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Almost but not quite entirely unlike Douglas Adams



Last Updated: 5/18/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Married
Age: 57
Sign: Pisces

City: Santa Barbara
State: CALIFORNIA
Country: US
Signup Date: 6/14/2005

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Thursday, October 09, 2008 

Current mood:  pissy
Category: Writing and Poetry
Reprinted from bbc.co.uk website:
New Hitchhiker's author announced
Eoin Colfer and Douglas Adams
Colfer will bring back Douglas Adams's character Arthur Dent

Children's author Eoin Colfer has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series.

Mostly Harmless, the last Hitchhiker book, was written by its creator, the late Douglas Adams, 16 years ago.

Now Adams's widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval to bring back the hapless Arthur Dent in a new book entitled And Another Thing...

Eoin Colfer, 43, is best known for the best-selling Artemis Fowl novels.

He said he was "terrified" by the prospect of creating a new Hitchhiker book almost a quarter of a century after being introduced to what he described as a "slice of satirical genius" in his late teens.

'Pressure'

Arthur Dent
The book also spawned a BBC TV series starring Simon Jones
"My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series," he said.

"But on reflection I realised that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding on to the spirit of Douglas Adams.

"I feel more pressure to perform now than I ever have with my own books," he said, adding that he was "determined that this will be the best thing I have ever written".

Jane Belson said: "I am delighted that Eoin Colfer has agreed to continue the Hitchhiker series.

"I love his books and could not think of a better person to transport Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin to pastures new. The project has my full support."

Adams died of heart failure in 2001, aged 49.

Around 16 million copies of his Hitchhiker books, which have been translated into 35 languages, have been sold around the world.

Colfer was a primary school teacher in Ireland before he secured the largest ever advance for a children's novel by an unknown author.

His Artemis Fowl series, about a teenage criminal mastermind who wreaks havoc in this world and the next, went on to sell more than 18 million copies worldwide and a film adaptation is due to go into production next year.

And Another Thing... will be published in October next year.
5:14 AM 
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Monday, August 15, 2005 
From: linda
Date: Jun 24, 2005 5:52 PM                                                                Flag spam/abuse. [ ? ]
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: hi
Body: I guess you know now I am pretty stupid. I have no clue what that word means. But will look it up. I have heard of the hitchhikers guide. No wonder your face looks familiar. I knew when I messaged you there was a reason.I am not much with education. But I am very quick in learning new fields that I work in. From machinist to electronic technician, paint store manager, auto parts mechanics. I have been able to learn all these fields thoroughly. But have no room left in my brain to learn or remember other things in the world. I always wanted to go to colllege but couldn't retain all that and pass the test. But no problem on the job remembering every detail. I am a working woman. Best at sales. So what are you doing these days, retired?

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Almost but not quite entirely unlike Douglas Adams
Date: Jun 24, 2005 10:54 AM

No, not still writing nor busy. Yes, all the books are by Douglas Adams. A couple are co-written with others. If you are interested in non-fiction, start with "Last Chance to See." If you are interested in fiction, start with "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Also, I heartily suggest you look up the word "posthumous" in the dictionary.

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: linda
Date: Jun 23, 2005 8:56 PM

You must be really busy. Are you still actively writing? I will look for your books are they all by Douglas Adams?

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Almost but not quite entirely unlike Douglas Adams
Date: Jun 20, 2005 2:37 PM

Sadly, Linda, the only kind of networking I can now engage in is the posthumous kind. I suggest you read my novels and my non-fiction work, The Last Chance to See, about the fading endangered species on our planet.

Sincerely,
The Late Douglas Adams

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: linda
Date: Jun 18, 2005 6:39 PM

saw your profile and you looked nice so I asked you to join my friends group. I used to live in Calif. my parents are still in Huntington Beach. So I go there often. I see you wanted someone for networking and friends. What kind of networking are you into. I was looking for a partner for my business and a friend. Write if you want.


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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 

Douglas Adams

From Wikipedia, Pictures

Douglas No묠Adams (March 11, 1952 - May 11, 2001) or DNA, was a British comic radio dramatist and author, most notably of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGG).

