Beware of the Leopard: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Podcast

Productivity

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker’s Guide to getting it all done.

In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@editorialgirl) for being the voice of the Guide.

Sleep

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 23:00:00 +0000

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker’s Guide to getting a good night's rest.

Towel Day 2021

Tue, 25 May 2021 21:00:00 +0000

To commemorate Towel Day 2021, Mark, Danny, and the Jons present the worst bits of Beware of the Leopard. These are all the bits that are normally cut from the main body of the episode and shoved to the back, to sit in shame and think about what they did. Now we're bringing them out into the light for you to judge, share, and hopefully on some level, enjoy.

New episode coming in the next couple of weeks, promise.

Birthdays and ageing

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker’s Guide to getting on in years.

In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@ editorialgirl ) for being the voice of the Guide.

Don't Panic! It's Christmas!

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Christmas and the new year.

Also in this episode, the panel show us their baubles, and try and find something to hope for in 2021.

The Don't Panic guide to music

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker’s Guide to music.

Don't Panic! goes back to school

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Mark, Danny, and the Jons present their Hitchhiker’s Guide entries on a return to school, including the long dark teatime of the soul, robot school, so-called non-subjects, and homework.

The Don't Panic guide to sport

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 23:00:00 +0000

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker’s Guide to sport, with contributions on politics and PE, and a host of alien sporting activities sure to become major hits on Earth.

Towel Day 2020

Mon, 25 May 2020 19:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon, Jon and Danny as they play Podcast Day, the text adventure game written by Mark.

The Dont Panic Guide to the COVID-19 pandemic

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 06:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they tackle the fiddly social issues that arise from living through a global pandemic.

Each panelist – including Mark – was tasked with writing an entry for an updated version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide. Jon Hickman wrote his on virtual meetings, Bounder went Marxist, Danny tackled isolation and Mark wrote about panic.

The team also share their tips for surviving the apocalypse, whether or not you happen to know where your towel is.

Stay safe, stay indoors, listen to podcasts.

42nd anniversary special

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they recap what they’ve been up to since our last full episode, say goodbye to a fellow Hitchhiker and Adamsify a piece of existing pop culture.

The question to the ultimate answer

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they attempt to solve the world’s problems and make it a good and happy place. Jon Hickman turns to pop culture, Danny says it’s all about kindness, Jon Bounds has a 19th century German philosopher to thank, and Mark’s solution, unsurprisingly, involves a lot of talking.

From Zaphod Beeblebrox to Zentalquabula

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the last of the Zs in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Zaphod Beeblebrox

Zaphod Beeblebrox is – or was – President of the Imperial Galactic Government. His favourite mother is Alice Beeblebrox, of 108 Astral Cresent, Zoofroozelchester, Betelgeuse V.

Zaphod’s great grandfather is Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. He grew an extra arm for Trillian, which took him six months.

Zarniwoop

Hidden away in a pocket universe, and played by Jonathan Price, Zarniwoop is the guy who concocted the plan, with Zaphod, to steel the Heart of Gold, in order to find out who really rules the universe.

Zarquon

The second coming of the great prophet Zarquon is highly anticipated, and finally happens at Milliways, just before the universe goes down the plug hole.

“Holy Zarquon’s singing fish!” is an expression of surprise and alarm Zaphod uses when he falls out of the giant cup on Brontitall.

Zentalquabula

On Zentalquabula are found ancient alabastrum quarries. An elegant terrace on one of the planets that was home to the Guide, was carved from this stone.

Links

From the Wormhole Disco to the Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they saunter into the Z section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Wormhole Disco

The place Zaphod and Roosta transport themselves to is the Wormhole Disco, which might as well have been called the Placeholder Club. In this disco there are nozels on the wall that spray the smell of hot sweat over everything, and the place is packed with dancing robots.

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was – indeed, is – one of the Universe’s very small number of immortal beings.

He’d had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying.

He was played by Toby Longworth in the radio series, and he’s made it his mission to insult every little being in the universe, just for something to do.

Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilised Zenon Emitters

The Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilised Zenon Emitter is just one of those throwaway lines Adams tossed in to a conversation between two robots. But if you put that combination of words into the Internet, you get this interesting question, which I’m going to pose to Danny:

If there was a drone in the sky directing some type of microwave energy into your house, would you report it to the officials or not?

Ysllodins

Ysllodins is the star around which most of the Galaxy’s major insurance underwriters live, or rather lived. As far as I can tell, this one isn’t real.

Zamphuor

Zamphuor is an unknown ingredient to add when mixing a pangalactic gargleblaster.

Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne

The Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne is a party that dines at Miliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Links

From wave harmonic theory to the Wise Old Bird

Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the W section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Wave harmonic theory of historical perception

Reason not withstanding, the universe continues unabated. Its history is terribly long and awfully difficult to understand, even in its simpler moments which are, roughly speaking, the beginning and the end. The wave harmonic theory of historical perception, in its simplest form, states that history is an illusion caused by the passage of time, and that time is an illusion caused by the passage of history. It also states that one’s perception of these illusions is conditioned by three important factors: who you are; where you are; and when you last had lunch with Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Whales

A short-lived sperm whale was brought about by the Improbability Drive on one of its first hops along the probability access.

/Where God Went Wrong/ and /Who is this God Person Anyway?/

Where God Went Wrong is, presumably, Oolon Colluphid’s first blockbuster heretical hit, and part of a trilogy that comprises this, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes – which you can hear about us talk in season 4, episode 2 – and Who is this God Person Anyway?.

William Franklyn

William Franklyn played the Guide in the remaining three radio series, after the death of the original voice, Peter Jones.

Wise Old Bird

The Wise Old Bird was pllayed by John le Mesurier in the second radio series. Arthur meets him on Brontital where he explains the history of the bird people, who fled the shoe event horizon, shunning their shoes and taking to the skies, vowing never to set foot on the ground again.

Links

From Vogons to Walkmans

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the V section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Vogon constructor fleets

Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy – not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters.

The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

Vogon poetry

Vogon poetry is the third worst poetry in the universe.

Vogsphere

Many, many light years from earth lies the grim and long abandoned planet, Vogsphere. Somewhere on a fetid, fog-bound mud bank on this planet there stands, surrounded by the dirty, broken and empty carapaces of the last few jeweled scuttling crabs, a small stone monument which marks the place, where it is thought, the species Vogon Vogonblurtus first arose. On the monument there is carved an arrow which points away into the fog, under which are inscribed in plain, simple letters the words “The buck stops there.”

Volluing

For the meaning of the word “vollue”, buy a copy of Squornshellous Swamptalk at any remaindered bookshop, or alternatively buy The Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary, as the University will be very glad to get it off their hands and regain some valuable parking lots.

Vroomfondel

Vroomfondel is a philosopher from Cruxwan University. In the radio series he was played by Jim Broadbent.

Walkmen

For some reason, Ford throws a bunch of Walkmens out to the crowds thronging around the ship that lands on Earth, in Mostly Harmless.

Links

From the Uncertain Areas to Vod

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the V section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with a quick final stop-off at U.

Uncertain Areas

“Wild horses thundered through the sky taking fresh supplies of reinforced railings to the Uncertain Areas”. That’s a line from the popular book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to teh Galaxy, and it describes a thing that happens aboard the starship Heart of Gold, when Ford andn Arthur are brought on-board.

Ursa Minor

Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in the known Universe. Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of won derfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words “When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life”, the suicide rate quadrupled overnight.

The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word ‘Fuck’ in a Serious Screenplay is an award you can win at the Ursa Minor Alpha Recreational Illusions Institute Awards. The trophy is the silver bail from the Wikkit Key.

Vann Harl

Vann Harl is the Guide editor that took over from Stagyar-zil-Doggo, and a canonical nightmare. In the Quintessential Phase of the radio series, Vann Harl and Zarniwhoop – who we’ll cover later – are the same person, but to my recollection that was not the case in Quintessential Phase, the book the series was based on.

Veet Voojagig

Veet Voojagig was a quiet young student at the University of Maximegalon, who pursued a brilliant academic career studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception, and then, after a night of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, became increasingly obsessed with the problem of what had happened to all the biros he’d bought over the past few years.

Vegan Rhino

Cutlets of vegan rhino meat are served by the mice to the humans, on Magrathea.

Viltvodle VI

The Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. In the film, we meet Humma Kavula, who appoints himself a priest of the Jatravartid religion.

Viv

Viv is a planet with vicious sea creatures. It appears in Mostly Harmless and that’s all we have to go on.

Vl’hurgs

The Vl’hurgs are mortal enemies of the G’Gugvuntts.

Vod

Vod is presumably the planet where Judiciary Pag is from. It has three suns, and I say “presumaby” because we see him relax in his chambers on Vod, but don’t actually know if that’s his home planet.

Links

From Tri-D to Turlingdrome

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they clear the T section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Tri-D

Tri-D is Adams’ allusion to some sort of 3D TV, and is distinct from Five-D, the sub-etha, the Sense-o-Tape, the Hall of Informational Illusions and whatever other technology he created to show things to characters.

Triganic Pu

The Triganic Pu is a form of galactic currency. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles across each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change.

Trillian

Trillian is a beautiful astrophysicist, with the real name Tricia McMillan. She’s played by Susan Sheridan in the radio series, and by Zooey Deschanel in the film. She manages to convince the masters of Krikkit not to destroy the universe, and she learned how to maneuver around Hyde Park Corner on a moped.

On an Earth that was never destroyed by the Vogons, Tricia McMillan attempts to get a job with the NBS network in New York, as an anchor on the US/AM breakfast show. She regrets going back for her bag when first meeting Zaphod at that famous party in Islington. She failed the screen test for the network because she decided not to go back for her bag, thus not bringing her contact lenses which she needed to read the script and autocue. When taken to the planet Rupert by the Grebulons, she films the encounter and figures she must have faked it as part of an elabourate nervous breakdown or halicination.

Trin Tragula

“Have some sense of proportion” Trin Tragula’s wife would often say, so he built the Total Perspective Vortex, just to show her. And in one end he plugged the whole of reality, as extrapolated from a fairy cake, and in the other end he plugged his wife, where the shock annihilated her brain.

Turlingdrome

Turlingdrome. It’s a swear word. We don’t have a definition but it appears to be a derogatory term for a person, possibly a stupid person.

There’s a creative design firm in Cincinnati who’ve chosen Turlingdrome as their name, which sounds like it might be a bit like calling your company Shithead.

Links

From Thor to Transtellar Cruise Lines

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the T section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Tea and Douglas

What JB said about kettles isn’t entirely inaccurate, according to an American friend of Mark’s, who also has a lovely story to tell about Douglas Adams.

