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

Just remembered...

"What do you expect me to do with that!?!?" - Arthur

"Stick it in your ear." - Ford

"What!!!"

"It's only a little one."

Creases me.

And I love how that leads into the proof of the non-existence of god
"'oh yes,' said god, and promptly vanished in a puff of logic"

The bit about the Golgafrinchams, who, having got rid of an entire useless third of the population continued to live long and happy lives before being wiped out by "... a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone."

"Ford, there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for "Hamlet" that they've worked out."

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me,
Like footling turlingdromes,
On a lurgid bee."

I simulposted with you there, Swiv. Don't forget that "man goes on to prove that black is white and gets run over on the next zebra crossing."

Ford: "you make your own action"
Ford: "...what is this? Some kind of intergalactic hyper-hearse?"

The "share and enjoy" song

oooh my first simpost

I do love the bit when Ford and Arthur first arrive on the Heart of Gold
"I used to have this dream...all my schoolfriends went to heaven or hell, and I was sent to Southend"
And so on

culminating in the monkeys with the script for Hamlet

Oh, let's see...

Please do not press this button again.

I'm so cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I'm so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis.

Hand me the raprod, Plate Captain - geez, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your buns don't fall off.

His face had the texture of an orange and the color of an apple, but there the resemblance to anything sweet ended.

"My white mice have escaped!" An expression of worry failed to cross either of Zaphod's faces. "Nuts to your white mice."

Prepared. Diced. Oh, don't worry, we'll replace it with an electronic brain. A simple one should suffice. Yeah, all you'd have to do is program it to say "What?" and "Where's the tea?" and nobody'd know the difference. "What?"

Don't try to outweird me, three eyes, I get stranger things than you free in my breakfast cereal.

(These aren't completely accurate - I'm typing from memory)

Right from memory...

"...There are actually three readily convertable currencies issued by the galacti-banks in the Universe. They are : The Alterian Dollar, the Flannian Pobble Bead and the Triganic Pu. However, the Alterian Dollar has recently collapsed, Flannian Pobble beads are only transferable for *other* Flannian Pobble beads, which leaves only the Triganic Pu. The conversion rate for the Pu currency really is terribly simple. 11 Ningis go to make up 1 Pu. However, since a Ningi is a Triangular rubber coin 6 light-years across each length, no-one has ever colected enough Ningis to ever own 1 Pu. And besides the Glacti-banks refuse to deal in fiddling small change...Thus proving that the galacti-banks are also the product of a derranged imagination. From this it is fairly easy to deduce that the Universe has no money in it, (it wouldn't matter if it did, there is no-one there to spend it.)

So, Universe: currency......0"

or something to that effect, but nevertheless, very, very funny indeed....

Clive

"I woke up this morning, thought I'd have a nice quite day. Do a bit of gardening, brush the dog. It's now just after four in the afternoon and I'm being thrown out of an alien spaceship five light years from the smoking remains of the Earth." - Arthur

"Alright, just stop panicing" - Ford

"Who said anything about panicing, this is just the culture shock. Wait until I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings. THEN I'll start panicing." - Arthur

I also woke up this morning and thought I'd have a nice quiet day

Humans thought they, were more intelligent for inventing war,... while all the dolphins ever did was muck about in the water and catch fish all day. Conversely, the dolphins thought they were more intelligent for precisely the same reason.

Arthur: "..er"

Governing People.

The Major problem, one of the major problems, for there are several, one of the many major problems with governing people, is that of who you get to do it. Or rather who manages to get people to let them do it to them

To summarise, it is a well known and much lamented fact that those people whop most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarise the summary, anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no account be allowed to to the job.

I'm just reading the books again (my first time in the original English version), and I find quote over quote that's worth quoting, like:


" ...I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number."
"Er, five," said the matress.
"Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?"
The matress was much impressed by this and realized that it was in the presence of a not unremarkable mind.


The more I read the more I think that my fav character is Marvin.

I do have to admit that I do the "I'm more intelligent than you - think of a number ...." bit in RL to confuse people. It usually works







How about these:



"Arthur Dent?" it said.



Arthur nodded helplessly.



"Arthur Philip Dent?" pursued the alien in a kind of efficient



yap.



"Er ... er ... yes ... er ... er," confirmed Arthur.



"You're a jerk," repeated the alien, "a complete asshole."



"Er ..."