Douglasadams.jpg
Contents [hide]
1 Education and early works
2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
3 Doctor Who
4 Pink Floyd
5 Computer games and projects
6 Environmentalism
7 Premature death
8 Biographies
9 Douglas Adams' works

9.1 Novels in the HHGG series
9.2 The Dirk Gently series
9.3 Other works
9.4 Tributes and honorifics

10 See also
11 External links
[edit]

Education and early works

Adams was born in Cambridge and educated at Brentwood School, Essex where he became friends with Griff Rhys Jones. Adams attended St John's College, Cambridge, and worked with Rhys Jones in the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club. In 1974, Adams received a BA (and later, an MA) in English literature.

An autobiography from an early edition of one of the HHGG novels provided the following description of his early career:

After graduation he spent several years contributing material to radio and television shows as well as writing, performing, and sometimes directing stage revues in London, Cambridge and at the Edinburgh Fringe. He has also worked at various times as a hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner, bodyguard, radio producer and script editor of Doctor Who.

Douglas worked with Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame and has a writing credit in one episode (episode 45: "Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party") of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Subsequently he worked as a script editor of the BBC Television programme Doctor Who and wrote three serials for that series.

Between 1978 and 1984, Douglas Adams and John Lloyd together wrote the script for two half hour episodes of Doctor Snuggles called "Dr Snuggles and the Nervous River".

[edit]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was originally a twelve-"fit" (i.e. twelve-part) radio series broadcast in the UK by BBC Radio 4 in 1978. The radio programme served as the basis for the first two novels of what eventually became a "trilogy in five parts". It was also the basis for a six-part BBC television series in 1981.

Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for a sizable period of time to ensure that So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish was completed. He has been quoted as saying, "I love deadlines, especially the whooshing sound they make as they go by."

Plans to make HHGG into a major motion picture were in the works for more than twenty years, and were finally freed from development hell in late September 2003. Although Austin Powers director Jay Roach was at one time signed on to the project, the Hammer and Tongs duo, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, got the responsibility. Key to the go-ahead was a rewrite of the screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick, who had earlier worked on Chicken Run. Shooting is scheduled to begin in spring 2004, with Robbie Stamp, Douglas' friend and business partner, as an Executive Producer, and Walt Disney Pictures as distributors. Adams once described the Hollywood process as "trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people come into the room and breathe on it."

The BBC has dramatised the final three books in the Hitchhikers series for radio with the surviving members of the original radio cast. These new adaptations will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004 and May 2005. Douglas Adams himself will be heard playing the part of Agrajag.

[edit]

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is the world's longest running science fiction television series. Created in 1963, it was continually produced until 1989, when production was stopped. The programme is being revived in 2005. After contributing a well-received story to the sixteenth season in 1978, Adams served as script editor on the show for its seventeenth season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three serials starring Tom Baker as the Doctor:

Elements of Shada and City of Death were reused in Adams' later novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in particular the character of Professor Chronotis. Shada was eventually remade by Big Finish Productions as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Acompanied by partially-animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBCi website in 2003.

[edit]

Pink Floyd

His official biography shares its name with a song by Pink Floyd. Adams was friendly with their guitarist David Gilmour and, as a birthday gift, was allowed to make a guest appearance at one of their 1994 concerts in London, playing rhythm guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". Adams had named their 1994 album, The Division Bell by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks.

Pink Floyd and their reputation for lavish stage shows were also the inspiration for the Adams-created fictional rock band "Disaster Area", renowned as the loudest band in the universe.

[edit]

Computer games and projects

Douglas Adams created an interactive fiction version of HHGG together with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. Later he was also involved in creating Bureaucracy (also by Infocom, but not based on any book). Adams was also responsible for the computer game Starship Titanic, which was published in 1999 by Simon and Schuster. The accompanying book, entitled Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic, was written by Terry Jones, since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the H2G2 collaborative writing project, a forerunner of the Wiki medium.

[edit]

Environmentalism

Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of a number of endangered species. This activism included the production of the non-fiction radio series Last Chance to See, in which he and naturalist Mark Carwardine visited rare species such as the kakapo, and the publication of a tie-in book of the same name.

