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

No matter what, h2g2 is inexorably linked to the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. It will almost certainly come as no surprise whatsoever that I like that particular series of books, and I have just finished reading them all over again. This is largely due to the fact that I have just come back from being on holiday. I never realised just what an aid to the holidaying experience the Hitchhiker's Guide could be, but now my eyes have been opened.

The holiday in question was a long weekend away, camping with friends, in Newquay. I had never been camping before, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. The campsite was the Trevelgue campsite, which is, I believe, somewhere on the North side of the town, quite near to the beaches and in the middle of some stunning countryside.

I'll talk about the countryside first, and just mention that Dartmoor is one of my favourite places. Driving through it (or rather, being a passenger in a car driving through it) bought that fact home to me again. Dramatic hillsides, topped with craggy outcrops of rock, give way suddenly to huge expanses of grass that stretch as far as the eye can see. It is, by turns, wonderfully dramatic and breathtakingly calming. Car journeys have often been interrupted by people stepping out into the road in front of the vehicle I was travelling in; on Dartmoor, you don't mind so much, because the people in question are, in fact, horses.

Newquay has got a bit of a bad rap, at least in my opinion. It has garnered a reputation as the Ibiza of the UK. This is because it has some beautiful beaches and, in the town centre, quite a lot of clubs. It's a shame that people go to Newquay for the clubbing, because, quite frankly, they could just as easily go to Manchester and have just as good a time getting drunk, popping pills and having unprotected sex with complete strangers, which would leave the beaches free for those who actually appreciate them.

Newquay does have some beautiful beaches, and, as is well documented, some very strong tides that make for the UKs best surfing, and even, for those not inclined to hurtle across the water on an ironing board, some very interesting bathing. We had some fantastic weather, and the sea was surprisingly not completely freezing, at least once you got used to it.

The campsite was nicer than I expected. The thing that worried me the most was the toilets, because I had heard some horror stories, but I was pleasantly surprised (except on the second day when noone could apparently be bothered to actually refill the toilet roll holders). The showers were nice and private, and pumped out water at just the right temperature. The main problem with the campsite was caused by Newquay's status as the UK's Ibiza, and by the campsite's status as one of the few sites in the UK to allow groups of young, single people to stay. Of course, the placed was packed with the aforementioned clubbers, who sang loudly into the night and didn't stop until the wee small hours had become the annoying nowhere-near-as-small hours. Suffice to say, sleep was not something I indulged in easily.

Of course, I have yet to explain the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy's relevence in all these shenannigans, so I'll do so now.

From my home, Newquay is a five-hour journey. Despite the fact that I was travelling with friends, certain differences can emerge between the staunchest of pals, and in our case, one of the differences most eager to pop out its head and wave at the world was what to play on the radio during the journey down. The driver wanted Groove Armada. The front-seat passenger wanted Disco. I wanted Radio One, because at least that way there was a selection. There was, it seemed, only one solution, because while each of us had different musical opinions, all of us liked the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which I was able to supply on cassette. The journey down saw us work our way through the primary six phases of the radio show, the journey back the secondary phases. We laughed, we cried, we argued about who had originally written the theme music. Well, we didn't cry, but without it the sentence just didn't feel right...

Amongst the things I had packed, nestling between my t-shirts and my swimming trunks, were two books (well, three actually, but the Robert Rankin book "The Greatest Show Off Earth" has no bearing on this story, although it is a wonderful book which I recommend to everyone). The first of these was Don't Panic: Douglas Adams And The Hitchhiker's Guide by Neil Gaiman, and the second was the Trilogy of Four Hitchhiker's compilation, the one with the shiny cover featuring a Vogon ship reflected in a bathroom mirror. These books followed me to the beach (well, I couldn't be expected to spend all my time frolicking in the sea, now can I?), and saw me through the long sleepless nights while I waited for the other campers, quite frankly, to shut the hell up. The compilation is so hefty that I even used it to kill an annoying insect or two, and in fact I'm fairly sure that I could have used it to knock in tent pegs, had the need arisen.

Now I'm back home, and thankfully I've bought the sun with me. While I was away, my home was reportedly battered by thunderstorms and shaken by winds, but in Newquay the worst weather I experienced was some low cloud cover, and thankfully, now I'm at home, the clear skies seem to have followed.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not cut out for camping. I may do it again, but I'm not completely convinced. I'm very much afraid that I missed my creature comforts too much. Some of the weekend was fun - in fact, "fun" is an understatement - but some of it was not.

I have come to another conclusion, which is that I am cut out for the Hitchhiker's Guide, and I have a feeling that it will be accompanying me on any further holidays I may take...