Beware of the Leopard: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy podcast

In lieu of a full episode this week, here's volume one of our collection of outtakes and bits that were too rude - or nonsensical - even for this show.

Mark and Jon Bounds are joined by Danny Smith to continue pawing through the J section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Juju-flop When in a national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista said that the economy had now arrived at “one whole juju-flop situation”, everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it, that they quite failed to notice that their five-thousand-year-old civilisation had just collapsed overnight. Jynnan tonnyx It is a curious fact that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx. The drinks themselves are not the same and in fact the one common factor between all of them is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds. Kakrafoon Kakrafoon is a desert world above which the stars are very visible, and where Disaster Area had a good gig, upon returning from Milliways. The Kakrafoonians were highly enlightened, accomplished and quiet, and so as punishment for this, they were given telepathy, and were subjected to shouting inane small-talk to prevent broadcasting their thoughts to anyone within a five-mile radius. Kill-o-Zap The Kill-o-Zap pistol is a gun of some sort. Actually it's an energy bolt gun, on which the designer had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with. Kirp Kirp is a Lamuellan who once caught a fish with a head at both ends. So, well done to Kirp. And now… Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog belonged to Will Smithers, an Earth advertising friend of Arthur's. The dog was named because the way its hair stood up on its head reminded people of the President of the United States. Links Geoffrey of Monmouth - Wikipedia Shelf lack incident. Rupert Sheldrake - Wikipedia Bedtime for Bonzo - Wikipedia Young Zaphod Plays It Safe - Wikipedia Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter

Mark and Danny Smith are joined by Jon Hickman to finish up the K section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , and tackle a couple of important Ls. Krikkit Of all the races on the Galaxy, only the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horrific wars ever to sunder the Universe and transform it into what is generally regarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game. L Prosser Mr L Prosser is 40, fat and shabby. He works for the local council, and is distantly related to Genghis Khan. Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton is the woman who christens the new Cottington Bypass by breaking a bottle of “very splendid and worthwhile” champagne over the “noble prow” of a “very splendid and worthwhile yellow bulldozer”. She was played by the comedic actor Jo Kendal, and was completely annoying. Lallafa Lallafa wrote what are widely regarded throughout the Galaxy as being the finest poems in existence, the Songs of the Long Land. Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over, and shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words on that effect. He never got around to writing the poems, so the correcting fluid people got him to copy them out of a book they'd taken from the version of the past where he did write the poems. Lamuella Lamuella is a planet, not unlike Earth, but where the days are 25 hours long, which plays havoc with a mechanical watch. According to Old Thrashbarg, the planet had been found fully-formed in the navel of a giant earwig at 4:30 one Vroonday afternoon. In Mostly Harmless , Arthur becomes the Sandwich Maker and makes Lamuella his home, and sandwiches (that sentence makes sense… read that back and you'll get it). Links Vote us the People's Choice in the British Podcast Awards Jobsworth - Wikipedia Apparatchik - Wikipedia Centrist Dad | Know Your Meme Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter

Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to work through some more of the L section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Lazlar Lyricon Lazlar Lyricon is a customiser of space craft to the staggeringly wealthy. He customised the Disaster Area's limo, and is said, by Ford Prefect, to have “no shame”. Lazlar Lyricon also leant its name to a convention of Hitchhiker's fans. The first was in our home city of Birmingham, and there's a link in the show notes to an episode of Saturday Review , which scratches the surface of Adams' move into the world of interactive fiction. Leda and the Octopus Leda and the Octopus is something of which a statue was made. It used to sit in the office of the Guide's editor in chief, but now doesn't. Of course, we all know that this is a play on the artworks based on the Greek myth of Leda, who comes across Zeus disguised as a swan. Leovinus Leovinus is the designer of the Starship Titanic, who fell in love with the computer inside. In the game, you have to assemble all the various parts of the ship that were scattered around it, and build a giant metal woman, at which point you're given a video message from Leovinus, as played by Douglas Adams, in which he gifts you the ship. Life Begins at Five Hundred and Fifty Life Begins at 550 is a book, less popular than the Guide. LifeSupport-o-System The LifeSupport-o-System. It supports life on the Grebulon ship, and it's perhaps the laziest name anyone has ever come up with for a piece of sci-fi. Lintilla Lintilla is an archaeologist with millions of clones. She, and all her clones, were played by Rula Lenska, who later went on to voice the Guide in its bird form. She has millions of clones because of a malfunction which meant the cloning machine got halfway through making one clone before starting the next, so it was impossible to stop it without committing murder. Eventually, the manufacturers concocted a plan to marry all the clones off to some hastily-made male clones, adding a line to the contract that meant they were aggreeing to “cease to be”. Links Lazlar Lyricon 1985 Saturday Review - YouTube Want To Marry Amazon's Alexa? You're Not Alone - Vocativ Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter

Danny joins Mark and Jon Bounds to discuss crisps, Sundays and Zeno's paradox. It's all in the L section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Zoo (2007 film) - Wikipedia