Thor

Thor is a thunder god. Arthur picks a fight with him over Trillian at an airborne party.

Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother, but is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations.

Total Perspective Vortex

When you are put into the Total Perspective Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says “You are here.”

The man who invented it did so basically in order to annoy his wife who used to complain about him not having enough perspective.

Towels

You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal; you can wave it in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

Towel day events

If you’re in the Cambridge on the 25th May, you can

go on a Douglas Adams walk
hear a talk by the two remaining members of Adams’ sketh cgroup
See some Towel Day standup

Find more info at towelday.org.

Transtellar Cruise Lines

Transtellar Cruise Lines ran a liner that kept a ship in stasis for 900 years while awaiting a compliment of lemon-soaked paper napkins. Fact-fans – or pedants, as they’re more commonly known – wil know that an alternative version of the company name is Trans-Stellar Space Lines.

Links

From sun diving to Terry Jones

Thu, 21 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the [letter] section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Sun dive

Hotblack Deseato’s band has a completely black stunt ship that dives into the sun on Kakrafoon, as part of the climax of a gig.

Susan Sheridan

Susan Sheridan played Trillian in the radio series. She died in 2015, but had a good career as a voice actor with credits including Budgie the Little Helecopter and Jimbo(a personal favourite). We’re going to talk about Trillian in a few weeks, but for now, consider our caps doffed.

Swut

Swut is a swear word.

Tea

Tea is a substance that can be used to power a Finite Imrobability Generator, or for confusing a machine into giving you a substance that’s almost – but not quite – indistinguishable from it. It is now available in most megamarkets, in easy-to-swallow capsules.

Teasers

A teaser is usually a rich kid with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets which haven’t made interstellar contact yet and “buzz” them, which involves strutting back and forth with silly antenni on their heads and making “beep beep” noises.

Tempophone

The Tempophone is – presumably – a telephone that can make calls across various times.

Ford advises Arthur never to call himself up from the future.

Terry Jones

Terry Jones played a parrot in the Starship Titanic video game, and wrote a book called Starship Titanic, based on a video game, but apparently in a different universe from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Seems like something we should address, really.

Anyhow, he plays a parrot because Adams had discussed with Jones that most of the characters he played in Monty Python sketches and films sounded like parrots.

Links

From Strags to the Sub-Etha Sens-o-Matic

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Strag

A strag is a non-hitchhiker. Given that we’ve discussed the idea of the hitchhiker as a class of person,

Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak

The Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak are mortal enemies of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.

Strateej-o-Mat

The Strateej-o-Mat is a strategy aparatus on the Grebulon ship, that will only follow the commnads of the Chief Strategic Officer.

Strenuous Garfighters of Stug

The Strenuous Garfighters of Stug are mortal enemies of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.

Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron

A Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron is a marvellous device for counteracting the effects of the Infinite Improbability Drive.

Sub-Etha Net

The Sub-Etha Net is basically the galactic Internet. Given that the sub-eta radio band existed first, I think this is a pretty good name, considering ethernet is already a thing.

Sub-Etha News-Matics

The Sub-Etha News-Matic is a kind of space Twitter.

Sub-Etha Sens-o-Matic

The Sub-Etha Sens-o-Matic is a device that scans for signals from spacecraft. On prehistoric Earth, Ford detects eddies in the spacetime continuum and with Arthur, catches a lift through time on a Chesterfield sofa.

Links

From SrDt 3454 to Stephen Moore

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. We dedicate this episode to Jeremy Hardy, who died last week.

The Great Ventilation and Telephone Riots of SrDt 3454

These riots led to three important events, which we’ll go through in turn, but it’s basically all the fault of a ventilation system called the Breathe-o-Smart, which was absolutely guaranteed to never, ever, ever, go wrong; so much so that the company demanded all customers seal shut all the windows in buildings that used it. So, on that note…

Every piece of technology of whatever stripe is required, on SrDt 3454, to carry the following legend, embossed somewhere on its surface, regardless of its size:

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong, is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

The actual riots were caused by three things:

a press release from the manufacturers of the Breathe-o-Smart ventilation system suggesting that best results are achieved in temperate climates
a particularly hot day on SrDt, and
the employees of a telephone company taking to the streets in a demonstration against their corporate overlords (which we’ll come to in a bit)

Any employee of the aforesaid telephone company, called BS&S, is permitted to say, once an hour, “Use BS&S and die”, after dealing with so many idiotic customers over the phone drove them mad. This was a direct result of the protest they had, which clashed with the office workers using the faulty Breathe-o-Smart.

Stagyar-zil-Doggo

Stagyar-zil-Doggo is an editor of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Starship Titanic

Many speak of the legendary and gigantic Starship Titanic, a majestic and luxurious cruise-liner launched from the great shipbuilding asteroid complexes of Artifactovol some hundreds of years ago now, and with good reason.

Very much in keeping with today’s episode, this spaceship was built in such a way to ensure that it would be infinitely improbable that anything would go wrong, so unsurprisingly when it attempted its first pre-launch radio transmission, it suffered a spontaneous total existence failure.

Terry Jones, as we’ve discussed before, wrote the Starship Titanic book and played a parrot in the video game by the same name, produced by Adams’ Digital Village.

Stavro Meuller - Beta

Stavro Meuller is a Greek serial entrepreneur with a German father and two clubs – that we know about – to his mixed-heritage name. Both clubs share his name, but it’s only the second one – Stavro Meuller: Beta, or Stavromula Beta – that really matters for our purposes.

It’s where Arthur was supposed to be assasinated, and where he, Ford, Random, Trillian and Tricia meet towards the end of Mostly Harmless, just before the Earth is finally destroyed again. The building number is 42.

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry narrated the first audiobook, played the book in the film and cameoed as a journalist in the radio series. He was a friend of Adams and wrote about him in his second memoir.

Stephen Moore

Played

Marvin
the sperm whale
the man in the shack
Gag Halfrunt
a vogon guard

in the radio series, and Marvin and the whale in the TV series

Links

From Slim’s Throat Emporium to Sqornshellous

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue with the S section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Slim’s Throat Emporium

Slim’s Throat Emporium is a bar Ford and Hotblack Desiato used to crash, pretending to be health inspectors.

Slo-Time

The planet of Krikkit was to be enclosed for perpetuity in an envelope of Slo-Time, inside which life would continue almost infinitely slowly. All light would be deflected round the envelope so that it would remain invisible and impenetrable. Escape from the envelope would be utterly impossible unless it were locked from the outside.

When the rest of the Universe came to its final end and life and matter ceased to exist, then the planet of Krikkit and its sun would emerge from the envelope and continue a solitary existence, such as it craved, in the twilight of the Universal void.

Somebody Else’s Problem field

The Somebody Else’s Problem field is simple and effective, and can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people’s natural disposition not to see anything they don’t want to, weren’t expecting, or can’t explain. If Effrafax the magician had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple SEP field on it instead of trying to make it disappear, then people would have walked past it, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there.

Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes

Oolon Colluphid’s book Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes is the second in his trilogy of heretical works.

Southend

“When I was young I used to have this nightmare about dying”, says Arthur aboard the starship Heart of Gold. “I used to lie awake at night screaming. All my friends went to either Heaven or Hell and I was sent to Southend!”

Sqornshellous

Sqornshellous Beta is where cushions come from.

Sqornshellous Zeta where matresses cine from. Marvin ends up stranded here after the Disaster Area stunt ship our heroes hijacked smashes into the heart of a sun.

There are other planets in the Sqornshellous, but they aren’t cannon.

Links

From Striterax to Slartibartfast

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and the Jons are back off their Christmas break and ready to continue through the S section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax

The best way to pick a fight with a Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax was just to be born. They didn’t like it, they got resentful. And when an Armorfiend got resentful, someone got hurt.

They were the first race who ever managed to shock a computer. The computer in question was Hactar, and they commissioned him to build an ultimate weapon, which almost led to the destruction of the galaxy, again.

Simon Brett

Simon Brett produced the pilot of the radio show, and has produced episodes of other radio classics like I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue and Just a Minute. He now writes detective fiction and had a book made into a film starring Michael Caine.

Simon Jones

Simon Jones played Arthur in the radio and TV series, and the Magrathean security hologram in the film. He’s appeared in lots of little bits of telly over the years, and was a dear friend of Douglas.

Sirius B

Max Quordlepleen welcomes a group of young conservatives from Sirius B, to Milliways on the night our heroes turn up.

Sirius Cybernetics Corporation

The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation were bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.

Slartibartfast

Slartibartfast is a planetary architect, who won an award for his wrk on Norway. Played by Richard Vernon in the first two radio series and the TV series, and by Richard Griffiths in the third radio series.

On Earth, Ford and Arthur find his signature on a glacier. He picks Ford and Arthur up in his Somebody Else’s Problem shielded ship so they can join his mission with the Campaign for Real Time, and he has a name that sounds a bit like a swearword.

Links

2018 Christmas special

Thu, 27 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they ring in 2019 with a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pub quiz, in which every single round – every single one – is completely and 100% to do with the Douglas Adams sci-fi universe.

From Sens-o-Tape to the Siderial Daily Mentioner

Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue traversing the S section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Sens-o-Tape

Sens-o-Tape is another piece of VR equipment. In the first book, Arthur gets strapped into a machine that shows him how the Magratheans discovered the Ultimate Answer.

Sesefras Magna

Sesefras Magna is a planet around which Ford is orbiting when he hooks up a ship to the Speaking Clock on Earth, and where Xaxisians dock their battle fleet. Its sun is Zondostina, known to Sesefrasians as Pleiades Zeta. Orbiting the planet are Epum, its small and blue moon, and the space port, Port Sesefron, from which Zaphod once bought a pair of spray-on pants.

Share and Enjoy

“Share and Enjoy” is the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years.

Shoe Event Horizon

Many years ago Brontitall – or Frogstar World B, delete as appropriate – was a thriving, happy planet. Except that on the high streets of these cities there were slightly more shoe shops than one might have thought necessary. And slowly the numbers of these shops increased, until it became no longer economically possible to build anything other than shoe shops, resulting collapse, ruin and famine.

Shorbut Sweet

Shorbut Sweet – AKA Succ-U-Bus – is a robot that dispenses post on the Starship Titanic, played by Douglas Adams, who basically just had to cough into a microphone.

Siderial Daily Mentioner

Arthur and his friends pick up a journalist from the Siderial Daily Mentioner, who was “half-mad” after witnessing Prak do his “whole truth” bit. One of the Trillians also worked for the Mentioner.

