Once upon a time I was watching a show that aired in the 70's and I heard a line that Douglas Adams had to have written.

Sure enough, he had a writing credit on that episode. And he undoubtedly wrote that line.

Did any of you get to have that experience?

I rather dislike books 5 and 6 of hitchhikers,this is mostly due to personal preference. Some people like at least book five,Even though Douglas himself has satiated even he didn’t like how Mostly Harmless turned out because he was having a downer year for many and varied reasons and you just can’t write a decent comedy science fiction book while you are down in the dumps. And I believe that most of us can agree book six was bad because it was written by someone trying to do a decent imitation of Adams but had no fucking clue what he was doing at all. For me the series ends with So Long and Thanks, with Arthur and Fenchurch traveling together around the galaxy secure in the knowledge that the Earth will still be where they left it when they returned, Ford doing his job and returning to HanDol city to look up the working girl he met when he learned that the earth had been replaced, and Zaphod and Trillion raising their children and having a wild time on the heart of gold

The Hitchickers Guide to the Galaxy: The Earth is gone!

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: They go to a resturaunt.

Life, the Universe, and Everything: They go to a party.

So long, and Thanks for all the Fish: The Earth is back!

Mostly Harmless: Everyone dies.

How much for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?

https://open.spotify.com/show/2dgQKaWx6kWHyAHzMx64rz?si=4ULB4UKiRQG7XmJfSfMfhg
Anyone else heard this little gem? The hoopiest frood reading his own works.

Where do I order a pair of Peril Sensitive sunglasses? I just can't take reading any outside information. Pangalactic gargle blasters aren't helping anymore.

Look to the left of the photo about three rows down in the link. You can see the letters UISSE above the door of the shop on the left, That's the Cafe Suisse in 1988.

https://trmt.org.uk/collections/photo-gallery/photo-gallery-rickmansworth

I'm thinking of giving the books to my brother as a Christmas present but I'm a little lost as to which edition to buy. 😥

Zaphod paused for a while. For a while there was silence. Then he frowned and said, “Last night I was worrying about this again. About the fact that part of my mind just didn’t seem to work properly. Then it occurred to me that the way it seemed was that someone else was using my mind to have good ideas with, without telling me about it. I put the two ideas together and decided that maybe that somebody had locked off part of my mind for that purpose, which was why I couldn’t use it. I wondered if there was a way I could check.

Our scene is set, enter SYNTH.

Infinite Probability (Heart of Gold)

https://open.spotify.com/album/0ElZeKtiNsVnmNTD6jbnu8

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/infinite-probability-heart-of-gold-single/1781118079

I searched this whole sub for "ADHD" and got not one result. Weird. I've heard my whole life that Douglas Adams had ADHD. I'm VERY ADHD and my fiction writing is similarly structured to his; yes there's a bit of influence from him, but my point here is that his/my style of writing is largely resultant from a specific brain type. Here's another thread discussing this: https://www.reddit.com/r/HitchHikersGuide/comments/l6a2ju/apparently_douglas_adams_might_have_had_adhd/

I guess to spark a specific discussion, I'd ask if anybody can theorize about quantifying any specific literary mechanisms Adams' used, in relation to how those would be easier written by an ADHD person? In short, WHY does ADHD result in Hitchhikers? I'm at a loss to actually explain any of this in psychology or literary terms. I only know balls to bones that it's a vital connection.

I'm also on a mission to help specialize the world for divergent brain-types, so if you're particularly thoughtful, how do you theorize an ADHD student in high school or college, for example, should be specifically taught to write in a way that's comfortable for their brain, such as giving them hitchhikers right off the bat in kindergarten, saying "this is for YOU especially to study"!

Preface: I'm new here, apologies if this has been discussed before...

We know ZZ9PluralZAlpha is where Zaphod picked up Trillian (i.e. Earth). And we know it's where Ford & Arthur were picked up by the infinite improbability drive. But. They weren't picked up near Earth - they were picked up near Barnard's star, 6 light years away from earth. (Vogon ship > hyperspace > Arthur's quote in the air lock "...It’s now just after four in the afternoon and I’m already being thrown out of an alien spaceship six light-years from the smoking remains of the Earth!..."). So, ZZ9PluralZAlpha is at least 6 light years across - seems pretty big for a galactic postcode doesn't it?

The real reason is obvious and boring - but I'm wondering if anyone has an in-universe / headcannon explanation for how the galactic sector system works?