Don't Panic !

Whilst lying on his back on a greek beech admiring the night sky expanse, possibly somewhat intoxicated by ouzo, a romantic idea came to our young writer, who's knowledge of the galaxy above and beyond was rather limited. Wouldn't it be nice to have a hitchhiking guide for the galaxy ? This for a young man who just discovered an edge from his own continent was the luminous idea, that against all odds put that dwellar on the planet Earth on a road to stardom.

The cosmos must be full of even stranger beings then the writer's homeplanet possess, though i suspect here that he must have sucked up plenty of the local crankyness, to have his readership understand the absurdity of life anywhere else but between these reception dishes, one's own ears. Now i said readership, when in fact that came later, for it really was between those ears where The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy started it's life, courtesy of the BBC radio 4. The series of best-selling novels, a TV series, a record album, a computer game, several stage adaptations and even a movie, all flowed from the succes of the initial radioplays.

Undisturbed by all that success, the writer spawned; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); and Mostly Harmless (1992). The first two books in the Hitchhiker series were adapted into a 6 part television series, which was an immediate success when first aired in 1982. Other publications include Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (1988). In 1984 the writer teamed up with John Lloyd and wrote The Meaning of Liff and after a huge success The Deeper Meaning of Liff followed this in 1990. One of the writer's all-time personal favourites was written in 1990 when he teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine and wrote Last Chance to See – an account of a world-wide search for rare and endangered species of animals.

So who's this writer , well Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952, educated at Brentwood School, Essex and St John's College, Cambridge where, in 1974 he gained a BA (and later an MA) in English literature, pedigree for sure.

When Douglas won his first Golden Pan (for 1,000,000 paperback sales of HHGG) in 1984, it was the quickest that any Pan book had ever reached that figure. He won two further Golden Pans, for Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and Life, The Universe & Everything..He sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia and was also a best seller in German, Swedish and many other languages. Douglas was a founding director of h2g2, formerly The Digital Village, a digital media and Internet company with which he created the 1998 CD-ROM Starship Titanic, a Codie Award-winning (1999) and BAFTA-nominated (1998) adventure game.

Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 of a sudden heart attack. He was 49. He had been living in Santa Barbara, California with his wife and daughter, and at the time of his death he was working on the screenplay for a feature film version of Hitchhiker.


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In 1978 the majority of the ten million listeners to the UK's BBC Radio 4 listen on long wave for a blend of news, entertainment and comedy, without adverts on the licence fee funded BBC radio station Peter Jones is a familiar comedy voice on the national station known as the BBC Home Service until a decade ago. Margaret Thatcher was not yet in power and industrial action was common, and Punk subculture had had its summer.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy starts therefore from a familiar everyday scene (as War of the Worlds had on American radio) before knocking reality for six as the listener was drawn into comedy inspired from the author's extensive education, travels and 'semi-depth knowledge of history'.Within moments the Earth is destroyed, the President of the Galaxy is a "dude", the end of the universe a classy diner, the Earth is giant computer, fjords are designed, or philosophers strike.

Lets's not get ahead of things here, some have bouts mr Adams had fits, writing fits that is, therefore there's no chapters in THHGTTG but fits, in the end he had released 26 of them, in five phases. BBC radio produced 30 min radioshows from these, starting today i will post one every week .

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy / Primary Phase



Broadcasted between 8 March and 12 April 1978 on BBC Radio 4.

First Fit (20mb)

Primary Phase Introduction

The First Fit

1.01 This Is The Story
1.02 You've Got To Build Bypasses
1.03 A Strange Coincidence
1.04 Six Pints Of Bitter
1.05 On This Particular Thursday
1.06 Let Them Have Their Fun
1.07 People Of Earth, Your Attention Please
1.08 I Bought Some Peanuts
1.09 The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
1.10 What The Devil's That?
1.11 The Babel Fish
1.12 What An Extraordinary Book
1.13 Vogon Poetry