[edit]

Premature death

Adams died of a heart attack at the age of 49, while working out at his gym in Santa Barbara, California. He was survived by his wife, Jane, and daughter, Polly. In May 2002, The Salmon of Doubt was published, which includes many short stories, essays, and letters, and eulogies from Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry. It also includes eleven chapters of his long-awaited but unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt, which was to be a new Dirk Gently and/or HHGG novel, or neither.

[edit]

Biographies

His official biography, Wish You Were Here, by Nick Webb, was published on October 6, 2003 (ISBN 0755311558) - [1] (http://www.douglasadams.com/news/#20030703-0-n.dna).

Another recent biography is Hitchhiker: a Biography of Douglas Adams (2003) by M. J. Simpson, with a foreword by John Lloyd (ISBN 0340824883).

Upon the mutual discovery that Webb and Simpson were both working on new posthumous biographies, the two authors agreed that the former would focus on Adams' life and personality, and the latter on his work.

Earlier biographies include:

[edit]

Douglas Adams' works

[edit]

Novels in the HHGG series

All of the above are also available as audio books, read by Adams.

[edit]

The Dirk Gently series

[edit]

Other works

[edit]

Tributes and honorifics

[edit]

See also

[edit]

External links

Missing image
Wikiquote.png


Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about Douglas Adams.





da:Douglas Adams de:Douglas Adams fr:Douglas Adams is:Douglas Adams it:Douglas Adams he:דאגלס אדאמס hu:Douglas Adams nl:Douglas Adams pl:Douglas Adams sl:Douglas Adams fi:Douglas Adams sv:Douglas Adams

Retrieved from "http://www.greatestinfo.org/Douglas_Adams"
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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 
NNDB
This is a beta version of NNDB
Search: for
Douglas Adams

Douglas AdamsAKA Douglas Noel Adams

Born: 11-Mar-1952
Birthplace: Cambridge, England
Died: 11-May-2001
Location of death: Santa Barbara, CA
Cause of death: Heart Failure

Gender: Male
Religion: Atheist
Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Author

Level of fame: Famous
Executive summary: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams is best known as the creator of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the story of Earthman Arthur Dent who survives the destruction of his home planet (demolished to make way for an interstellar bypass) by hitching a lift on a passing starship. Originally a BBC radio show, HHGG went on to sell 14 million copies upon its publication in book form -- priming the pump for the best-selling follow ups that included the novels The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, Life, The Universe And Everything, So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish, and Mostly Harmless. It also triggered a computer game, a comic book, stage adaptations, a BBC television series, and of course a bath towel (never leave home without one). A movie version of HHGG has finished shooting and is due out in the summer of 2005.

Born Douglas Noël Adams on March 11, 1952 in Cambridge, England he attended Brentwood School and St John's College, Cambridge. (At Cambridge he worked with friend Griff Rhys Jones in the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club.) In 1974, Adams graduated from Cambridge with a B.A. in English Literature, later receiving the M.A. degree as well. After graduation he worked as a radio and television writer -- in addition to writing, directing, and performing stage revues in London, Cambridge, and the Ediburgh Fringe. Along the way he held a number of "day jobs" including barn builder, chicken shed cleaner, hospital porter, and body guard.

In his role as script writer he worked with Monty Python's Graham Chapman, and in fact garnered a writing credit in one episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (#45: "Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party"). He also contributed eight episodes to the Dr Who series (four of them under the pseudonym David Agnew). Together with John Lloyd Adams wrote scripts for two episodes of Doctor Snuggles ("Dr Snuggles and the Nervous River").

According to Adams, the first impetus for Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy came while

hitch-hiking around Europe in 1971, when I was 18, with this copy of A Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe. At one point I found myself lying in the middle of a field, a little bit drunk, when it occurred to me that somebody should write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It didn't occur to me that it might actually be me years later.

The Guide’s first concrete manifestation however was in 1978 when it debuted as a 12 part miniseries on BBC Radio 4 in the UK. A year later it appeared in print (sporting the comforting phrase "DON’T PANIC" on it’s cover), and in 1981 it was made into a 6 part BBC television series. Filled with useful tips about how to travel the universe with aplomb, the Guide followed the travails of anti-hero Arthur Dent who tags along with Betelgeusian travel writer Ford Prefect, Galactic President and space pirate Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Marvin the Paranoid Android. Ford and Arthur’s adventures -- and the promise of an answer to the meaning of life -- led to four installments in an ill-named "trilogy" and the eventual answer of "42".

