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

was, on the edge of the field of vision of Rolf Harris, grappling with a statistical neightmare. Unraveling the improbability of being involved in an accident to leap the small hedghog to fame and fortune at the whim of a Rolf Harris exrtended version of animal hospital.
It turned, casting aside the reminants of a thousand cup-cake crumbs,a dn proceding to brush asunder the ice-cream van, manovered itself to a position within the field of view of Rolf harris.
Almost immediatly, but in truth a painfully drawn out ten or fifteen seconds later, Rolf, still clutching his wobble board, catching view of the hedgehog, lept into action.
The small hedgehog, limping slightly, whined softly, and moaned, in what, it believed was a most precise way designed to encourage Rolf to spot its distress and injury.
Rolf threw the wobble board to teh ground, and grappled with a rhythm stick, hardly noticing that the wobble board, cast asunder in such a rash way had, strangely managed to

...wake up.
Looking around the comfortable surroundings of his riverside boudoir, he thought:
"Gee, I shouldn't have eaten that cheese last night".

He got up, brushed his teeth, combed his beard and settled down for a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs. Though, Rolf being Rolf, of course, added a little blue dye to the scrambled eggs and called them "bluey eggs". Another invention - how many can one man make? He read the newspaper, drank a cup of coffee and went to the toilet. Then he settled down to work. First, the fan mail. The fan had sent two letters today and it looked like, this time, they didn't use letters cut out of newspapers.

It was as he rose from his work table that Rolf noticed the tiny, intricate origami model on the floor. He picked it up and examined it.It was a model of a bush.

"So", thought Rolf, "I'm a replicant..."

He went out to the driveway, jumped into his hover car and rose over the city of Los Angeles, heading for the Tyrell corporation, where, he figured he's sort things out...

As he sat in teh hovercar, he flipped on the casette player, which began spurting out the tones of one of his favourate recordings, it was

Vangelis, a couple of sticks and a rubber band.

The Hover Car wobbled through the air, as Rolf leaped about in it, singing "Sunarise" and painting it all kinds of interesting colours.

Pretty soon, he had sailed on right past the Tyrell building, past the suburbs, across the fields, and on, right over the county line, past mountains, seas, oceans, rolling valleys and on, out into the universe, through another dimension, looping around black holes like a yo yo, curving over the centers of galaxies, and on, through the space-time continuum, its warp and its whoof, and its myriad of glittering possibilities, and then, through a worm-hole, a kink in time, which left him right in front of the Tyrell Building.

"Ah", said Rolf, who hadn't noticed anything, "Were here".

Steping out of the hover car, forgetting the casette, the bushmen, and the spare wobble board he kept in the boot of the hover car, Rolf almost fell over the body of Hoover, laying in front of the building, the building which, was, unbeknown to Rolf, about to form a most significent role in his life storey thus far.
Rolf stooped, gaining a better view of teh man, laying at his feet, he held out a tentitive hand, and checked Hoover's pulse.
He was alive.
But Rolf was, mightly confussed as to why this figure, this recognizible, but laughible figure, lay, at his feet, as if Hoover had thrown himself there to pay reverence to the greatness that Rolf Harris knew, in his heart, that he was in some many and diverse areanas as singing, musitionship and gardening.
Rolf pondered.
Hoover lay still.
Then, as suddenly as Rolf had found the body of Hoover, Rolf came to a monumentus desicion, and began chopping the reserve supplies of celery, that he always carried inside his jacket pocket.

As he chopped he wondered about the events that were overtaking him.

Who had created him, and why? No, not why. His value to the world was evident. But why had the Creator chosen this moment to reveal the truth.
Why had he implanted Rolf with such a crap dream, instead of a cool one with unicorns or something? Maybe the Creator couldn't do origami unicorns.

And why was it always raining round here.

But the time for such thoughts was over. The celery was chopped. It was time.

.. for Gary. Mr. Rhodes stepped in at this moment, checked his hair, took the celery from Rolf, and announced

"Today we will be making Lasagna. But, and this is the special part... we will be making it ONLY with celery..."

Rolf, enthusiastic as always, was taking notes. But then he became distracted. Hoover was stirring, and, oddly, beginning to glow...

Rolf, previously distracted from teh situeation of Hoover by Gary, now turned his attention to teh glowing body in front of him, and, as in all times of potential danger, he abscent mindaly reached in the boot of his hoovercar for the spare wobble board.

Gary, unaware of Rolf, Hoover, or the wobble board, continued cooking the celery based dish that had moments before seemed so captivating to Rolf, and explained, in great detail, its relivence, to some of the inhabitants of down-town Blackpool as a dish of mystique and how it was served in down-town Blackpool at all sacrifical killings.

Hoover, glowing more strongly now, began to rise, just that; Lifting, levitating some might say frmo teh pavement where he had previously lain.

Rolf turned, twisted, jumped, curled himself into a ball, and using the wobble bord as a kind of sledge skuttled under the levitated body of hoover, and almost crashed into Gary.

Rolf regained his footing, turned on a six pence, and again faced the levitating form of Hoover, just in time to see

Gary Rhodes open a chest panel and produce a laser cannon. For it wasn't the real Gary Rhodes after all! It was a replicant.