Join Danny, Jon and Mark as they barrel through the M section of the Guide. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the M section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Matter transference beams Ford and Arthur are teleported from the smouldering remains of the Earth to the Vogon ship, via a matter transference beam. A song that regularly used to be chanted by huge crowds outside the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Teleport Systems factory on Happi-Werld III goes “If you have to take me apart to get me there, then I don't want to go”. Max Quordlepleen Max Quordlepleen is the MC at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. He's an absolute pro, who divides his time between this upscale restaurant and the Big Bang Burgar Chef. Megabrantis The Megabrantis cluster is the political hub of the galaxy. The Vogons migrated away from their homeworld to setup shop here. Brantisvogan is a planet within the cluster, and you can go back to episode 8 to hear all about that. Megadodo Publications Megadodo Publications was once the home of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and one of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor. I think we can assume that Playbeing is another Megadodo rag, so presumably the company was doing fairly well. Mella Mella is a Golgafrincham woman Arthur meets (along with Agda) on the prehistoric Earth. She had recently escaped a lifetime of staring every morning at a hundred nearly identical photographs of moodily lit tubes of toothpaste in the art department of a Golgafrinchan ad agency. We never got to find out what happened between Mella and Arthur, because the book ended. Memory dump module A memory dump module is a small unit that Ford uses to copy data from his Guide (after wiping off the bits of fluff and biscuit crumbs). Adams clearly understood not only the need for data portability, but that people would be pretty careless with these devices. Nowadays we call them USB sticks or something similar.

Join Mark, Jon and Jon as they traverse the M section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Mice Trillian - remember her? - kept some pet mice, who turned out to be the most intelligent beings on earth. We still don't know what species they are when they're not projecting themselves as little furry cratures with a cheese fixation. Milliard Gargantubrain The Milliard Gargantubrain is a super-computer from Maximegalon which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond. Milliways Milliways is the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was either built on the remains of Magrathea, or Frogstar World B, whichever you prefer. A Bastablonian ad agency came up with the tagline “If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways”. Mind zoo Marvin was once the star exhibit of a mind zoo. He had to sit on a box and tell his story whilst people told him to cheer up and think positive. Missing matter of the universe For a long period of time there was much speculation and controversy about where the so-called “missing matter” of the Universe had got to. All over the Galaxy the science departments of all the major universities were acquiring more and more elaborate equipment to probe and search the hearts of distant galaxies, and then the very centre and the very edges of the whole Universe, but when eventually it was tracked down it turned out in fact to be all the stuff which the equipment had been packed in. Multicorticoid Perspicutron Titan Muller The Multi-corticoid Perspi-cutron Titan Muller is a super-computer of unspecified parameters and focus. Deep Thought calls it a cybernetic simpleton in comparison to itself. Murray Bost Henson Murray Bost Henson is a journalist Arthur knows, with odd turns of phrase like “Arthur, my old soup spoon, my old silver turreen”.

Join Mark, Danny and Jon Bounds as they play through as much of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game as they could. Spoiler: it's not much. This was recorded live on Friday 25th May 2018, for Towel DAy.

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , and take a sneaky pitstop at O. Oolon Colluphid Oolon Colluphid is the author of heretical works of non-fiction. We've covered many of his books already, but titles include Where God Went Wrong , Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway? Orion Beta Orion Beta is noted for its madronite mining belts, where Ford learned to play a drinking game involving telekenesis and obsene forfeits. Pangalactic garbleblaster The Pangalactic Garbleblaster is the best drink in existence, according to the Guide. Parallel Universes Now, the Guide has had a great deal to say on the subject of parallel universes. Very little of this is, however, at all comprehensible to anyone below the level of Advanced God. The first thing to realise about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that they are not parallel, because being parallel doesn't mean anything. It's all part of the Whole Sort of General Mishmash, but I thought it worth bringing up since it's sort of noteable by its absencen. Paralys-o-Matic The Paralyse-o-Matic is a bomb of some sort. Zaphod throws one into the crowd that comes to watch the uneiling of the Heart of Gold. Parties In the third book, Arthur gets hit in the small of the back by a party that's into its fourth generation, and has taken to conducting raiding parties of nearby planets, depleating them of stocks of cheesey snacks and booze. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost International Drinking Rules Birmingham Podcast Festival

