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

I remember when I was 6 or 7 my cousin had the H2G2 original computer game and all that I could make of it was that it looked boring. I watched him play one day for about 3 hours and he read what he was typing to me. Ever since then I've been hooked. The game the books then anything and everything written by DNA. The movies, tapes, whatever I could get my hands on. I think the first time I read the series through though, I was about 12 or 13. I don't even know how many times I've read them. They're great!

We'll not -have- such a thing! Stand and be -proud- of your geekdom!

I first read the HGTTG in Danish when I was about 8-10 years old. Sadly, though, the Danish translation is awful and Mostly Harmless has never been translated. So I didn't realize the full potential of the books until about a year ago, when I bought the Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide in English. They're brilliant!
My next plan is to get the Dirk Gently books in English, 'cause I love the Danish version, and I got a feeling I'll love the original even more.

Ah, now - that's a shame! I've never gotten a chance to act against any real god towel actors, actually. I'd really love that... Any favourite colours or materials?

I'd recommend emulating the nice pale, fluffy blue ones that can be found in BHS.
If I'm travelling, I take a small flannel. Not quite as good as a towel, but you can stick it to the seat in front on the plane and play the mirror game with it.
Also, make sure it has a good amount of cotten content, useful for soaking up beer and spirits

Ah, indeed! The fluffy blue ones are a personal favorite of mine as well. I shall emediatly go practice my imitations... Meanwhile this is a memory I must share, and a lesson learned at that:

This goes out to the world as I testify to the usefulnes of knowing where your towel is and, most important, why you should ALWAYS have it with you when you travel...

Last Monday I came flew home from Paris. Nice enough. SAS flight, so the service was great, the food nice and my travel companion - uhm - ok. Anyway, my towel wasn't there. In great rush I had thrown it in my bigger bag - which was now in the luggage compartment. Not so far away, but very unget(to)able. It could have worked out, despite my nervousness, hadn't the girl in the seat next to me decided to have a glass of Baileys. Considering her taste of drink, I'd say it's horrific enough - considering her way of suddenly dumping it in my knee, I'd say it borders on criminal.

Well, sitting there with soaked trousers and coat I really hadn't that much of a choice. I had to use napkins. Useless, white paper napkins. A towel would have saved my day, my friends, and maybe could have turned the whole event into pleasent conversation! Let me asure you: The upcoming conversation was ANYTHING but pleasent.

So, like Mr. Douglas has already told you - through the wise mouth of a certain Ford Prefect - always remember where you have your towel and for God sake - keep it in range!

I'm not sure how old I was, but late tens early teens (early 70's), when it was first broadcast on R4 at ~11pm (I was listening to it when I was supposed to be asleep)

my husband introduced me to the books about 7 years ago and i must say that i have read them so many times since then that i have had to actually go out and purchase new copies
btw.....i was trying to say hello to a newcomer but found i couldn't because there is nothing on their page yet and you know who you are up there so i will say hello here ..... HELLO!!!
monsy

Hi,

Thanks for your greeting - currently having problems with H2G2 letting me update my home page (keeps telling me my passwords don't match .......)

Tigger

First picked up the books from the school library at the age of ten, had read everything he had written by the end of the week
Havn't taken part in any performances of DNA's fine work but the dramasoc at my Uni Imperial Colledge,London just put on an excellent play of Dirk Gently's HDA.

I first read THHGTTG when I was about eleven and a half. I had seen it lying around the house a few times over the years. Once I had even started reading it, but couldn't make head or tail of it.

Anyway, I'd seen the videos first, before (at 11 and a half) I decided once and for all to pick up this book and read it.

And I loved it.

Over the next 6 months I bought and read the other 3 books. Life The Universe And Everything is my favourite. Yes yes yes!

I encontered the Radio show first when I was 10. Unfortunately not the original run but the second. A friend of my from school at the time told me to listen out for it, we were the weird kids at that time the rest read the Hardy boys we read Asimov and Clark. So my second incarnation of HHG2G was the novel and I have it in ever format available except for the LPs though I did once share a flat with someone who owned the 2nd one. That includes all five parts of the Trilogy being read by Douglas himself, though tape four of RATEOTU and Tape one of LU&E were stolen along with my stereo a few years back.

If the thief's out there I'd like to have them back please!

i think i got them for christmas one year and staired at them for about 7 years then i finally read them and like them alot.

I was in high school (maybe grade 11) when I first read the Guide and it's companions. Like someone else I was boring and made sure I read them in order. That posed some difficulties as I was reading them out of the library and some rude person kept signing them out. But finally I managed to read them all, and have continued to do so - over and over again. My husband doesn't know it, but I married him for his matching paperback set.

Hmm I guess I was about 27 , I ran across the book in a drugstore bookrack and read it during my summer vacation ( must have been in 1981 ). A story goes with this to . I was working with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. as a techie at the time and shortly after I got back to work , the noon show production assistant came in and said " we'll be taping something called ' the hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy ' , at the end of the farm feed. I don't know what it is". At this point I said " Hmmm , I'll bet you in the first episode earth is destroyed by Vogons" , and she looked at me sort of funny. Of course earth is destroyed. By the second week of correct guesses she's gone past freaked out when I finally tell her that the series had been published ( just that almost no one here had heard of it before it was aired ).

I first read the HHGTTG series When I was 11 just before enter middle school and I instantly loved it. Ever since then I have been looking for everything and any thing to do with the series.

I encountered the first book when I was a very depressed 19 year old, and reading that bit about the surprised sperm whale almost did me in. Fortunately, I connected with the other books, and all came from the library (the child of librarians). In a way, I wish I'd been forced to buy them because original-printing hardbacks are insanely expensive and hard to find today and that's just the kind of stuff I'd collect.
Then the BBC video programme came over and everyone here went hitch-hiking temporarily....then I discovered the radio-scripts and discovered that BBC audio has the original radio series on CD. That still tops my wants-list.

In between all of that I also devoured all of the Dirk Gently series and find him to be far more interesting and entertaining than any other detective (with the possible exception of Jane Tennyson) that I've come across.

The Last Chance To See what alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, the photographs stunning.

I wonder what Mr. Adams would do if he turned his attention to the Internet?

Fruitbat

I am now an owner of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul . Havn't read them yet as I'm still ploughing through Run To The Hills.

I think I was about 11 when my dad first told me about HG2G. It was about the time when Restaurant came out. I got to listen to a couple of the radio shows, but we didn't get them in Maine, which annoyed me to no end. Later on my best friend turned me on to Dr. Who and in return I made her read all the Douglas Adams books. As you can imagine we weren't terribly popular in our little preppie Maine junior high school. Heh.

I watched the TV series when I was a young teenager but never had the inclination to read the books until one day I was cleaning an officers room (I was a steward in the Royal Australian Air Force) and I accidently bumped his copy of his bedside table...I wrote him a note saying that I was sorry for losing his place in the book and commented that it was a good book but I hadnt read it yet..so he gave me the whole series to read...Lovely man They only took me a few days to read...Thinking of my age then...I was about 19 years old.