with a question about satellite-based microwave scanners and stayed until (checks) 2018. The most interesting section was AskH2G2 where you could ask any question you like and get responses from experts or people with experience - often better and more interesting than Google. In addition to the message boards was The Guide, a pre-Wiki attempt at a group-resourced encyclopedia. Looking at it today, I see tomorrow is Douglas Adam's birthday.

 

[raleighnut]

I've got all 5 books of the Trilogy.

And the Dirk Gently books.

 

[Dirk]

This thread prompted me to buy the DVD.
It arrived today.
£5.99 off e bay.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Radio series out on vinyl apparently. Pricey - saw it for £75 in HMV.
Plus, the 1970's rare studio version is getting a re-release:
Don't Panic!
I used to have it plus the single follow-up album Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Double album closest to the TV version but minor cast changes.

 

[MontyVeda]

The 6th book, And Another Thing by Eion Colfer is currently being re-run on Radio 4, titled The Hexagonal Phase... it's not bad, obviously not a patch on the original radio series though.

 

[Jody]

Possibly, haven't seen it for ages but digitally remastered blu-ray is out. Thats the BBC telly series, not the unmentionable badly-acted, badly directed, chainsaw-taken-to gags sorry movie thing......

I bought the BBC series a while ago after trying to watch some shoddy version on Youtube. Not quite as I remember it but I was fairly young. I've never listened the original radio version though Is it downloadable from anywhere?

Grenade going in but.............. I didn't mind the film

 

[captain nemo1701]

I bought the BBC series a while ago after trying to watch some shoddy version on Youtube. Not quite as I remember it but I was fairly young. I've never listened the original radio version though Is it downloadable from anywhere?

Grenade going in but.............. I didn't mind the film

I thought it was awful. The axe they took to the gags was like going into the garden & finding someone had hacked your favourite rose bush to a stump. Thats what you get for handing £50M to producers of pop videos who hadn't a clue. Terry Gilliam would have been an amazing director.
In the beginning the famous line ' it was located in a disused toilet with a sign on the door saying 'beware of the leopard' was cut. Movie went downhill after that.

 

[Bazzer]

I bought the BBC series a while ago after trying to watch some shoddy version on Youtube. Not quite as I remember it but I was fairly young. I've never listened the original radio version though Is it downloadable from anywhere?

Grenade going in but.............. I didn't mind the film

6 episodes are playable on iPlayer. Record direct from your computer.

 

[numbnuts]

This thread prompted me to buy the DVD.
It arrived today.
£5.99 off e bay.

View attachment 508093

So did I

 

[Edwardoka]

Movie went downhill after that.

The first ten million years, they were the worst.
The second ten million years, they were the worst too.
The third ten million years, I didn't enjoy at all.
After that I went into a bit of a decline...

 

[raleighnut]

The first ten million years, they were the worst.
The second ten million years, they were the worst too.
The third ten million years, I didn't enjoy at all.
After that I went into a bit of a decline...

Brain the size of a Planet.

 

[cyberknight]

Brain the size of a Planet.

Marvin is the clearest thinker I know

 

[cyberknight]

I reckon the rain God has taken up permanent residence in the UK

 

[captain nemo1701]

The first ten million years, they were the worst.
The second ten million years, they were the worst too.
The third ten million years, I didn't enjoy at all.
After that I went into a bit of a decline...

What are you doing in the car park ??...

Parking cars....

 

[BrumJim]

Serious question for H2G2 nerds. Famously, Deep Thought was built to provide The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. It gave the answer "42". Which then brought up the conundrum as to what the question was.

So they built an even bigger computer, called "Earth", which was just about to reveal the question when it was destroyed to make way for a hyperspace by-pass (IIRC). In "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" (probably some errors here) Ford Prefect was trying to use the remnants of earth amongst the telephone handset sanitisers, middle management and other members of the human race that were not either the great thinkers and movers, or the grafters. Realising that Arthur Dent was also a part of the great computer "Earth", Ford Prefect got him to pick random letters out of a scrabble bag to see what he came up with. And the answer was "What do you get when you multiply six by nine ". (thanks, Wikipedia).

Does this mean that the answer from Deep Thought was wrong, or that despite Arthur Dent generating a cohesive sentance from random Scrabble letters, he failed to provide the question that they were looking for?