Links

From Saquo-Pilia Hensha to Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Saquo-Pilia Hensha

King Antwelm made a famous assumption that what everybody wanted, all other things being equal, was to be happy and enjoy themselves and have the best possible time together. On his death he had willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival to remind everyone of this, with lots of good food and dancing and very silly games like Hunt the Wocket. His Assumption had been such a brilliantly good one that he was made into a saint for it. Now, the people of Saquo-Pilia Hensha hold an annual feast of the Assumption of St Antwelm.

Sass

Sass means “to know, meet, have sex with”.

Science

“Let’s be straight here”, says an earth scientist, at a press conference discussings Rob Mckenna. “If we find something we can’t understand we like to call it something you can’t understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don’t, and I’m afraid we couldn’t have that.

No, first we have to call it something which says it’s ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it’s not what you said it is, but something we say it is.”

Scrabble

Arthur tries to get the indigenous people of Earth to play Scrabble, and then discovers he can pull letters out of his homemade Scrabble bag to find the answer to the Ultimate Question. He pulls out the question “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?”

Séance

Zaphod, Ford and Arthur hold a séance – you see? – to speak to Zaphod’s great-grandfather. One of the great gags you get in the radio series is an actual dial tone followed by a bunch of bleeps as the call connects.

Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha

Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha is, as its name suggests, a plural zone. It’s also where the Earth lives – sometimes – and anyone born here is advised not to travel via hyperspace. It’s also the name of a big Hitchhiker’s fan club.

Links

52: From Rula Lenska to Santraginus V

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the R section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and make a move on the Ss.

Rula Lenska

Rula Lenska plays Lintilla and her clones, and the Guide in bird form in the radio series.

Russell

Russell is Fenchurch’s brother. To Arthur’s mind, the name Russell always suggested burly men with blond moustaches and blow-dried hair, who would at the slightest provocation start wearing velvet tuxedos and frilly shirtfronts and would then have to be forcibly restrained from commentating on snooker matches.

RW6

The RW6 is a sexy and beautiful ship, and the sort of thing you only saw in the sort of magazines that were designed to provoke civil unrest. Jon Bounds, what sort of magazine is that?

Rymplon™

Rymplon™ is a new synthetic fabric which was terrific for space travel because it looked its absolute best when it was all creased and sweaty.

Sandwiches

There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do. “Make ’em dry” is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, “make ’em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing ’em once a week.”

Santraginus V

Santraginus V is a marble-beached planet where you get seawater for a pangalactic gargleblaster, and where the fish never seem to care whatever the heck kind of direction they swim in. “Oh, that Santraginean seawater” says the Guide. “Oh, those Santraginean fish!”

The drummer for Disaster Area went mad and made friends with a rock there.

Links

51: From reverse temporal engineering to Roosta

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the R section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Reverse temporal engineering

Reverse temporal engineering is a new technology of “unfiltered perception”, which is a marvellous way of making anything you want to have happen, happen, without all that tedious mucking about with probability drives or Italian waiters.

Danny, is there a name for the kind of thing you add to a sci-fi or fantasy universe that can just solve any problem? Is it a deus ex machina or is that something else? [I know it’s something else, but I’m assuming you know what I mean! I also wanted to not give this one to Jon for a change]

Richard Vernon

Richard Vernon played Slarti in the radio and TV series. He was born on the same day I was, and if he were still alive, he’d be celebrating his 94th birthday. But he died 21 years ago.

River Moth

The river Moth is, well, a river. It is, as previously described, slow and heavy, and if you make a raft to sail down it, you can use a towel as a, well, sail. And that’s about all we know of the River Moth.

Satire

The panel discusses the Hitchhiker’s Guide ’s place in the pantheon of sature.

Rob McKenna

Rob McKenna is a rain god, with 231 different categorisations of rain documented in his little book. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him. He’s played by Bill Paterson in the radio series, and he’s a rather dreary chap.

Room of Informational Illusions

The Room of Informational Illusions is a deck on the Starship Bistromath that basically equates to another version of VR, like the Sense-o-Tapes from the original book.

Roosta

Roosta rescued Zaphod from Ursa Minor Beta during the bombing of Megadodo Publications. He’s played by Alan Ford in the radio series, which probably makes him the galaxy’s resident wideboy. He has a towel which contains a number of flavourings, chemicals and other substances that you can ingest by sucking a particular end.

Links

50: Loose tiles vol 1

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Hickman welcome Danny back to the Leopard with an episode in which we pull out random letters from the Scrabble bag. Warning: your mother would not approve of you listening to this episode.

We discuss feedback from Twitter and email, educate Danny on the Baby Shark phenomenon, learn more about the Mandela effect, and Jon continues to make fun of Mark for liking heavily-detailed Swedish crime-fiction.

We also look into staffing and casting a hypothetical Random Dent TV series, Jon reads some spam and Mark talks about being scared by VR.

49: From the Radiophonic Workshop to Reg Nullify

Thu, 15 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they continue through the R section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Radiophonic Workshop

The Radiopohinc Workshop was a BBC department that mae music and noises for BBC programmes, originally for radio and then for TV too. Arguably their most famous contribution is the Doctor Who theme. They were formed in 1958 and carried on for another 40 years until John Birt, the then Director General shut them down as they weren’t profitable enough.

Random Dent

Random Dent is Arthur’s daughter, mothered by Trillian from sperm donated by Arthur in order to travel around the Galaxy.

She’d been born in a spaceship that had been going from somewhere to somewhere else, and when it had got to somewhere else, somewhere else had only turned out to be another somewhere that you had to get to somewhere else again from, and so on.

Ratchet screwdriver fruit

Once picked, ratchet screwdriver fruit needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin which crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a sort of hole for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what it is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is presumably working on it.

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

The ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal is a mind-bogglingly stupid animal with a gaping mass of slavering fangs. You can easily fool it by putting your hands over your eyes, because it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you.

The Reason

One night, a spaceship appeared in the sky of the planet Dalforsas, which had never seen one before. The tribesmen who saw it swore that they’d seen a sign from their gods which meant that they must now arise and slay the evil Princes of the Plains, who likewise had seen the sign and assumed it to be an order to kill the tribesmen. This sort of thing happened a lot, as pretty much eeryone on the planet took everything that happened as some sort of sign.

This was mainly a problem for the forest dwellers who lived where the battle would inevitably and repeatedly take place. Whenever the forest dwellers complained and asked why their forest needed to be destroyed yet again, someone from either side would tell them the Reason, in very calm and rational tones. The forest messenger would nod dumbly and walk back to his tribe, where he’d try to explain this very sensible Reason, only to have completely forgotten it.

Reg Nullify

Reg Nullify leads the Cataclysmic Combo band at Milliways. He can be a little proactive on the drums, if Max Quordlepleen is any judge.

Links

48: From President Vranx to radiation swamps

Thu, 08 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the P section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and get into some Rs.

President Yooden Vranx

President Yooden Vranx was Zaphod’s predecessor. It was his idea to steal the Heart of Gold. but… was it?

Probability

The guide says that if you hold a lungful of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds, but the chances of getting picked up by another ship within that timeframe are two to the power of two-hundred-and-sixty-seven-thousand seven-hundred=and-nine to one against.

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is the commander of the Vogon Constructor Fleet, who uses the new Guide - equipped with reverse temporal engineering - to find a way of destroying all the Earths in existence along the probability axis. He is a fairly typical Vogon, in that he is thoroughly vile.

Qualactin Hypermint

Float a measure of Qualactin hypermint extract when mixing a pangalactic gargleblaster, over the back of a silver spoon. It’s redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones: subtle, sweet and mystic.

R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental wellbeing and not being more than, say, five minutes late. It is therefore clearly an almost infinitely variable figure according to circumstances, since the first two factors vary not only with speed taken as an absolute, but also with awareness of the third factor.

Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda

The Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda were a site of battles between the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax and the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug, both of which I think we’ll be covering later.

Links

47: From politics to Pralite monks

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Politics

The Jons explain why David Icke is like a British Rail sandwich, and that lizards eat babies.

Pondermatic

The Pondermatic is another computer not as smart as Deep Thought, who in fact called it a “cybernetic simpleton”.

Poodoo

Poodoo is an executive from the company that built the cloning machines that created the hundreds of millions of Lintilla clones we meet on Brontitall, in the second radio series.

He draws up agreements to cease to be, which are disguised as marriage licenses. Two of the three Allitnils - clones designed to be irresistibly attractive to Lintilla and her clones - “marry” two of the Lintilla clones, and thus the Lintillas are destroyed.

Population

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, but not every one of them is inhabited. So 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 the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero.

From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

Practical Parenting in a Fractally Demented Universe

We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, “Oh, hi Ed! Nice tan. How’s Carol?” involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble. So give your kid a break, OK?”

Prak

Prak is a little man with scraggly hair, given too much of a truth drug, after the Krikkit robots stole the Argabuthon Sceptre of Justice and jogged the surgeon’s arm while the drug was being administered. When asked to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, he begins to tell the court the entire history and present of the universe.

Pralite monks

Ford learns how to skin animals on Earth from an ex-Pralite monk. The galaxy is littered with them apparently, all on the make, because the mental control techniques the Order have evolved as a form of devotional discipline are, frankly, sensational - and extraordinary numbers of monks leave the Order just after they have finished their devotional training and just before they take their final vows to stay locked in small metal boxes for the rest of their lives.

Links

42: Live at the Birmingham Podcast Festival

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Jon Bounds, Jon Hickman, Danny Smith and Mark Steadman meetup in real life to discuss their favourite characters, put the Guide on shuffle mode and drink a homemade pangalactic gargleblaster.

Huge thanks to everyone who came to see us record, to Elle for holding the mic for Danny, and to the Mockingbird Cinema for having us.

45: From Philip Pope to Poghril

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue traversing the P section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Philip Pope

Philip Pope recorded a character voice in the Starship Titanic video game, wrote the Krikkit song and voiced one of the masters of Krikkit in the radio series. He’s also partly-responsible - along with Richard Curtis - for a pitch-perfect BeeGees parody.

Photon-ajuitar

The photon-ajuitar is a musical instrument, with a keyboard.

Pikka birds

Pikka birds live on Lamuella, and they’re very distracting to Perfectly Normal Beasts.

Pintleton Alpha

On Pintleton Alpha can be found the Resettlement Advice Centre, which Arthur visits in Mostly Harmless to try and find a home that’s a bit like Earth.