Among the many humorous asides that fill the pages of the HHGG series are references to the fictional band "Disaster Area" (said to be the loudest band in the universe)which were inspired by UK band Pink Floyd who were themselves famous for loud and lavish stage shows. Adams incidentally was personally acquainted with David Gilmour and made a guest appearance with the band, during a 1994 London concert, playing playing rhythm guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". Additionally it was Adams who named Pink Floyd's 1994 album, The Division Bell, by selecting lyrics from one of the tracks on the album.

In addition to the HHGG books, Adams (who allegedly found it so hard to get his books done, that his editor had to lock him up in a hotel room with a typewriter) also managed to turn out Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul and an alternative dictionary of nonsense words and place names entitled the Meaning of Liff. Later projects included involvement in the creation of computer games such as Bureaucracy (based on HHGG) and Starship Titanic. The accompanying book for the latter, Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic, was actually written by Terry Jones as Adams was reportedly too busy working on the actual game to tackle the book. Notably in 1999 Adams initiated the H2G2 collaborative writing project, an online collaborative encyclopedia that was a forerunner of Wikipedia.

But his final project, and longtime labor of love, was the screenplay for a Hollywood movie version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Unfortunately Adams died before the movie found its ultimate production team (Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, with screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick). On May 11th, 2001, while working out in the gym near his home in Santa Barbara, California, he was stricken with a fatal heartache. The 49-year-old Adams is survived by his wife Jane and young daughter Polly. A staunch defender of endangered wildlife, Adams was a patron of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and Save the Rhino International. Adams once climbed Kilimanjaro in a rhino suit to raise money to fight the trade in rhino horn.

Wife: Jane Belson (m. 1991)
Daughter: Polly (b. 1994)

Author of books:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)
Life, the Universe and Everything (1982)
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish (1984)
Mostly Harmless (1992)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul (1988)
The Salmon of Doubt (2001)
The Meaning of Liff (1983, with John Lloyd)



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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 
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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 
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Tuesday, June 14, 2005 

hitchhikers guide to the future



Hitchhikers Guide to the Future

Audio/Video
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BBC-Host > Hi there folks, the chat is about to begin. Get your questions in quick.

Question from Emma Westecott> Is he there yet?
BBC-Host > He is oiling up his vocal chords.

Question from Lee Martin >Do you enjoy using the Internet, or do you use it as an everyday object for everyday needs?
Douglas Adams > I guess these days I use it the same way I use the telephone. It's just part of everyday, like do you enjoy using the telephone?

Question-from Tara > Do you have a book out?
Douglas Adams > - I don't have a new book out at the moment but I am working on one and because I'm a bit superstitious I'm not going to say any more about it!

Question-from Emma Westecott > What is your future?
Douglas Adams > Well we'd all like to know that wouldn't we? I don't have a crystal ball so I can't say.

Question-from Chris Tonks > Hey there! :-) I was wondering, with your h2g2 company, how are you going to use your influence in the Internet for, say, Internet music?
Douglas Adams > Internet music? Well...oh....um.... I would - its an impossible question but an interesting topic! I think we need to find much simpler and straightforward ways of handling intellectual property on the web by which I mean finding ways by which people can pay small amounts easily and quickly for music, books and so on. And at that point I think we will get through the current battles and logjams that are caused by the fact that there is a huge gap between cost of a cd or a book which tends to be in the £10 -20 range and the cost of downloading a piece of music which is zero.I think there is a happy mean achievable which will mean that artists get properly recorded and music fans will be able to get music for much less than they currently pay for cds.

Question-from Sophie Pragnell> Do you think Stephen King's experiment publishing on the net was successful?
Douglas Adams > Well he's made two publications on the net, the first of which if I understand was much more successful than the second it's hard to say what of any number of factors made the difference I think we will inevitably go through many, many models of making it work before we settle on one that everybody's happy with.

Question-from Mike Robinson > Is it true you had guitar lessons from David Gilmour?
Douglas Adams > Hahahahaha - I didn't have guitar lessons as such although he did show me how to play the bit that I played when I went on stage with Pink Floyd in 1994 it was a very simple guitar piece that virtually anybody could play the great trick was to learn to play it slowly enough that's the test of a real musician!