The creature nodded to itself, made a peculiar alien tick on its



clipboard and turned briskly back towards the ship.



"Er ..." said Arthur desperately, "er ..."



"Don't give me that!" snapped the alien.







Or the SEP







Or the bit with His High Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag, LIVR (the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed)











They're just a bunch of real sweet guys, you know, who just happen to want to kill everybody. Hell, I feel the same way some mornings. S**t.







(...)



(...)



"And how many guys zilched out?"



"Two grillion, m'lud." (...)



This was the most momentous occasion in legal history, and Judiciary Pag knew it. He took out his chewing gum and stuck it under his chair.



"That's a whole lotta stiffs," he said quietly.



(...)



They believe in ..."



He consulted a piece of paper which he found in the back pocket



of his Judicial jeans.



"They believe in `peace, justice, morality, culture, sport,



family life, and the obliteration of all other life forms'."



He shrugged.



"I've heard a lot worse," he said.







He scratched his crotch reflectively.



"Freeeow," he said. He took another sip of water, then held it up



to the light and frowned at it. He twisted it round.



"Hey, is there something in this water?" he said.



"Er, no, m'lud," said the Court Usher who had brought it to him,



rather nervously.



"Then take it away," snapped Judiciary Pag, "and put something in



it. (...)







By the time the applause in the court had died down, Judiciary



Pag was already in the Sens-O-Shower with a rather nice member of



the jury that he'd slipped a note to half an hour earlier.









These are just great. And the rest of the books. Why doesn't the BBC quote the whole lot of them?!

"Just when you thought life couldn't possibly get any worse, it suddenly does" - Marvin

"It...rains...all...the...time!!" - Rob McKenna (thumping the table in time to the words)

Oh, how to pick just one! There were so many good bits!

The descrption space ("Space is big..."), the description of Arthur the famous sandwich make, when the ventilation system, eddie, the nutrimatic and floor turn on arthur...and the Golgafrinchans,the whale and the bowl of petunias, scrabble...mmm.

Quotes? My faves include:

Arthur: It's times like this that I wish I'd listened to my mother
Ford: Why, what did she say?
Arthur: I don't know, I wasn't listening!

"Would it be easier if I just gave up and went mad?"
"You're a jerk Dent, a complete kneebiter."
"I went mad for a while..."
"I've gone off the idea of progress, it's overrated"
"There is an art to flying, or rather, a knack."
"You guys are so unhip, ot's a wonder your bums don't fall off"
"I'm so cool you could keep a side of beef in me for a month" (something like that anyway)
"Don't try to outwierd me three eyes, I get strangerthings than you in my breakfast cereal(?)"

Nutri: If you enjoyed this product why don't you share it with your friends
Arthur: Because I want to keep them
(actually this whole bit is funny, with the "masochist on a diet" line and others...)

From memory again...

Cow "Would you like some of my juicy rump sir? It should be very tasty, I've been force feeding myself for months"

Arthur "Could I just have a green salad please"

Or the marvelous six-drink-bit (which works great IRL ):

...
Then he had thought about what his position actually was and the renewed shock had nearly made him spill his drink. He drained it quickly before anything serious happened to it. Then he had another quick one to follow the first one down and check that it was all right.
"Freedom," he said aloud.
Trillian came onto the bridge at that point and said several enthusiastic things on the subject of freedom.
"I can't cope with it," he said darkly, and sent a third drink down to see why the second hadn't yet reported on the condition of the first.He looked uncertainly at both of her and preferred the one on the right.
He poured a drink down his other throat with the plan that it would head the previous one off at the pass, join forces with it, and together they would get the second to pull itself together. Then all three would go off in search of the first, give it a good talking to.
He felt uncertain as to whether the fourth drink had understood all that so he sent a fifth to explain the plan more fully and a sixth for moral support.
"You're drinking too much," said Trillian.
...

That's the best explanation for the fact that every known civilization had found some kind of a sixpack

Jeremy

Or, after the football this weekend...

In the pub just before earth gets demolished, the barman says :

"You watching the match this afternoon sir?"

Ford: "No, no point"

Barman : "Foregone conclusion then, Arsenal without a chance?"

Ford : "No, it's just that the world's going to end."

Barman : "Oh yes sir? Lucky escape for Arsenal if it did"

Oh, and in the same scene...Ford pays for the 6 pints with a £5 note and tells the barman to keep the change! I wish you could do that these days!