Pizpot Gargravarr

Pizpot Gargravarr is the custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex. Or at least, his mind is. His body is probably off having a far better time of it, going to parties and that sort of thing.

Playbeing

Playbeing is a magazine, devoted in roughly equal parts to galactic politics, rock music, and gynaecology.

Poghril

Poghril is an impoverished planet in the Pansel system, whose entire population got wiped out through food poisoning, apart from one man who ate the 239,000 fried eggs that had appeared thanks to a trip with the Improbability Drive. He later died of cholesterol poisoning.

They were already a pretty pesimistic race to begin with, having a popular riddle that goes “Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena-offal?” to which the other would reply “I don’t know either; wretched, isn’t it?”

Links

Towel Day special - Part 2

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Danny and Jon Bounds as they play through as much of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game as they could. Spoiler: it’s still not much.

This was recorded live on Friday 25th May 2018, for Towel Day.

43: From Paul McCartney to the Phargilor Kangaroo

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Paul McCartney

In Life, the Universe and Everything, we’re treated to Adams’ thoughts on Paul McCartney. One of his little one-liners, in reference to a tune being sung on Krikkit is “Arthur could almost imagine Paul McCartney sitting with his feet up by the fire one evening, humming it to Linda and wondering what to buy with the proceeds”.

Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings

Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings is from Essex, and is the worst poet in the universe. She is not to be confused with Paul Neil Milne Johnstone who died in 2004 but hailed from the same county and was an actual poet of some success. He was referred to by his real name in the radio series but all subsequent versions used a different one.

Peanuts

Peanuts are very good for replacing salts and proteins lost from travel via matter transference.

Perfectly Normal Beasts

No one knew where the Perfectly Normal Beasts came from, or where they go. They were so important to the lives of the Lamuellans, it was almost as if nobody liked to ask. Arthur and Ford destract one with a pikka bird presented by Old Thrashbarg, and ride it to the Domain of the King.

Persephone

Persephone is a new planet discovered beyond the orbit of Pluto, which was nicknamed Rupert, after the parrot belongong to one of the astronomers that discovered it. It has a dark and sombre landscape, a terrain so desperately far removed from the heat and light of its parent sun that it seemed like a map of the psychological scars on the mind of an abandoned child.

Peter Jones

Peter Jones is the voice of the Guide in the first two radio series, and the TV series. He purportedly had trouble saying the word “encyclopaedia” (as I think we’ve discussed before), so they ended up splicing two different recordings of the word together. Keen listeners to this podcast and the original series might notice that I tend to slip into Jones’ pattern of speech when I’m reading Adams’ words, and that’s mainly because I’ve heard them so many times that his delivery is almost baked into my brain. And for that, he deserves our love and respect.

Phargilor Kangaroo Relocation Drive

The Phargilor Kangaroo Relocation Drive is a means of travel by which a ship may be ejected suddenly through the fabric of the spacetime continuum and come to rest far from its starting point. This is however an emergency device and there is rarely time to plot where the ship will land.

Links

41: From Oolon Colluphid to parties

Wed, 06 Jun 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and take a sneaky pitstop at O.

Oolon Colluphid

Oolon Colluphid is the author of heretical works of non-fiction. We’ve covered many of his books already, but titles include Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?

Orion Beta

Orion Beta is noted for its madronite mining belts, where Ford learned to play a drinking game involving telekenesis and obsene forfeits.

Pangalactic garbleblaster

The Pangalactic Garbleblaster is the best drink in existence, according to the Guide.

Parallel Universes

Now, the Guide has had a great deal to say on the subject of parallel universes. Very little of this is, however, at all comprehensible to anyone below the level of Advanced God.

The first thing to realise about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that they are not parallel, because being parallel doesn’t mean anything. It’s all part of the Whole Sort of General Mishmash, but I thought it worth bringing up since it’s sort of noteable by its absencen.

Paralys-o-Matic

The Paralyse-o-Matic is a bomb of some sort. Zaphod throws one into the crowd that comes to watch the uneiling of the Heart of Gold.

Parties

In the third book, Arthur gets hit in the small of the back by a party that’s into its fourth generation, and has taken to conducting raiding parties of nearby planets, depleating them of stocks of cheesey snacks and booze.

Links

Towel Day special - Part 1

Wed, 30 May 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Danny and Jon Bounds as they play through as much of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game as they could. Spoiler: it's not much.

This was recorded live on Friday 25th May 2018, for Towel DAy.

39: From New York to Old Thrashbarg

Wed, 23 May 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the M section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Towel Day is coming!

Join us on Friday 25th June for a special live event! Follow @btlpodcast for details.

New York

In So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, Ford Prefect has a dream in which he meets a creature formed out of the pollutants of New York's East River.

“I instinctively feel”, says the creature, “that I need to be beautiful. Am I?”

NowWhat

The planet of NowWhat was named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell. There weren’t any other towns to speak of. Settlement on NowWhat had not been a success and the sort of people who actually wanted to live on NowWhat were not the sort of people you would want to spend time with.

Arthut finds NowWhat after a year traveling to the spacial coordinates of the Earth, but ends up here, which is another planet along the probability axis.

NutriMatic Drinks Dispenser

The NutriMatic Drinks Dispenser is Sirius Cybernetics' machine that delivers a cup of liquid that is almost, but not entirely unlike tea. It does this by analysing the user's brain to see what they might find neutritional and enjoyable, but no-one knows why, because it invariably spits out the same liquid.

Octraventral heebiephone

The octraventral heebiephone is a musical instrument that needs more than one mouth to play.

Oglaroon

In one corner of the eastern galactic arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire “intelligent” population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars, and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches.

Old Thrashbarg

Old Thrashbarg is an enthusiastic storyteller. A bullshit artist from Lamuella, who Arthur learns to tolerate with a degree of detatched irony.

38: From mice to Murray Bost Henson

Wed, 16 May 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Jon as they traverse the M section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Mice

Trillian - remember her? - kept some pet mice, who turned out to be the most intelligent beings on earth. We still don't know what species they are when they're not projecting themselves as little furry cratures with a cheese fixation.

Milliard Gargantubrain

The Milliard Gargantubrain is a super-computer from Maximegalon which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond.

Milliways

Milliways is the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was either built on the remains of Magrathea, or Frogstar World B, whichever you prefer.

A Bastablonian ad agency came up with the tagline "If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways".

Mind zoo

Marvin was once the star exhibit of a mind zoo. He had to sit on a box and tell his story whilst people told him to cheer up and think positive.

Missing matter of the universe

For a long period of time there was much speculation and controversy about where the so-called “missing matter” of the Universe had got to. All over the Galaxy the science departments of all the major universities were acquiring more and more elaborate equipment to probe and search the hearts of distant galaxies, and then the very centre and the very edges of the whole Universe, but when eventually it was tracked down it turned out in fact to be all the stuff which the equipment had been packed in.

Multicorticoid Perspicutron Titan Muller

The Multi-corticoid Perspi-cutron Titan Muller is a super-computer of unspecified parameters and focus. Deep Thought calls it a cybernetic simpleton in comparison to itself.

Murray Bost Henson

Murray Bost Henson is a journalist Arthur knows, with odd turns of phrase like “Arthur, my old soup spoon, my old silver turreen”.

37: From matter transference to memory dumps

Wed, 09 May 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the M section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Matter transference beams

Ford and Arthur are teleported from the smouldering remains of the Earth to the Vogon ship, via a matter transference beam. A song that regularly used to be chanted by huge crowds outside the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Teleport Systems factory on Happi-Werld III goes "If you have to take me apart to get me there, then I don't want to go".

Max Quordlepleen

Max Quordlepleen is the MC at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. He's an absolute pro, who divides his time between this upscale restaurant and the Big Bang Burgar Chef.

Megabrantis

The Megabrantis cluster is the political hub of the galaxy. The Vogons migrated away from their homeworld to setup shop here. Brantisvogan is a planet within the cluster, and you can go back to episode 8 to hear all about that.

Megadodo Publications

Megadodo Publications was once the home of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and one of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor. I think we can assume that Playbeing is another Megadodo rag, so presumably the company was doing fairly well.

Mella

Mella is a Golgafrincham woman Arthur meets (along with Agda) on the prehistoric Earth.

She had recently escaped a lifetime of staring every morning at a hundred nearly identical photographs of moodily lit tubes of toothpaste in the art department of a Golgafrinchan ad agency.

We never got to find out what happened between Mella and Arthur, because the book ended.

Memory dump module

A memory dump module is a small unit that Ford uses to copy data from his Guide (after wiping off the bits of fluff and biscuit crumbs). Adams clearly understood not only the need for data portability, but that people would be pretty careless with these devices. Nowadays we call them USB sticks or something similar.

36: From Majikthise to Marvin

Wed, 02 May 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Join Danny, Jon and Mark as they barrel through the M section of the Guide.

Links

35: From logic to Magrathea

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Danny joins Mark and Jon Bounds to discuss crisps, Sundays and Zeno’s paradox. It’s all in the L section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Links

34: From Lazlar Lyricon to Lintilla

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to work through some more of the L section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Lazlar Lyricon

Lazlar Lyricon is a customiser of space craft to the staggeringly wealthy. He customised the Disaster Area’s limo, and is said, by Ford Prefect, to have “no shame”.

Lazlar Lyricon also leant its name to a convention of Hitchhiker’s fans. The first was in our home city of Birmingham, and there’s a link in the show notes to an episode of Saturday Review, which scratches the surface of Adams’ move into the world of interactive fiction.

Leda and the Octopus

Leda and the Octopus is something of which a statue was made. It used to sit in the office of the Guide’s editor in chief, but now doesn’t. Of course, we all know that this is a play on the artworks based on the Greek myth of Leda, who comes across Zeus disguised as a swan.

Leovinus

Leovinus is the designer of the Starship Titanic, who fell in love with the computer inside. In the game, you have to assemble all the various parts of the ship that were scattered around it, and build a giant metal woman, at which point you’re given a video message from Leovinus, as played by Douglas Adams, in which he gifts you the ship.

Life Begins at Five Hundred and Fifty

Life Begins at 550 is a book, less popular than the Guide.

LifeSupport-o-System

The LifeSupport-o-System. It supports life on the Grebulon ship, and it’s perhaps the laziest name anyone has ever come up with for a piece of sci-fi.

Lintilla

Lintilla is an archaeologist with millions of clones. She, and all her clones, were played by Rula Lenska, who later went on to voice the Guide in its bird form. She has millions of clones because of a malfunction which meant the cloning machine got halfway through making one clone before starting the next, so it was impossible to stop it without committing murder. Eventually, the manufacturers concocted a plan to marry all the clones off to some hastily-made male clones, adding a line to the contract that meant they were aggreeing to “cease to be”.