Question-from Lee Martin > Do you agree with Napster?
Douglas Adams >'bout what? I'd refer them to my previous answer about music on the web

Question-from Joshua Bryson-> do you love your job?
Douglas Adams > I think like most people I sometimes love my job and I sometimes hate it sometimes wish I had more time to get on with it and spend less time dealing with it.

Question-from Linsey > What do you believe will make the most impact in the next 10 - 20 years in the area of IT/Communications?
Douglas Adams > I think mobile information

Question-from Alan > do you think that radio has a future in the digital world?
Douglas Adams > I think it has an enormous future! I think that radio is in a very um... interesting position at the moment because right now it is possible to deliver radio over the web in ways that it is still very difficult to deliver TV, it's just a question of bandwidth and of experimenting in all kind of ways in which it can make use of um... the web for finding new audiences and new material to give them.

Question-from Clare McGarva> What do you think of dvds?
Douglas Adams > I much prefer them to video tapes, that's for sure! Like most types of physical media these days it probably won't be long before we start replacing dvds with something of a much higher capacity capable of delivering higher definition tv and so on, but for now I think dvds are pretty good - I certainly collected many more than I've had the chance to watch yet.

Question-from Alistair Lyons > How much input did you have in the Marvin 7" singles. Are you happy for them to have appeared on Napster?
Douglas Adams > I had very little input in fact it was a collaboration between Steven Moore and John Sinclair which I had the tiniest amount of input into. I didn't know they were on Napster. I don't have any strong feelings one way of the other!

Question-from Eddie > you were known as a fan of Apple Macs - are you still?
Douglas Adams > Absolutely!!!!! where I sit in my study I can see a G4, a G4 cube Powerbook, two imacs and two old G3s and two apple cinema displays which are the most wonderful pieces of technological kit I've ever seen.

Question-from Saggy Herman > I would like to ask Mr Adams if he still gets his inspiration from Bovril sandwiches and nice hot baths?
Douglas Adams > Hahahahaha - since I now live in California Bovril is very hard to come by and we tend to take showers rather than baths!

Question-from James Heaver > Could you please describe a bovril sandwich?
Douglas Adams > Not on a family show!

Question-from James Heaver> Is the publius enigma real?
Douglas Adams > It has nothing to do with me - I can't say anything about it.

Question-from Diane Colover > Is the h2g2 movie still a live project, or has been transformed into something even better?
Douglas Adams > I'm hoping to do yet another webcast very shortly to talk specifically about the status of the movie. I'll not pretend we don't have problems at the moment but I'll be able to talk about those in more detail when my yahoo webcast is set up which will be in two or three weeks

Question-from Joanne > Do you realise the impact your books have on the scientist population?
Douglas Adams > On the scientists? I've certainly some idea that they're popular with scientists. I was one of the ...there was one fan letter I once had, I was enormously proud to receive, which was from Richard Dawkins who has subsequently become a good friend and is someone whose thinking I enormously admire.

Question-from Myles Dowding > Why did you move to California?
Douglas Adams > 'Cos I was tired of commuting in the last year before I moved over here I travelled to the states ten times in the year and it was something similar the year before that.

Question-from David Sime > Do you miss Islington?
Douglas Adams > hahahaha - yes I do, from time to time but not its traffic!

Question-from Eddie > Would you go on Have I Got News for You again if asked?
Douglas Adams > I don't think I would and I'm not sure I'd be asked anyway like most people I find that you're much more quick-witted watching quiz shows on television than actually taking part in them!

Question-from Kenji Yamada> Did you have to learn Greek in school?
Douglas Adams > I did, it was the one O level I failed.
BBC-Host > No disgrace there.

Question-from Alsitair Lyons > Was the fan letter from Richard Dawkins before or after he quoted from Dirk Gently in The Selfish Gene?
Douglas Adams > I guess - oooh, I'm not sure because the quote was in a later revised edition of his book it wasn't in the original. I know it must have come after... blind watchmaker, because he included some examples of biomorphs he had grown.

