Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Neil Gaiman

‘Well, he can’t do it again, surely! This time he’ll start on time, or he’ll have a schedule and stick to it…’ “But he didn’t. The whole thing was tremendously late, and Douglas was getting into a bit of a state about it because it was getting later and later. He was sharing a flat at the time with a friend called Jon Canter, and Douglas found it impossible to work as the phone kept ringing and Jon was always there. In the end I said to him, ‘Why don’t you just move out?’ as he had written the first book at his mother’s. He thought that was a very good idea, so I rented him a flat, and moved him in that afternoon.” Douglas found the experience more than slightly weird: “I was locked away so nobody could possibly reach me or find me. I led a completely monastic existence for that month, and at the end of four weeks it was done. “It was extraordinary. One of those times you really go mad… I can remember the moment I thought, ‘I can do it! I’ll actually get it finished in time!’ And the Paul Simon album had just come out, One Trick Pony, and it was the only album I had. I’d listen to it on my Walkman every second I wasn’t actually sitting at the typewriter—it contributed to the sense of insanity and hypnotism that allowed me to write a book in that time.” When the manuscript for The Restaurant at the End of the Universe was turned in, Douglas stated that that would be the final Hitchhiker’s book. “It’s the last of all that, I hope”, he announced to one daily paper, “I want

“The most commonly heard plea from American audiences is ‘Don’t let them Americanise it! We get all sorts of pabulum over here…!’

Audiences in the US (through no fault of their own) are treated as complete idiots by the people who make programmes. And when you’ve been treated as an idiot for so long you tend to respond that way. But when given something with a bit more substance they tend to breathe a deep sigh of relief and say ‘Thank God for that!’

They had a very posh suite, with a small bedroom and a big bedroom—Sonny gave Douglas the small bedroom, as, he said, Douglas wouldn’t be needing it very much.” Sweating over his typewriter, Douglas sat and wrote. He was allowed out twice a day for exercise. Sonny Mehta sat next door, watching videos and acting as on-the-spot editor.

“Isn’t it enough to see that the garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

It is an accepted fact that technology supersedes itself at a rate capable of bankrupting all but the wealthiest of consumers.

Cycling through the hundreds of pre-programmed settings on a piece of effects kit, they finally found the right voice treatment. It was setting number forty-two.

So, by lifting out the original audiobook performance and dropping it in to the relevant scene, Douglas was able to fulfill his dream of performing the role, albeit four years after his death. Which is precisely the sort of technological absurdism that would have appealed to him.

The years since his passing have been packed with celebration and reinvention, some of it great, some of it less so, but that’s fine, that’s how these things work. There has been much he would have been immensely proud to see (and hear), and one cannot help but be saddened by the fact that he is unable to.

So long Douglas and thanks for all the words.

Pronounced “Owen”, so stop making that noise like cars flashing past you at a Grand Prix.

At the time of going to press the author hasn’t been able to get his hands on a copy but he is assured that it is Very Very Good. By the time THIS book comes out you may well have got YOUR hands on a copy and are now feeling you have one up on me. But don’t forget that by then I will likely ALSO have got my hands on a copy so… This is silly, perhaps it’s just easier to meet for a pint and discuss it?

Pint of?