Links

33: From Krikkit to Lamuella

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Mark and Danny Smith are joined by Jon Hickman to finish up the K section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and tackle a couple of important Ls.

Krikkit

Of all the races on the Galaxy, only the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horrific wars ever to sunder the Universe and transform it into what is generally regarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game.

L Prosser

Mr L Prosser is 40, fat and shabby. He works for the local council, and is distantly related to Genghis Khan.

Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton

Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton is the woman who christens the new Cottington Bypass by breaking a bottle of “very splendid and worthwhile” champagne over the “noble prow” of a “very splendid and worthwhile yellow bulldozer”. She was played by the comedic actor Jo Kendal, and was completely annoying.

Lallafa

Lallafa wrote what are widely regarded throughout the Galaxy as being the finest poems in existence, the Songs of the Long Land.

Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over, and shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words on that effect. He never got around to writing the poems, so the correcting fluid people got him to copy them out of a book they’d taken from the version of the past where he did write the poems.

Lamuella

Lamuella is a planet, not unlike Earth, but where the days are 25 hours long, which plays havoc with a mechanical watch. According to Old Thrashbarg, the planet had been found fully-formed in the navel of a giant earwig at 4:30 one Vroonday afternoon.

In Mostly Harmless, Arthur becomes the Sandwich Maker and makes Lamuella his home, and sandwiches (that sentence makes sense… read that back and you’ll get it).

Links

31: From Juju-flop to Know-Nothing-Bozo

Wed, 04 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Bounds are joined by Danny Smith to continue pawing through the J section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Juju-flop

When in a national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista said that the economy had now arrived at “one whole juju-flop situation”, everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it, that they quite failed to notice that their five-thousand-year-old civilisation had just collapsed overnight.

Jynnan tonnyx

It is a curious fact that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx. The drinks themselves are not the same and in fact the one common factor between all of them is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.

Kakrafoon

Kakrafoon is a desert world above which the stars are very visible, and where Disaster Area had a good gig, upon returning from Milliways.

The Kakrafoonians were highly enlightened, accomplished and quiet, and so as punishment for this, they were given telepathy, and were subjected to shouting inane small-talk to prevent broadcasting their thoughts to anyone within a five-mile radius.

Kill-o-Zap

The Kill-o-Zap pistol is a gun of some sort. Actually it’s an energy bolt gun, on which the designer had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with.

Kirp

Kirp is a Lamuellan who once caught a fish with a head at both ends. So, well done to Kirp. And now…

Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog

Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog belonged to Will Smithers, an Earth advertising friend of Arthur’s. The dog was named because the way its hair stood up on its head reminded people of the President of the United States.

Links

Outtakes vol 1

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 23:00:00 +0000

In lieu of a full episode this week, here’s volume one of our collection of outtakes and bits that were too rude - or nonsensical - even for this show.

30: From Jaglan Beta to Judiciary Pag

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to continue pawing through the J section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Jaglan Beta

Jaglan Beta is second out from the star Jaglan, near the Axle Nebula (and no, Jon, this isn’t a real place). We know three things about it: it has cold moons so it’s useful to wrap a towel around you to keep you warm, Ford once saw a star buggy smash into its third moon, and there’s a song called “I Left My Leg in Jaglan Beta”.

Janx Spirit

“Oh don’t give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit No, don’t you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”

John Lloyd

Jon Lloyd co-wrote episodes 5 and 6 of the first radio series, and worked with Adams on the Meaning of Liff among other projects.

Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses

The Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses are specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.

Journalism

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a powerful organ. Indeed, its influence is so prodigious that strict rules have had to be drawn up by its editorial staff to prevent its misuse. So none of its field researchers are allowed to accept any kind of services, discounts or preferential treatment of any kind in return for editorial favours unless:

a) they have made a bona fide attempt to pay for a service in the normal way; b) their lives would be otherwise in danger; c) they really want to.

Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag, LIVR (the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed)

Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag, the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed is the galactic warcrimes judge who sentenced the people of Krikkit to life in a slow-time envelope.

Links

29: From the Imperial Galaxy to Islington

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Danny Smith are joined by Jon Hickman to continue pawing through the H section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Imperial Galaxy

In the last moments of his dying coma, the hereditary Emperor of the Galaxy was locked in a statis field which kept him in a state of perpetual unchangingness. All his heirs are now long dead, and this has meant that without any drastic political upheaval, power simply and effectively moved a rung or two down the ladder, and is now seen to be vested in a body which used to act simply as advisers to the Emperor – an elected Governmental assembly headed by a President elected by that assembly. In fact it vests in no such place.

InfiniDim Enterprises

InfiniDim Enterprises bought the Guide frmo Megadodo Publications. We learn about them in the last of Adams’ Hitchhiker’s books, and I was always taken by the name.

Infinite Improbability Drive

The Infinite Improbability Drive is wonderful new method of crossing vast interstellar distances in a mere nothingth of a second, without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace.

Inifity

Infinity is defined by the Guide as “bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, “wow, that’s big”, time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we’re trying to get across here.”

Islington

The London borough of Islington is where Arthur went to a party and met Trillian, in a flat whose phone number mapped to the probability of his and Ford’s rescue. It’s also the location of the cave Arthur inhabited on prehistoric earth, which then turned out to be where Fenchurch lived.

Links

28: From human beings to the Ident-i-Eeze

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Bounds are joined by Danny Smith to continue pawing through the H section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Human beings

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the obvious, as in “It’s a nice day”, or “You’re very tall”, or “Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright?”

Hunt the Wocket

A game played on one of the worlds the Guide settles on, in Mostly Harmless. h2g2.com actually has a ruleset for a game devised by a Canadian teenager in the year 2000.

The players are divided into red and green teams. Each team takes twenty wickets of the same colour as their team and pounds them into the field more or less randomly. They must make sure that the wickets of both colours are mixed up and not too close together. When this is done, each team goes to the opposite side of the field. Someone places the ball in the centre and so on.

Hurling Frootmig

The fouinder of the Guide, establishing its fundamental principles of honesty and idealism, and went bust.

There followed many years of penury and heart-searching during which he consulted friends, sat in darkened rooms in illegal states of mind, thought about this and that, fooled about with weights, and then, after a chance encounter with the Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon (who claimed that just as lunch was at the centre of a man’s temporal day, and man’s temporal day could be seen as an analogy for his spiritual life, so Lunch should

(a) be seen as the centre of a man’s spiritual life, and (b) be held in jolly nice restaurants),

he refounded the Guide, laid down its fundamental principles of honesty and idealism and where you could stuff them both, and led the Guide on to its first major commercial success.

Hyde Park

This park gets a couple of mentions in Adams’ work, as a place in which Trillian does a rather startling manoeuvre with a motorbike, and where Arthur and Fenchurch have a nice picnic. Arthur - and thus, I imagine - Adams describes Hyde Park as “stunning”.

Ident-i-Eeze

This encodes every single piece of information about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-readable card that you could carry around in your wallet, and therefore represented technology’s greatest triumph to date over both itself and plain common sense. It was invented because of the many ways in which people have to prove their identity. Jon, just how prescient do you think Adams was?

Links

27: From the Hooloovoo to Hrundi

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to continue pawing through the H section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Hooloovoo

A super-intelligent shade of the color blue

Hoopy

A person who is hoopy, or posesses the property of hoopiness is a “really together guy”. I feel like I meet hoopy people from time to time, and I’m never quite sure how to recover.

Horse & Groom

Arthur’s local pub on Earth, in which hung for many years a battered old Guiness clock which featured a picture of an emu with a pint glass jammed rather amusingly down its throat

Hotblack Desiato

The frontman of Disaster Area, the biggest, loudest, richest rock band in history. He spent a year legally dead for tax purposes, and in the TV show his body guard was played by the guy inside the Darth Vader mask.

How I Hate the Night

A poem by Marvin, which he uses to comfort himself while he’s hooked up to the Krikkit computer.

Hrundi

A manufacturer of small spaceships, and those associated with the Advanced Vectoid Stabilisis feature wediscussed back in episode one.

Links

26: From Hastromil to Hig Hurtenflirst

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Danny Smith are joined by Jon Hickman to continue working thorugh the H section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Hastromil

A star system we can see disappear into the black void of space, at Milliways.

Hawalius

A planet of soothsayers.It’s where Arthur met the old woman who lives in a cave, and the man on a pole when he seeks guidence.

Heart of Gold

The starship Heart of Gold is a beautiful ship, shaped like a running shoe. We’ll talk about the Infinite Improbability Drive in a later episode, but here the team explores the ship a little.

Heavily Modified Face Flannels

A terse work by Frap Gadz on the subject of towels. Here, Jon introduces the panel to his ethnic towel.

Herring Sandwich Experiment

The Herring Sandwich Experiment was conducted millennia ago at tThe MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious.

A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches, and a sandwich was placed in front of it. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, “Ah! A herring sandwich! I like herring sandwiches.” It would then bend over and scoop up the sandwich in its scoop, straighten up, and in so doing cause the sandwich to slip straight back off the scoop and fall on to the floor. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, “Ah! A herring sandwich…”, etc., and repeated the same action over and over and over again.

Hig Hurtenflirst

Hig Hurtenflirst is the mastermind of the Shoe Event Horizon. He only happens to be the risingest young executive in the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation. He only happens to have masterminded the entire rationalisation of the planet Brontitall to total shoe orientation. He only happens to be sitting on top of the biggest development deal in the entire history of footwear and he only happens to be very deeply disturbed at finding his planet riddled with subversives bent on undermining the whole structure of the Dolmansaxlil operation.”

We ask who would win in a fight between Hig Hurtenflirst, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Links

25: From Hactar to the Happy Vertical People Transporters

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Bounds are joined by Danny Smith to start work on the H section of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers’ universe.

Hactar

Hactar is the first computer ever to be shocked. The Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax disintegrated it into dust, but it still functioned, slowly. In the radio series, he was played by Leslie Philips.

Haggunenons

The Haggunenons of Vicissitus Three have the most impatient chromosomes in the Galaxy. Whereas most races are content to evolve slowly and carefully over thousands of generations, discarding a prehensile toe here, nervously hazarding another nostril there, the Haggunenons would do for Charles Darwin what a squadron of Acturan stunt apples would have done for Sir Isaac Newton.