Question-from Claire Foullon > Are you fascinated by other technologies than communication tools?
Douglas Adams > Basically I like anything with a battery in it!

Question-from Paul Boddie > I have always wanted to know where the theme music for the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio and TV series came from. Was it specially composed for the radio series or did it come from an existing work?
Douglas Adams > I found it in my record collection. It's a track called journey of the sorcerer and it comes from an Eagles album called One of these Nights. Recently I met for the first time the man who wrote it he was one of the founding members of the eagles his name was bernie leadon.

Question-from David Sime > What music are you listening to at the moment?
Douglas Adams > At this moment -eh - nothing at all just the whirr of a hard disk drive. I listen to Randy Newman and - um Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe and Ry Cooder and Bach and Mozart and -as always - of course, the Beatles

Question-from David Sime > Does that mean the music will be used for the film? Douglas Adams > That's something I can't even answer at the moment I would like it if that were the case but we have many other hurdles to over come before selecting the soundtrack music.

Question-from Benjamin Cook > What is your idea of heaven?
Douglas Adams > I 'm wondering what he means by that being an atheist, I don't believe for one second that the human mind persists after the death of the human body if you're asking what my idea of heaven on earth is... it's..oooh I would say that the best week of my life was spent on a tiny diving boat somewhere on the great barrier reef.

Question-from Eddie > Who was your least favourite character to write?
Douglas Adams > my least favourite - oh good heavens...I don't think I've got an answer for that, I'm afraid.

Question-from Lord Lopper > Is there any danger of you carrying out your threat to write a book on atheism?
Douglas Adams > I'm sorry you think it's a threat. It's something I'm thinking about seriously. Whether it would be exactly about atheism I don't know, but.. But the book I have in mind would certainly have to do with that.

Question-from Teresa Perrin > At what point in your life did you become an atheist?
Douglas Adams > The first moment at which my hitherto solid Christian belief got badly shaken was when I stopped to listen to a street corner evangelist and was suddenly hit by the horrid realisation that he was talking complete nonsense from there to... solid atheism was a long haul over many years that involved primarily learning how evolution worked.

Question-from Tom Rose > Will the new radio series be syndicated in the land of handguns and McDonalds?? We don't get near enough of you here, what with all the shootings and Hamburger adverts..
Douglas Adams > hahahahahaha - well you better ask Mark Rickards (the Producer) that!
BBC-Host > Mark speaking - I hope that the BBC will consider releasing cassettes of the series, but it is a long and complicated business. In the meantime remember that you can download the programmes at any time from the website.
BBC host > - thanks Mark
Douglas Adams > I would add that the BBC only thinks it's a long Douglas Adams and complicated process because it USED to be a long complicated process!!

Question-from Alan > How long have you been using the net/bbs's/usenet?
Douglas Adams > I first started going online with an online service called the Source back in 1983.

Question-from Sam Donaldson > How did you respond when Radiohead named one of their most complex songs after the despondent android Marvin?
Douglas Adams > I was very flattered, you might say.

Question-from Nick Bailey > Do you think the film industry is ready for the digital age? Douglas Adams > If you're asking me, right now here today what I think the film industry's ready for I'd say - a lobotomy!!! But I shall probably feel better tomorrow!

Question-from Stuart > Did you have a computer before the MAC? if so what type? Douglas Adams > I had several before the mac actually I had a dec rainbow, I had an apricot and I had a stand-alone word processor made by a company, nexos, but the mac was the first to make me think "ah this is the future"

Question-from Catherine > Do you think that interactive television will change the perspective of politicians if the public can give opinion which will be instantly collated and presented?
Douglas Adams > I think that um... the actual domain of interactivity is on the web, not on television

Question-from Eddie > On the Mac theme, have you had a go at OS X?
Douglas Adams > I have put OS10 on a spare computer and played with it a little bit but, I'm waiting for the proper release version before I involve my self with it very much. I'm very excited about the prospect of what it will deliver but I long ago learnt that being an early adopter of systems that aren't quite ready yet is a very good way of wasting a lot of time.

Question-from Nick Bailey > Do you think the film industry is ready for the Hitchhikers Guide?
Douglas Adams > hhahahaha - just today I can offer no principled response to that question!