"My mother?" said Gary, "Let me tell you about my mother.."

Rolf, inventive as ever, chucked a piece of celery at Gary, but it didn't do much damage at all. Gary levelled his laser cannon at Rolf. Rolf closed his eyes and saw his life flash before them. This is what he saw:

"Dark stuff. Big light. A bush. School. Rocks. A rubber band. Nearly becoming Canberra swimming champion. London. Big Ben. "Sunarise", "Jake the Peg", "Tie me Kangaroo down", TV offers. Celebrity. A parrot with its leg in a splint. Baked beans."

But then, just before Gary fired, Rolf rose into the sky. He was being carried by Hoover..

Hoover, holding Rolf by the breard, sped upwards, through the now dark nights sky, over hints and indications of rivers, fields, the tiny lights of farmsteads, and then the unmistakible smell of the sea. It seemed an age, as they rose, higher, and speeding faster foward, over what, Rolf guessed was a large ochaen or sea.
After several hours, and with ice-crystals forming in Rolf's beard, he plucked up the corrage to speak to Hoover...
"Ugggh, errr, erm, xcuess me, errm, Mr hoover, errm, where are we going, why have you saved me, what is that large thing hovering in the sky in front of...."
Rolf trailled off, suddenly notcing in front of them, suspended obscenly in front of them, a large, red, London double decker bus.
The bus hung in the sky, in much the same way that granite does not float in water, as if it was staring gravity in teh face, with its tongue pocked out and crying
"nah nah nah nah",
Perhaps more supprising, though, as Rolf suddenly realised, was that the path that Hoover was taking them on, was a almost perfect collision course with the Red bus.
This worried Rolf somewhat.

A rasping, gravelly sound, like the sound of a million tiny golfballs which had been covered in sandpaper, been buried in a very deep hole, and were now being dug up by a mechanical excavator in need of oiling, emanated from within the huge, glowing body of Hoover. The sound turned out to be a voice.

"Be not afraid" said the voice.
"Be totally, gut-droppingly, jaw-clenchingly, palm-sweatingly, uncontrollably, cower-behind-a-wobble-boardingly terrified."

Rolf complied. His muscles become fluid and floated randomly about his body. His mind, in an attempt to escape the panic that beset it, began to slip away from him.

Just as his mind was about to head out of the door, and while it was wondering whether to put the key through the letter-box, or hang onto it in case it ever wanted to come back, it's attention was caught by a strange melody. Rolf's mind, filled with curiosity, ignored it's better judgement and rushed back to it's rightful position inside Rolf's head.

What was that melody? So familiar and yet from so long ago. Rolf looked again at the bus coming ever closer, and suddenly recognised that old song.
"Oh No" he gasped.
"No. Not that"

But yes, indeed it was..


We're all goin on a summer holiday..


and suddenly Rolf saw it all, the double decker bus, the Hoover, the dreams, the yoghurt, everything ...

..it all added up to one big tangled web and that web's name was Harry, known to millions of deludedly happy fans across the world as Sir Cliff Richard.

"Hi!" said Cliff, jerking his thumb in a manner that was as irritating as it was perverse,

"Wanna hop on my bus?"

"It 'aint for no squares, right?" asked Rolf.

"No way daddy'o not my bus" said Cliff.

"Well, gee, that sounds like my kinda bag, lets go!" said Rolf.

But..

It seemed the bus was somewhat overcrowded, and I spied John Lennon, ear bashing Neal Innis over in teh corner of the bus. Nonetheless we entered, and were bvery supprized to immediately find...

..a large walrus pointing a water pistol at a worried looking aubergine..

But never fear, it was our one week of holiday, and we were not going to let anything like a water pistol ruin our fun. We entered the bus, sat down, and begun talking to some of the other happy looking people on the bus.
'Hello my name is Elvis',
Explained a rather short looking elf, sitting towards the rear of the bus, and thereby previously obscured by the taller members of hte happy gathering. The conversation didn't last long, and before we knew it, it was time to open our packed lunch boxes.
As a group of Lemmings symultainiously deciding to take in a film a t the same time by pure chance, it was a syncronised effort of box opening and munching that accompanied the onset of lunch time.
Opening my own lunch box, Rolf spied my tunna and mayo sandwich,a dn teh rather limp looking cucumber and cheese sandwich, which he took and ate.
If only Jamie Oliver was still about...

..no, looks like he fell out of the bus. There he is, plumetting earthwards, like a lead-lined cocker spaniel. Oh well, have to make do with boiled eggs and custard then...

There are, or so it would seem, boiled eggs, and boiled eggs. We had the former, superious version, and hte amazement was widespread across all holiday fans on the bus, and after thus eating our boiled eggs, with plentiful supply of bread, we began a sing song of mammoth proportions

"We all live in a yellow submarine. Yellow submarine. Yellow submarine," everyone sang, ignoring the fact we were actually on a red bus...

"Er... guys" said the diminutive John Lennon at the back of the bus, "maybe that should be 'We're all being attacked by Gary Rhodes driving a laser powered submarine' since that seems, in fact, to be what is happening"

As the bus dove to evade it's attacker, more than one person suddenly wished they had taken dramamine...