Don't Panic, It's Towel Day! 164
An anonymous reader writes "Today, as every May 25th, geeks all over the world celebrate Towel Day and carry a towel in honor of Douglas Adams. The popular author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy died in 2001 at the age of 49, but his work lives on. According to the book, a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Hence its symbolic role in this celebration. This year, for the first time as far as we know, Towel Day is being supported by the British publisher of Adams' books, who organizes a photo competition."
Douglas Adams was smarter than your average bear (Score:5, Interesting)
-- Douglas Adams, Speech at The University of California
Re:Douglas Adams was smarter than your average bea (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed he was.
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]
"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
Here in India, every day is a towel day. (Score:1, Interesting)
Seriously - a lot of people have a towel on shoulder in some parts of the country.
Sadly though, it is now only seen in (supposedly backward) villages.
Memorial Towel Day (Score:1, Interesting)
Took my Towel to the Memorial Day Parade!
It had so many uses! I waved it and wiped my brow with it. I even used it to wipe the chocolate stains off a child's face.
Douglas Adams was a Genius!
Re:Douglas Adams was smarter than your average bea (Score:4, Interesting)
Your sig is remarkably apt, after that quote...
Re:It's just not that good (Score:3, Interesting)
Do yourself a favour, listen to the original 2 series from the radio. After that it's all crap. As for the TV and movie, bah !
"Immensely durable science-fiction comedy that taught us all not to panic.
It may have spawned a BBC TV series, five novels and a biggish-budget movie, but purists still point to the original humble radio series as the real deal when it comes to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mysciencefictionlife/A16383233#inDepth [bbc.co.uk]
I remember it well from the first time around.