BritGAF |OT5| Superb Birds, Absurd Turds and Disturbed Nerds

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Sorry I’m a bit late, had a terrible time… All sort of things cropping up at the last moment. How are we for time? Umm -

[The universe explodes]
 
And so the universe ended. One of the major selling points of that wholly remarkable book, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - apart from its relative cheapness and the fact that has the words “Don’t Panic” written in large, friendly letters on the cover - is its compendious and occasionally accurate, glossary. For instance, the statistics relating to the geo-social nature of the universe are all deftly set out between pages 576,324 and 576,326. The simplistic style is partly explained by the fact that its editors, having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off the back of a packet of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few foot notes in order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly torturous Galactic Copyright Laws. It’s interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the book backwards in time, through a temporal warp, and then successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the same laws. Here is a sample in both Headings and footnotes.
 
The universe. Some information to help you live in it.

One: ‘Area’. Infinite. As far as anyone can make out

Two: ’Imports’. None. It’s impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from.

Three: ‘Exports’. None. See ’Imports’.

Four: ‘Rainfall’. None. Rain can not fall because in an infinite space there is no up for it to fall down from.

Five: ‘Population’. None. It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, but that not everyone is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds. So, if every planet in the universe has a population of zero, then the entire population of the universe must also be zero, and any people you may actually meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

Six: ‘Monetary Units’. None. In fact, there are three freely convertible currencies in the universe, but the Altairian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu doesn’t really count as money. It’s exchange rate of six Ningis to one Pu is simple, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six-thousand, eight-hundred miles long each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Niginis are not negotiable currency because the Galactic Banks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this Basic premise it’s very simple to prove that the Galactic Banks are also the products of a deranged imagination.

Seven. ‘Sex’. None. Well - actually, there is an awful lot of this. Largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, rainfall, or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people in the universe occupied. However, it’s not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now, because it really is, terribly complicated. For further information See Chapters Seven, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Fourteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Nineteen, Twenty-One to Eighty-Four inclusive, and… most of the rest of the book. It’s largely, on the account of passages like this, that the book of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ is being revised by Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent. Unfortunately, they are being presented with too many distractions to be able to settle down to doing any solid research. Not only does Arthur Dent still have to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything, but the newly-stolen spaceship is currently behaving rather like this:
 
Scene 5. Int. Spaceship

[The sound of a spaceship in trouble. Under the noise we hear our heroes]

ARTHUR:
Basically what you’re trying to say is that you can’t control it.

FORD:
I’m not trying to say that, the whole bloody ship is!

ZAPHOD:
It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me. I mean, when you try an’ operate one of these weird black controls which are labelled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to tell you you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of intergalactic hyper-hearse?

TRILLIAN:
Well perhaps it is.

ARTHUR:
Isn’t there anyway you can control it? You’re making me feel space sick.

FORD:
Time sick. We’re plummeting backwards through time.

ARTHUR:
Oh god! Now I think I really am going to be ill.

ZAPHOD:
Go ahead, we could do with a little colour around the place.

TRILLIAN:
Oh for god’s sake Zaphod! Go easy will you? Already today we’ve had to sit through the end of the universe, and before that we were blasted five-hundred-and-seventy-six-thousand years through time by an exploding computer.

MARVIN:
It’s alright for you, I had to go the long way ‘round.

ARTHUR:
How did that happen anyway? How does an exploding computer push you through time?

MARVIN:
Very simple. It wasn’t a computer it was a hyper-spatial field generator.

ARTHUR:
Silly, I should have recognised it at once.

MARVIN:
As it overheated it blew a hole through the space-time continuum and you dropped through like a stone through a wet paper bag…. I hate wet paper bags.

TRILLIAN:
Hey, that sounds better! Have you managed to make some sense of the controls?

FORD:
No, we just stopped fiddling with them. I think this ship has a far better idea of where it’s going than we do.

ARTHUR:
Well that sounds quite sensible to me.

ZAPHOD:
What do you know about it ape-man?

ARTHUR:
Well Look! If whoever owns this ship travelled forward in time to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe then presumably he must have programmed the ship in advance to return him to the exact point he originally left. Doesn’t that make sense?

FORD:
That’s quite a good thought you know. Particularly if he was anticipating having a good time. Drunk in charge of a time ship is a pretty serious offence. They tend to lock you away in some planet’s stone age and tell you to evolve into a more responsible life-form.

TRILLIAN:
So there’s nothing to do but sit back and see where we turn up. Well what do we do in the meantime?

ARTHUR:
I’ve got a Pocket-Scrabble set.

ZAPHOD:
Go play with a nut.

ARTHUR:
Well if that’s your attitude!

ZAPHOD:
Hey look Earthman, you’ve got a job to do remember? The Question to the Ultimate Answer right? I mean there’s a lot of money tied up in that head thing of yours, I mean, just think of the merchandising: Ultimate Question T-shirts, Ultimate Question Biscuits…

ARTHUR:
Well, yes!

ARTHUR:
But where do we start?! I don’t know! The Ultimate Answer so-called is “Forty-Two”! Well what’s the question? How am I supposed to know?! Could be anything! I mean, “What’s six times seven?”

FORD, ZAPHOD and TRILLIAN:
Er… Forty-two!

ARTHUR:
Yes, I know that! I’m just saying the question could be anything! How should I know?

FORD:
Because you and Trillian are the last generation products of the Earth computer matrix, You must know!

MARVIN:
I know.

FORD:
Shut up, Marvin, this is organism talk.

MARVIN:
It’s printed in the Earthman’s brainwave patterns, but I don’t suppose you’ll be very interested in knowing that.