Hamlet

Adams uses a Hamlet reference when writing about the story Arthur wants to tell Fenchurch, upon their first actual meeting, where they’re able to talk while he drives her to Taunton.

Han Dold City

A dangerous part of the universe. Ford ends up at the Old Pink Dog Bar, where there’s a bird that screaches out the names and numbers of local contract killers, as a free service to patrons.

Han Wavel

A world which consists largely of fabulous ultra-luxury hotels and casinos, all of which have been formed by the natural erosion of wind and rain.

Happy Vertical People Transporters

Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and “maximum-capacity-eight-persons” jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital. This is because they’re able to travel to the floor you want, even before you realised you wanted it. They ended up sulking in basements because their passengers wouldn’t take them anywhere interesting.

Links

24: From the Grebulons to the G’Gugvuntts

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Jon Bounds are joined by Jon Hickman to finish rattling through the Gs, including a stop off at the Guide, and some very special found poetry.

Grebulons

The Grebulons were awoken from hyperspace sleep with no memories, after a meteorite struck their ship. They are thin and, under domestic lighting conditions, a sort of dim purplish green. They settled on a moon orbiting Pluto, and monitored Earth, believing astrology to be an exact science.

Grunthos the Flatulent

Grunthos the Flatulent is a Krian poet; the second-worst in the universe.

The Guide

The Guide is a sort of electronic book, that has several million entries in an index you “fast wind” through. Each item has a code, which you type in on a small pad. This scrolls the screen to the selected item.

The Guide has been played - in what we might consider canon - by Peter Jones, William Franklin, Rula Lenska and Stephen Fry.

Gunk

Gunk is a genre of music.This segment involves a lot of shouting.

G’Gugvuntt

The G’Gugvuntts are mortal enemies of the Vl’hurgs, who joined forces and went teaming across wormholes in space at the sound of Arthur Dent complaining about his lifestyle.

Links

23: From Golgafrincham to the greater drubbered wintwock

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Mark and Danny are joined by Jon Hickman to discuss who should end up on the B Ark and understand impossible sentences.

Golgafrincham Ark Fleet

A fictional fleet of ships, invented to allow the inhabitants of Golgafrincham to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population.

Googleplex Starthinker

A super-computer from the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity, with the ability to calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle during a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard.

It was deemed, by Deep Thought, to be a meer pocket calculator in comparison.

Goosnargh

A special Betelgeusian word Ford Prefect used when he knew he should say something but didn’t know what it should be.

Great Circling Poets of Arium

These poets used to live in remote mountain passes where they would lie in wait for small bands of unwary travellers, circle round them, and throw rocks at them. It was one of their descendents who invented the spurious tales of impending doom which enabled the people of Golgafrincham to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population.

Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus 12, the Magic and Indefatigable

This computer could talk all four legs off an Arcturian MegaDonkey, but only Deep Thought could persuade it to go for a walk afterwards.

Greater drubbered wintwock of Stegbartle Major in the constellation Fraz

In Mostly Harmless, we learn that this bird is extinct.

According to the Internet, there is a photo on Flickr of a greater drubbered wintwock. Danny explains.

Links

Greater Drubbered Wintwock | According to the Hitchhikers Gu… | Flickr

22: From Geoffrey McGivern to Gogrilla Mincefriend

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The team are back for 2018, and continuing their mission to explore the Hitchhiker’s Guide universe in alphabetical order. This week, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds tackle the G section, and we reveal the results of our Hypothetical Slarti poll.

Geoffrey McGivern

In his time on the radio series, he’s played Ford Prefect, Deep Thought, a Frogstar robot, the Heart of Gold ventilation system, and a priest on Brontitall. He’s subsequently gone on to a successful career in TV, playing bit parts in scores of shows.

Geoffrey Perkins

A writer and radio producer, and worked with Douglas at the BBC for many years. He’s credited with a wonderful line about Adams: “Douglas was never ever on time with scripts, often only finishing them a couple of hours after the audience had gone home.”

As well as producing the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, he was also a director of Hat Trick Productions, which went on to produce some of the UK’s best TV comedies.

Globbering

The noise made by a live, swamp-dwelling mattress that is deeply moved by a story of personal tragedy. The word can also, according to the Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary of Every Language Ever, mean the noise made by the Lord High Sanvalvwag of Hollop on discovering that he has forgotten his wife’s birthday for the second year running.

God’s last message to his creation

It’s written in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn, third out from the sun Zarss in Galactic Sector QQ7 Active J Gamma.

Gogrilla Mincefriend

A man who rediscovered and then patented a device he’d seen in a history book called a staircase, after the continued evolution of the Sirius Cybernetics Happy Vertical People Transporters started sulking in basements because they weren’t being listened to.

Links

21: S01E01 watch-along

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In a sort-of belated Christmas special, the full panel of Danny, the Jons and Mark watch series 1, episode 1 of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV show, and invite you to watch along.

The episode is available legally and for free courtesy of archive.org.

Cue the episode up, and when you hear Mark count up from three - or is it down from three? - hit Play. Now and again there’ll be a moment to pause, and if you’re playing the drinking game, see how far into the episode you get before everyone’s out of sync.

Thanks for joining us throughout 2017. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with regular episodes, so until then, and as always, share and enjoy.

20: From the Gagrakacka Mind Zones to Genuine People Personalities

Thu, 21 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon, in alphabetical order. As well as the usual affair, we submit to yuletide cheer and discuss Christmas in the Hitchhiker’s universe.

Gagrakacka Mind Zones

The place Disaster Area come from. In other news, we discuss what a mind zone is.

Gail Andrews

A famous astrologer, who was berated by Tricia McMillan on TV, but who was gracious enough to come and see her, to find out why she, Tricia, was unhappy.

Galactic Eezeereed

A galaxy-wide written language. We come across it on the Golgafrincham B Ark, and it does handily solve the problem that the Babel fish can’t.

Garkbit

The waiter at Milliways, and is so unhip it’s a wonder his bum doesn’t fall off. Mark posits that Garkbit is a little stuffy for the kind of establishment that Milliways is purported to be.

Genuine People Personalities

GPP is a feature of a line of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots. Marvin is a personality prototype, so the panel examines the ramifications of going with a gen-1 Sirius Cybernetics product.

Jon Bounds has been writing again

Read two new pieces by Jon Bounds on our blog:

Get in touch

Share some of your GPP thoughts, by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ jonhickman and @ bounder on Twitter.

19: From Fortillian Bantoburn O'Perfluous to the Fulornis Fire Dragon

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Fortillian Bantoburn O’Perfluous

The BarBot of the Starship Titanic, played by Dermot Crowley (from Luther, among other things). In the game, he mixes your character a bizarre cocktail that ends up helping to fix the ship. Here, Danny runs the team through some working class cocktails.

Frastra

Where they say “life begins at 40,000 degrees”. This planet has fire storms, and an equable temperature is between 40,000 and 40,004 degrees. Mark asks the question of the kind of lifeforms one might expect to find on Frastra, bearing in mind that the tardigrade can only hack it up to 148.9℃.

Frogstar

Frogstar World B is quite staggeringly nasty, and is where Zaphod is dragged to before being put in the Total Perspective Vortex (to which we’ll come in a later episode). This planet gives us a bit of a continuity headache, as our characters happen upon it in very different ways, depending on whether you’ve read the book or listened to the second radio series.

Frood

A frood is a really amazingly together guy. And that’s about all the time there is for this segment.

Fuolornis Fire Dragon

The team discusses the sexiness - or complete lack thereof - of flying bescaled fire-breathing lizards. And Dire Straits.

Gag Halfrunt

Gag Halfrunt is Zaphod and Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz’s private brain-care specialist, and the man who employed Jeltz to destroy the Earth. He’s played by Stephen Moore in the radio series and is the man who utters the immortal words “ah, Zaphod’s just this guy, y’know?” which is one of very few Hitchhiker’s catchphrases. Danny helps Mark understand how wrong he is to like this character, given that he is quite a bit evil.

Hypothetical Slartibartfast

Vote on your favourite actor to play Slarti in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Get in touch

Share some of your thoughts on our casting choices or on Gag, by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

Links

18: From Flolloping to Ford Prefect

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Flollop

Flolloping is a way of moving that only a matress can do. In a sort-of Meaning of Liff kind of way, I wondered if you two had any similarly onomatopoeic terms for movement. The panel shares their favourite onomatopoeic words.

Flying

There is an art, the guide says, or rather a knack to flying, which lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Danny discusses whether this activity belongs in legitimate sci-fi.

Folfanga

On the fourth world of the Folfanga system can be found a slug of the genus A Urth Urp-hill Ip-dennoo, which Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolongued made it part of his mission to insult. Wowbagger had planned to call one of the creatures a brainless prat, which is frankly a bit derivative, so Jon is in charge of workshopping new insults for slugs.

Foot Warriors

The foot warriors are robots intent on keeping all bipedal life from the ground. They’re all dressed in expensive shoes that don’t fit them, so they constantly limp or fall over. We meet them in the second radio series, and they’re pretty ineffective, so the panel embarks on a discussion about robots that are actually useful within the H2G2 universe.

Ford Prefect

Ford Prefect is Arthur’s best friend. His original name is only pronounceable in an obscure Betelgeusian dialect, now virtually extinct since the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster which wiped out all the old Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven. He’s loyal to his friends, doesn’t have much of a backbone but does fight to protect the things he loves, and to annoy or destroy the things he doesn’t. Here, the panel share their favourite Ford things.

Get in touch

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ probablydrunk on Twitter.

Links

17: From the Fire Mountains of Frazfraga to the Flex-o-Panel

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Fire Mountains of Frazfraga

We don’t know much about the Fire Mountains of Frazfraga, except that it’s not a hospitable location for a Silastic Armorfiend of Striterax. The panel discusses the most inhospitable places they’ve been to.

Five-D

5D TV is, we can only assume, two better than Tri-D, which we’ll no doubt cover when we get to the Ts. For now though, Jon Hickman is in charge of 5DTV sales.

Flaninian Pobble Bead

A Flaninian Pobble Bead is a form of galactic currency. It is only exchangeable with itself, and therefore isn’t really counted as money by the Guide. As Brits we have a peculiar problem accepting certain forms of currency north of the border, despite it being legal tender. Here, Bounder shares his budget for the just-about-managing species.

Flare-riding

Flare-riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence, and those who can dare and afford it are amongst the most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course stupefyingly dangerous - those who don’t die riding invariably die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club’s Apres-Flare parties. The panel discusses their most hair-raising moments.