Question-from Jamie Potter > how old are you?
Douglas Adams > I'm 48, which is a bit of a shock to me! Why only last year I thought I was a precocious young thing!

Question-from Mick Carter > What do you think of the Open Source movement?
Douglas Adams > I'm torn. On the one hand I see and understand all the arguments in its favour and think that they're very powerful as somebody who's a committed evolutionist and a bottom-up designer I feel that it's the right way to go on the other hand, I really love my macintosh! I have not found a way of reconciling these positions.

BBC-Host > 10 mins to go, get your questions in quick!

Question-from Eddie > Does it ever get annoying to have people asking the same questions non-stop? I'm pretty sure you will have heard 'when's the next book coming out?' a few dozen times by now
Douglas Adams > yes. (laughs)

Question-from Martin Smith > What magazines do you read?
Douglas Adams > what magazines? far fewer than I used to , because of the web. I guess I have subscriptions to new scientist and Wired and Sound on Sound.The magazine I really miss is the Listener which of course died many years ago.

Question-from Sophie Pragnell> Will the Internet eventually help or hinder creativity in music and writing?
Douglas Adams > I think it'll probably help and hinder it in equal measures, just like most things do.

Question-from Martin Smith > Do you think this will really be the Asia-Pacific century?
Douglas Adams > I've no idea. It was - everyone keeps on predicting that the focus of power will move from America to somewhere else and never quite seems to do so. I don't quite understand why not!

Question-from Nick Bailey > How is California these days?
Douglas Adams > Well of course the election result is not finally known though it seems quite clear which way its probably going to go I must say its a puzzle to me sitting here in the middle of it trying to figure out how 250 million people appear willing to elect a complete dolt!

Question-from Laura Shadbolt > How relevant to my generation (I'm 16) do you think Hitchhiker, its jokes and its plot are?
Douglas Adams > Hahahahahaha ! I think that's a question only a 16 year old could answer!

Question-from Catherine > Do you believe that our advancement in technology is part of our evolution?
Douglas Adams > There's a sense in which I think it's true but it's quite a complicated issue it depends on how far you're willing to take Richard Dawkin's concept of the extended phenotype. Further, I think, than he would be comfortable with.

Question-from James Heaver > do you find America's claim to allow freedom of speech and belief hypocritical.
Douglas Adams > I think that growing up in a crowded continent like Europe with an awful lot of competing claims ideas...cultures...and systems of thought we have, perforce, developed a more sophisticated notion of what the word freedom means than I see much evidence of in America

BBC-Host > 5 mins to go, if there is anything else you would like to ask please enter your questions now.

Douglas Adams > To be frank, it sometimes seems that the American idea of freedom has more to do with my freedom to do what I want than your freedom to do what you want. I think that in Europe we're probably better at understanding how to balance those competing claims though not a lot!

BBC-Host > Just a couple more questions before we finish up.

Question-from John C Scott > Vast amounts of information can travel from one point to another with very little resistance. Will this result in a cultural uniformity as we each become subject to the same information? How will cultural distinctiveness be retained?
Douglas Adams > That's a big question! Um... I think that ease of travel tends to create alot of uniformity I think that ease of communication mediated by the computer tends to nurture diversity that certainly seems to be the lesson that the web is teaching us at the moment

BBC-Host > One more question.

Question-from Kenji Yamada > What, if anything, would cause you to apply for American citizenship?
Douglas Adams > I'd just like to say very briefly, I don't have any plans for American citizenship

Question-from Mick Carter > Do you ever write your own computer programs. If so, what?
Douglas Adams > I used to do some programming but not in any great depth something I wrote, I was really quite proud of was a system for collating and indexing all of the material in The Meaning of Liff I wrote that in a series of interlocking HyperCard stacks sadly the computer on which I did that got attacked by a trojan horse and I lost it all luckily I did have a printout of the actual book that it had generated.

BBC-Host > Thank you for joining the live chat tonight, sorry, but we don't have time for any more questions.

BBC-Host > The last word is from Douglas

Douglas Adams > Well, thank you very much everybody for coming along to this webcast Douglas Adams I hope you enjoyed it. I hope to be doing a webcast on yahoo in a couple of weeks to talk about the movie. Thanks. And good-bye!

11:01 AM 
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