h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why is it that whenever you come across a pair of drunkards, one is
always filthy, smelly, incoherent, blood-stained and barely able to
walk, while the other is far worse?

Forty-two.

(I hope this is the answer you were looking for, otherwise, I don't know.)

Another possible answer is one has had 42 more drinks than the other

Maybe one had 4 gallons of whisky and the other only had 2.

Balaam, the most elastic man in the bible, tied his ass to a tree and walked 42 kilometers to Jerusalem presumably doing a pub crawl along the way

That's a long way to walk with a tree tied to your ass.

An earlier example was the messenger who in 490BC ran 42.195 kilometres (26 miles 385 yards) from Marathon to Athens then collapsed and died because he didn't stop for a beer.

That'll teach him to ignore all the people at the side of the road handing out drinks. Mind you, you probably shouldn't run that kind of distance in fancy dress.

An earlier example was the fancy dresses made using Cleopatra's Needles in approx 1422BC at Heliopolis a city near the apex of the Nile delta and the site of an early Egyptian brewery

So the ultimate question could be "What year came 1380 years after the year fancy dresses were made using Cleopatra's Needles at Heliopolis a city near the apex of the Nile delta and the site of an early Egyptian brewery?"

The one about Philippa Forrester was easier to understand.

How about has Virginia Sexton of Scunthorpe got within her name and address the most profanity possiple in 4 words noting that one word contains only 2 letters.

Maybe 42 is the number of people in Scunthorpe who have found that their ISP censors the word "Scunthorpe", forcing them to pretend that they live in some mythical place known as "Sconthorpe".

I think you are verging on cracking it. 42 people can't be abused by an isps taking the piss - not sober anyway

So, the number of outraged Scunthorpe residents who got extremely drunk and torched the offices of their ISP?

Incidentally isps and piss are anagrams of each other. There are 4 letters in each of them and there are 2 words. 42 appears in many spooky ways. Maybe the answer does lie in Scunthorpe.