Flargathon

Flargathon is a planet with gas swamps so stinky that the Gaseans who make this world their home, hired the Magratheans to build them a better world. Here, the Jons discuss the little bits they’d like to change about their respective locales.

Flex-o-Panel

The Flex-o-Panel is a wrist panel that can show Sub-Etha TV, and probably do other stuff. Here, Jon H tries to convince Steadman he’s wrong to want one of these.

Get in touch

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

Links

16: From the Evildrome Boozarama to Finlon

Thu, 23 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Hickman continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Evildrome Boozarama

The Evildrome Boozarama is a bar Ford and Hotblack used to crash, pretending to be health inspectors. Here, Danny and Jon share some stomach-turning foodie tales.

Fallian marsh gas

When mixing a Pangalactic Gargleblaster, one should allow four litres of Falian marsh gas to bubble through, “in memory of all those happy hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia”.

Fanalla

On Fanalla can be found the Bwenelli Atoll, where Ford first started working at the Guide, “before the Riktanarqals and the Danqueds vertled it”. Fanalla also has rum that Ford remembered liking. Danny shares a story of nearly vertling a local publication.

Fenchurch

Fenchurch is the girl who came up with the idea to solve everything, in a cafe in Rickmansworth. She is played by Jane Horrocks in the radio series, but since Jon is on record as fancying Fenchurch, he has first dibs on casting her role in our hypothetical Netflix adaptation.

Fifty-Three More Things to do in Zero Gravity

A book that sold better than the Guide. In celebration, Danny shares numbers 2, 3, 4, 54, 55 and 56.

Finlon

Finlon is a Golgafrinchan documentary film director. He made a film about the indigenous peoples of Earth dying out, and was planning on telling the story of the captain of the B Ark. Jon, as a media studies man, do you have any documentary tips?

Get in touch

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

Links

15: From Enid Kapelsen to Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Sex

Thu, 16 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In a very sexy episode, Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Enid Kapelsen

Enid is an elderly resident of Boston, MA, who, while on a flight one day, flipped up the shutter to see Arthur and Fenchurch checking in on a one-way trip to bone-town, only several thousand feet in the air.

Envir-o-Form

The Envir-o-Form is a piece of Grebulon technology that we know little about, but can assume makes organic matter. Given we’re now in the age of lab-grown meat and gene-pool spelunking, we examine our potential future on Earth.

Eric Bartlett

Eric Bartlett is Tricia McMillan’s gardner. She being the Tricia who never became the Trillian we know. He’s the kind of person who “doesn’t hold” with things, like, for example, people coming in from New York first thing in the morning.

Escape-o-Buggy

The Escape-o-Buggy is a tiny cigar-shaped escape pod, used by Ford Prefect when leaving the ship orbiting Sesefras Magna.

Evening classes

Evening classes are little pills you can take, to which Lintilla introduces Arthur, in the second radio series. They’re a part of the weird lifestyle of artificial enhancement and disadvantage she’s party to. We’re all familiar with the Matrix “I know kung fu” trope - even Jon, I suspect - but this is the first time I’d ever encountered knowledge in edible form.Electronic thumb

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Guilt, But Were Too Ashamed to Ask

Another work by Oolon Colluphid.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Sex But Have Been Forced to Find Out

Another Colluphid masterwork. It’s twinned with Eccentrica Gallumbits’ big bang book from last week, so to close us out with taste and decency,Book recommendation

Audiobook recommendation

This week we’re recommending The Crow Road, by Ian Banks. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Fan-fiction

This week we talked about fan-fiction, and Jon wrote us his very own piece.

Get in touch

Share your Beware of the Leopard fan-fiction via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ bounder on Twitter, and check out Jon’s John Lewis Twitter bot.

14: From the earth to the electronic thumb

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Earth

Earth is a planet that was destroyed five minutes before the result of the most important experiment in the universe was revealed. The team examines the possibility that we’re living in a simulation, but maybe not a good one. Here’s Jon Hickman’s Tesco ad generator, by way of example.

Eccentrica Gallumbits

Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon VI is a published author, having penned the work The Big Bang Theory - A Personal View. Some people say her erogenous zones start some four miles from her actual body.

Eddie

Eddie is the shipboard computer, and the object of an earlier poll. Now we’re in a tie situation, the panel pick a personality and make a case as to why they should win the spot. To cast your vote, tweet @btlpodcast

Edmund Lucy Fentible

Fentible is the DoorBot of the Starship Titanic, voiced by Jonathan Kydd. He’s the first character you meet when the ship crash lands in your house. The panel discusses what Douglas Adams had against houses, and why he kept wanting to destroy them.

Electron ram

From the turret of the electron ram emerges a sharp prong which spats a single lethal blaze of light. A scout robot demonstrates the use of such a weapon when talking to Marvin, who’s trying to distract the robot so that his friends can run away.

Electronic thumb

A subetha device without which an interstellar hitchhiker would have as much chance of survival as a welk in a supernova.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending /You’re Never Weird on the Internet/ , by Felicia Day. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share your thoughts on conservation via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ jonhickman and @ bounder on Twitter.

13: From dogs to Douglas Adams

Thu, 02 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Warning: This episode contains lots of swearing and sex talk.

Dogs

Arthur makes a passing reference to having a dog in the second radio episode, and the first book. So the panel asks “where’s Arthur’s dog?”

Dolphins

Dolphins are the second most intelligent species on earth, but did you know just how kinky they are? Danny reveals all.

Domain of the King

Is Elvis really dead, and are we forgetting him? The panel discusses Elvis in recent pop culture, and ask an academic question about the slipping of the King out of our cultural memories.

Douglas Adams

The panel embarks on some general appreciation of Adams’ work inside and outside of the Hitchhiker’s Guide , involving his Apple fandom and his friendship with Richard Dawkins.

Jon Hickman’s H2G2 Warsaw article

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending /The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin/ , by David Nobbs. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share your thoughts on Douglas Adams via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @iamsteadman, @probablydrunk and @jonhickman on Twitter.

12: From the Definit-Kil to Dire Straits

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Bounds and Danny Smith continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Definit-Kil photrazon cannon

A Vogon weapon, and an excuse for us to talk about firing guns and nihilism.

Dentrassis

The best cooks and _the _ best drinks mixers, and they don’t give a wet slap about anything else. The team discusses their favourite ways of annoying Vogons.

The Digital Village

The company that renamed to H2G2, and were in charge of the original H2G2 website before it was stewarded by the BBC.

Digital watches

A pretty neat idea and a chance for our teams to get some things off their chests.

Dine-o-Charge

An intergalactic credit card used by Ford Prefect.

Dingos’ kidneys

This piece of profanity used only by Ford Prefect is a good excuse for the team to discuss some mostly-harmless swearwords.

Dire Straits

A band of which Douglas Adams would appear to be a big fan. Here, Bounder shares a wonderful story from a biography, in which Adams encounters a young Mark Knopfler.

Hypothetical Eddie

Vote on your favourite actor to play Eddie the shipboard computer, in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending /What Was Lostby Catherine O’Flynn/. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share your thoughts on Dire Straits or digital watches via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ probablydrunk on Twitter.

11: From Cruxwan University to Deep Thought

Wed, 18 Oct 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Cruxwan University

The seat of learning that was attended by Vroomfondel. We discuss whether Cruxwan would be a redbrick uni or a former polytechnic.

D’Astragar ‘d’Astragaaar d’Astragar

The Maitre d’Bot of the Starship Titanic, voiced by Philip Pope (who also voices the lift).

Damogran

A planet 500,000 light years from our sun, made up of lots of middling-to-large desert islands, and the secret home of the starship Heart of Gold.

David Jason

Jason played the captain of the Golgafrincham B Ark and the caveman in the radio series. The team celebrates their favourite David Jason roles. He’s still alive at the time of broadcast, just so you know. Mark and Jon Hickman also land a massive knowledge bomb on Bounder.

David Tate

Tate played a huge number of roles in the radio series, and Jon Bounds discusses one of his favourite lines.

Deep Thought

The computer that designed the earth, but wasn’t capable of coming up with a good answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. Is this down to the GIGO principle?

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending /The Player of Games/ , the second in the Culture series by Ian M Banks. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share your Deep Thought thoughts, via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ jonhickman and @ bounder on Twitter. Also check out Jon Hickman’s Tesco ad generator, and Thread, Jon Hickman and Mark’s other show.

10: From Colin to cows

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Colin

Colin is a delightful, and constantly delighted little security robot captured by Ford. The team discusses whether such a hack job could work on Marvin.

CompuTeach

Another computerised device that can also be made happy. The CompuTeach educates listeners to the radio series about the Shoe Event Horizon.

Cosmovid, Thinkpix and Home Brain Box

Three subethanet services that show films, and a chance for the team to come up with “hilarious” ideas for new Netflix-style shows.

Counting

This is about the most aggressive thing you can do to a computer. Once again Mark asks Jon to defend one of Adams’ sci-fi gags.

Cows

Here we discuss the morals around vegetarianism and veganism. And because your podcasters are children, they discuss whether they would eat human flesh.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending /After on: A Novel of Silicon Valley/ by Rob Reid. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share your thoughts on sentient cows, via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ jonhickman and @ probablydrunk on Twitter.

9: From the Campaign for Real Time to the Cloudworlds of Yaga

Wed, 04 Oct 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order. This episode has some bad language.

Campaign for Real Time

Danny shares his story of getting his chest waxed at a Twitter-based charity event.

Cathedral of Chalesm

In memories of this lost cathedral, the team discusses things they’ve lost.

Celestial Homecare Omnibus

Here the team discuss how-to books and YouTube videos. “Go ahead and” enjoy this chapter.

Choice

The team examines the concept of choice, and how the choices characters make - or don’t make - affect their future.

Civilisation

Jon educates us on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Cloudworlds of Yaga

Mark asks what it might be like to live in the Cloud (this is nothing to do with Apple or Google) and gets high-roaded by Danny.

Hypothetical Marvin

Vote on your favourite actor to play Marvin the paranoid android, in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse, read by Martin Jarvis. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share your thoughts on California or who might write our new hypothetical Netflix series, via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ bounder on Twitter.

8: From Brantisvogan to California

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Brantisvogan

A many-faceted place where banking and bureaucracy happens. Also yes, Mark is aware he pronounced amoeboids with a G. That’s how they pronounce it on Brantisvogan.

The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Brockian Ultra Cricket

Jon Bounds presents his rules for what can be considered a sport, and what, quite frankly, is not.

The Duckworth Lewis Method - Wikipedia

Brontitall

In the second radio series, we learn about a planet blighted by the Shoe Event Horizon: Erdington.