ARTHUR:
You mean you can see into my mind?

MARVIN:
Yes.

ARTHUR:
And?

MARVIN:
It amazes me how you manage to live in anything that small.

ARTHUR:
Ah. Abuse!

MARVIN:
Yes.

ZAPHOD:
Oh, ignore him, he’s only making it up.

MARVIN:
Making it up? What should I want to make anything up? Life’s bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

TRILLIAN:
Marvin if you knew what it was all along why didn’t you tell us?

MARVIN:
You didn’t ask.

FORD:
Well we’re asking you now, metal-man, What’s the question!?

MARVIN:
The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything?

FORD, ARTHUR, ZAPHOD and TRILLIAN:

MARVIN:
To which the answer is forty-two?

FORD, ZAPHOD and TRILLIAN:

MARVIN:
I can tell that you’re not really interested.

FORD:
Will you just tell us you motorised maniac!?
[Electronic noise]

ARTHUR:
Oh, look the control panel’s lighting up! We must’ve arrived!

ZAPHOD:
Hey yeah, we’ve zapped back into real space.

MARVIN:
I knew you weren’t really interested.

FORD:
The controls won’t respond. It’s still going its own way. Isn’t there anyway we can introduce this ship to the concept of democracy?!

TRILLIAN:
Can we at least find out where we are?

ARTHUR:
The vision screens are all blank, can’t we turn them on?

FORD:
They are on.

ARTHUR:
Why can’t we see any stars?

ZAPHOD:
Hey, ya know, I think we must be outside the galaxy.

FORD:
We’re picking up speed! We’re heading out into intergalactic space! Arthur, check out the rear screens will you?

TRILLIAN:
I feel cold, all alone in this infinite void.

ARTHUR:
Apart from the fleet of black battle cruisers behind us.

TRILLIAN:
What?

FORD:
What fleet?

ZAPHOD:
Uhmmm, er, which, er, particular fleet of black battle cruisers is that Earthman?

ARTHUR:
Oh! The ones on the rear screens. Sorry, I though you’d noticed them. There are about a hundred-thousand. Is that wrong?

MARVIN:
No. What do you expect if you steal the flagship of an admiral of the space fleet?

ZAPHOD:
Marvin! W-what makes you think this is an admiral’s flagship?

MARVIN:
I know it is, I parked it for him.

ZAPHOD:
[Yells] Then why the planet of hell didn’t you tell us?!

MARVIN:
You didn’t ask.

FORD:
You know what we’ve done? We’ve dropped ourselves into the vanguard of a major intergalactic war.

{Dramatic cord}

NARRATOR:
Will our heroes ever have a chance to find out what the Ultimate Question is? Will they be too busy dealing with a hundred thousand horribly beweaponed battle cruisers to have a chance to have a sympathetic chat with Marvin, the paranoid android? Will they eventually have to settle down and lead normal lives as account executives or management consultants? Will life ever be the same again after next week’s last and - reasonably exciting - instalment of ’The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’?
 
deadp.gif
 
8bit said:
The universe. Some information to help you live in it.

One: ‘Area’. Infinite. As far as anyone can make out

Two: ’Imports’. None. It’s impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from.

Three: ‘Exports’. None. See ’Imports’.

Four: ‘Rainfall’. None. Rain can not fall because in an infinite space there is no up for it to fall down from.

Five: ‘Population’. None. It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, but that not everyone is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds. So, if every planet in the universe has a population of zero, then the entire population of the universe must also be zero, and any people you may actually meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

Six: ‘Monetary Units’. None. In fact, there are three freely convertible currencies in the universe, but the Altairian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu doesn’t really count as money. It’s exchange rate of six Ningis to one Pu is simple, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six-thousand, eight-hundred miles long each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Niginis are not negotiable currency because the Galactic Banks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this Basic premise it’s very simple to prove that the Galactic Banks are also the products of a deranged imagination.

Seven. ‘Sex’. None. Well - actually, there is an awful lot of this. Largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, rainfall, or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people in the universe occupied. However, it’s not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now, because it really is, terribly complicated. For further information See Chapters Seven, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Fourteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Nineteen, Twenty-One to Eighty-Four inclusive, and… most of the rest of the book. It’s largely, on the account of passages like this, that the book of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ is being revised by Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent. Unfortunately, they are being presented with too many distractions to be able to settle down to doing any solid research. Not only does Arthur Dent still have to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything, but the newly-stolen spaceship is currently behaving rather like this:
Click to expand...
Reading that, I can't help but remember this.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838985
 
ANNOUNCER:
In that episode of ’The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, Peter Jones was The Book. Anthony Sharp was Garkbit the Waiter and Zarquon the Prophet; and Roy Hudd, Compeer at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. With Simon Jones, Arthur Dent; Geoffrey McGivern, Ford Prefect; Mark Wing-Davey, Zaphod Beeblebrox; Susan Sheridan, Trillian; and Stephen Moore, Marvin. The program was written by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, and produced by Geoffrey Perkins, with the assistance of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. If you would like a copy of the book, ’The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, please write to Megadodo Publications, Megadodo House, Ursa Minor. Enclosing three pounds, ninety-five for the book plus five-hundred-and-ninety-seven-million, eight-hundred-and-twelve-thousand, four-hundred-and-six pounds, seven-p, postage and packing.

TX:
BBC Radio 4:
5th April 1978

Notes:
*Featuring Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trisha 'Trillian' McMillan and Marvin
 
Nerdkiller said:
This is gonna go on forever, isn't it?
Click to expand...

The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds.
 
That Dark Souls, eh?

I want to play other games. But for some reason I like feeling claustrophobic, lonely and outnumbered.
 
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