Broopkidren 13

This planet has an alternative to the human phrase “the other man’s grass is always greener”, so we examine axioms.

Bulldozer

In this chapter, Mark defends Nizlopi and, specifically, the JCB Song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGkseGFQLh4

Café Lou in Gretchen Town, New Betel

A dive in which Hotblack Desiato performed, and a chance for the Jons to share some memories of weird places they’ve been on-stage.

California

A state with a city that features yellow air, for some reason.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending Small Gods, a Discworld novel by Sir Terry Pratchett. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share your thoughts on California or who might write our new hypothetical Netflix series, via feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

Check out the charity single for the Birmingham bin men, co-written by the Jons. Also check out Mark and Mr Hickman’s side-project, Thread.

7: From Bistro Illegal to body debits

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order. This episode has bad language in it from the start.

Bistro Illegal

This is a bar Ford and Hotblack used to crash, pretending to be health inspectors, and a chance for Danny to share a story of impersonating a journalist and discovering shorthand.

Bistromathics

A wonderful new method of crossing vast interstellar distances without all that dangerous mucking about with improbability factors. Jon is called upon to defend this mode of transport.

Bjanjy Territories

Where there is a wedding between Prince Gid of the Soofling Dynasty and Princess Hooli of Raui Alpha. Trillian Astra reports on the wedding. Here, Danny tells us about the most dangerous place he’s ever been, and you will not expect the answer.

Blagulon Kappa

This is where Bangbang and Shooty come from, and where they play Badabingo.

Blamwellamum of Woont

An opera by Rizgar’s, whose closing piece, March of the AnjaQantine Star Guard from Act IV was performed by the Hallapolis State Opera was heard by Random when she stumbled upon the wreckage of the ship Arthur crash-landed in.

Blart Versenwald III

We discuss what Adams may have meant by featuring this character in the final chapter of the fourth book.

Body debits

Body debiting is the means of teleportation via card-based transaction, and another mode of transport for Jon to defend.

Hypothetical Trillian

Vote on your favourite actor to play Tricia McMillan in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide. (And yes, we know Jon said Sarah when he meant Sandra. Keep your email to yourself!)

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share some of Blart theories by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

Check out Danny’s Gig of My Life zine in aid of the Manchester bombing relief fund, and the charity single for the Birmingham bin men, co-written by Jon Hickman. Also check out Jon and Mark’s side-project, Thread.

6: From Bastablon to biscuits

Wed, 13 Sep 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order. This episode has bad language in it.

Followup

Douglas Adams’ Apple Macintosh SE/30, by Andy Taylor.

Bastablon

The planet whose marketing executives came up with the slogan for the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and a jumping-off point to discuss Talk Like a Brummie Day.

Bath Sheets in Space

A coffee-table book on the subject of bath towels, and a chance for Danny to discuss his hatred for coffee tables.

Belgium

A revolting intergalactic swear word. We discuss what it could possibly mean.

Betelgeuse

One of the suns that forms the Shoulder of Orion, along with his sister Bellatrix. Here the team discuss displacement of characters throughout the universe.

Bethselamin

A world of staggering beauty, and an opportunity for Jon to wax lyrical about the rolling hills England.

Bill Paterson

The Scottish actor who plays a bit part in the second radio series, and Rob McKenns the rain god.

Bill Wallace

The actor behind Prosser from the council, and Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. Here the team also discusses scale in the H2G2 universe.

Biscuits

Mark tasks Danny with uncovering the truth behind the biscuit story (if you’re unfamiliar, all will be explained). The story has been discussed at length on Snopes.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century, by John Higgs. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Twitter question

https://twitter.com/ldagstine/status/905109634557640704

Get in touch

Share some of your thoughts on the biscuit story by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ bounder on Twitter.

Check out Gig of My Life, and the charity single for the Birmingham bin men, released by Jon Bounds and Jon Hickman.

5: From artificial disabilities to Bartledan

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Bounds and Jon Hickman continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Artificial disabilities

A medical marvel that can make your life as difficult as you need it to be, and provide a winning backstory for your next talent show appearance.

Asgard

The world of norse myth that brought us Thor, and gives us a good opportunity to talk about gods in sci-fi literature.

Babel fish

The most improbable thing to exist, and proof of the non-existence of God. Or so it would seem.

Bangbang and Shooty

These two trigger-pumpin’ cops don’t get name-checked in the book, but they do have names. The team discusses what role 70s TV dramas may have had in the creation of this double-act. __

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGOpIzf-9w0

Barnard’s Star

A hyperspace junction, and inspiration for the discussion of whether Earth and the other planets in the hyperspace express route could have just been moved out of the way.

Bartledan

A place full of netball-loving people with no imagination. We discuss Bartledanian literature, and Arthur’s romantic soul.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending And Another Thing, the sixth book in the trilogy, by Eoin Colfer. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Hypothetical Zaphod

Vote on your favourite actor to play Zaphod in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Get in touch

Share some of your thoughts on the babel fish and more by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

4: From Argabuthon to Arthur Dent

Wed, 30 Aug 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Bounds and Jon Hickman continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Argabuthon

From which planet the plexiglass sceptre of justice was obtained.

Arkintoofle Minor

Upon which planet the bad-news drive was invented.

Arthur Dent

A six-foot tall ape descendent, and the main focus of our conversation.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman!, by Richard P Feynman. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share some of your thoughts on Arthur by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

3: Arctura

Wed, 23 Aug 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order. This week, it’s everything Arcturan.

Arcturan megadonkey

A four-legged beast off which Deep Thought could talk all legs. Of. In that vein, we discuss the things we’ve persuaded people to do.

Arcturan megafreighter

A mode of transport which Zaphod hitches aboard. Here, Jon and Danny share their worst travel stories.

Arcturan megagin

Three cubes of which are added to panhgalactic gargleblaster. Here’s what it might look like, and here’s an Instructables piece on the ingredient.

Arcturan megagrasshopper

Used as a comparative phrase, as in “ankle-high to a…”, so we discuss some of the Dad-based anachronisms from our past.

Arcturan megaleach

Another large animal that should be small, but since it’s spelt “leach” not “leech”, we falsely accuse Danny of emptying our wallets on nights out. Read Passport to the Pub, the guide to British pub etiquette.

Arcturan stunt apples

A squadron of which would have put Sir Isaac Newton out of commission, and thoroughly hammered home the concept of gravity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90dnUbZMmM

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending Armageddon the Musical by Robert Rankin. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Get in touch

Share some of your anachronistic Dad phrases by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ bounder on Twitter.

Pick up a copy of Pier Review: A Road Trip in Search of the Great British Seaside, by Danny and Jon.

2: From Alpha Centauri to Apple

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Alpha Centuri

A real star system that might’ve put paid to the Vogons’ plan to destroy earth. Otherwise known as an intergalactic Slough.

Altarian Dollar

A now defunct currency that probably doesn’t go as far as it used to.

Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons

The organisation to which Vroomfondel and Majikthise belong. We discuss whether they’re any good at the thing they purport to protect.

American Express

A small credit card from Earth, and the subject of some pretty nasty bar disputes.

Angst in Space

A film Wowbagger watches, deftly summarised in Netflix synopsis style by Jon.

Antarean mosaic lizard

A teeny-tiny lizard whose skin adorns a marble-topped bar in Milliways.

Antarean parakeet glands

Revolting little cocktail garnishes, but the inspiration for a few confessions from our team.

Anthony Sharp

The voice of the Milliways waiter and of the great prophet Zarquon. Here we discuss what we’d like to be remembered for.

Apple

The people who make computers, one of which was purchased by Arthur when he tried to find his old cave on prehistoric Earth.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Hypothetical Ford

Vote on your favourite actor to play Ford in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Get in touch

Let us know what you first used a computer for, by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ jonhickman and @ probablydrunk on Twitter.

Read Danny’s writings.

Listen to Jon Hickman’s running podcast, You Don’t Look Like a Runner.

1: From Advanced Vectoid Stabilisis to Almighty Bob

Wed, 09 Aug 2017 23:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Jon Bounds embark on a mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Advanced Vectoid Stabilisis

A device you can add to your spaceship, “that only wimps go for”. It might also be prime fodder for a Top Gear discussion.

Agrajag

The creature with the sprained mind, who constructed the Cathedral of Hate in Arthur’s name, after believing him to be the cause of his many deaths. Here we share some confessions and decide if Agrajag was right to accuse Arthur of killing him several times.

Alcohol

A colourless, volatile liquid formed from the fermentation of sugars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nwx2sZRYzs

If you’re confused by the bread roll reference:

http://thumbnails.visually.netdna-cdn.com/great-british-bread-debate_5370cb779ecb9.jpg

Aldebaran

A giant orange star about 65 light years from our sun, and the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus. It is a real thing, Jon.

Algol

A star in the Perseus constellation, and is home to the Algolian Suntiger. It is also a real thing (the star, not the tiger).

Allosimanius Syneca

A world of stunning natural beauty. It only gets one mention, in Life, the Universe and Everything , as the place Trillian flies the Heart of Gold to. In this episode, we also find out that Jon Hickman names his running shoes after his favourite sci-fi spaceships.

Almighty Bob

The god whose existence is probably the most spurious, as he was likely invented by Old Thrashbarg. Here we share our favourite, possibly-offensive religious epithet and find out that Almighty Bob is a way for the people of Lamuella to exercise care in the community.

Book recommendation

This week we’re recommending What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, by XKCD’s Randall Munroe. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Hypothetical Dent

Vote on your favourite actor - or “personality” - to play Arthur in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Get in touch

Let us know what you call a bread roll, by emailing feedback@btlpodcast.com.

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ jonhickman and @ bounder on Twitter.

Read Jon Bounds’ Pop and Politics blog.

Listen to Jon Hickman’s running podcast, You Don’t Look Like a Runner.

Music used from the Free Sound Archive

Jazz in Jardin du Luxembourg by soundlandscapes

Trailer

Sat, 15 Jul 2017 17:00:00 +0000

Mark Steadman, ape descendent, is on a mission to discover and discuss everything from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , in entirety, and in alphabetical order.

With the help of his friends Jon Hickman, Jon Bounds and Danny Smith, he’ll examine everything from Arthur to Zaphod, and all points in-between.

This is not a definitive guide to the Guide , but rather an exploration of a pop culture universe that’s brought joy to old nerds and young geeklings alike.

Search “Beware of the Leopard” in your favourite podcast app, find the show at btlpodcast.com and look out for the first episode on Thursday, August 31st.

Share and enjoy.