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Paul McCartney In Life, the Universe and Everything , we're treated to Adams' thoughts on Paul McCartney. One of his little one-liners, in reference to a tune being sung on Krikkit is “Arthur could almost imagine Paul McCartney sitting with his feet up by the fire one evening, humming it to Linda and wondering what to buy with the proceeds”. Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings is from Essex, and is the worst poet in the universe. She is not to be confused with Paul Neil Milne Johnstone who died in 2004 but hailed from the same county and was an actual poet of some success. He was referred to by his real name in the radio series but all subsequent versions used a different one. Peanuts Peanuts are very good for replacing salts and proteins lost from travel via matter transference. Perfectly Normal Beasts No one knew where the Perfectly Normal Beasts came from, or where they go. They were so important to the lives of the Lamuellans, it was almost as if nobody liked to ask. Arthur and Ford destract one with a pikka bird presented by Old Thrashbarg, and ride it to the Domain of the King. Persephone Persephone is a new planet discovered beyond the orbit of Pluto, which was nicknamed Rupert, after the parrot belongong to one of the astronomers that discovered it. It has a dark and sombre landscape, a terrain so desperately far removed from the heat and light of its parent sun that it seemed like a map of the psychological scars on the mind of an abandoned child. Peter Jones Peter Jones is the voice of the Guide in the first two radio series, and the TV series. He purportedly had trouble saying the word “encyclopaedia” (as I think we've discussed before), so they ended up splicing two different recordings of the word together. Keen listeners to this podcast and the original series might notice that I tend to slip into Jones' pattern of speech when I'm reading Adams' words, and that's mainly because I've heard them so many times that his delivery is almost baked into my brain. And for that, he deserves our love and respect. Phargilor Kangaroo Relocation Drive The Phargilor Kangaroo Relocation Drive is a means of travel by which a ship may be ejected suddenly through the fabric of the spacetime continuum and come to rest far from its starting point. This is however an emergency device and there is rarely time to plot where the ship will land. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Join Mark, Danny and Jon Bounds as they play through as much of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game as they could. Spoiler: it's still not much. This was recorded live on Friday 25th May 2018, for Towel Day.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue traversing the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Philip Pope Philip Pope recorded a character voice in the Starship Titanic video game, wrote the Krikkit song and voiced one of the masters of Krikkit in the radio series. He's also partly-responsible - along with Richard Curtis - for a pitch-perfect BeeGees parody. Photon-ajuitar The photon-ajuitar is a musical instrument, with a keyboard. Pikka birds Pikka birds live on Lamuella, and they're very distracting to Perfectly Normal Beasts. Pintleton Alpha On Pintleton Alpha can be found the Resettlement Advice Centre, which Arthur visits in Mostly Harmless to try and find a home that's a bit like Earth. Pizpot Gargravarr Pizpot Gargravarr is the custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex. Or at least, his mind is. His body is probably off having a far better time of it, going to parties and that sort of thing. Playbeing Playbeing is a magazine, devoted in roughly equal parts to galactic politics, rock music, and gynaecology. Poghril Poghril is an impoverished planet in the Pansel system, whose entire population got wiped out through food poisoning, apart from one man who ate the 239,000 fried eggs that had appeared thanks to a trip with the Improbability Drive. He later died of cholesterol poisoning. They were already a pretty pesimistic race to begin with, having a popular riddle that goes “Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena-offal?” to which the other would reply “I don't know either; wretched, isn't it?” Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost The Heebeegeebee's Meaningless Songs - YouTube Pointy Birds Poem Frank Sinatra Has a Cold - Gay Talese - Best Profile of Sinatra

Jon Bounds, Jon Hickman, Danny Smith and Mark Steadman meetup in real life to discuss their favourite characters, put the Guide on shuffle mode and drink a homemade pangalactic gargleblaster. Huge thanks to everyone who came to see us record, to Elle for holding the mic for Danny, and to the Mockingbird Cinema for having us.

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Politics The Jons explain why David Icke is like a British Rail sandwich, and that lizards eat babies. Pondermatic The Pondermatic is another computer not as smart as Deep Thought, who in fact called it a “cybernetic simpleton”. Poodoo Poodoo is an executive from the company that built the cloning machines that created the hundreds of millions of Lintilla clones we meet on Brontitall, in the second radio series. He draws up agreements to cease to be, which are disguised as marriage licenses. Two of the three Allitnils - clones designed to be irresistibly attractive to Lintilla and her clones - “marry” two of the Lintilla clones, and thus the Lintillas are destroyed. Population It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, but not every one of them is inhabited. So there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination. Practical Parenting in a Fractally Demented Universe We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, “Oh, hi Ed! Nice tan. How's Carol?” involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble. So give your kid a break, OK?” Prak Prak is a little man with scraggly hair, given too much of a truth drug, after the Krikkit robots stole the Argabuthon Sceptre of Justice and jogged the surgeon's arm while the drug was being administered. When asked to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, he begins to tell the court the entire history and present of the universe. Pralite monks Ford learns how to skin animals on Earth from an ex-Pralite monk. The galaxy is littered with them apparently, all on the make, because the mental control techniques the Order have evolved as a form of devotional discipline are, frankly, sensational - and extraordinary numbers of monks leave the Order just after they have finished their devotional training and just before they take their final vows to stay locked in small metal boxes for the rest of their lives. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Cat's Cabinet of Curiosities Zeno's paradoxes - Wikipedia Drop the Dead Donkey (TV Series 1990–1998) - IMDb The Good Life (1975 TV series) - Wikipedia The Good Place (TV Series 2016– ) - IMDb How I Escaped My Certain Fate eBook: Stewart Lee: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store Stewart Lee! The ‘If You Prefer a Milder Comedian Please Ask For One' EP eBook: Stewart Lee: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store Find more shows from the Outpost British Rail sandwich - Wikipedia David Icke - Wikipedia Wogan - Wikipedia From Hell: Amazon.co.uk: Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell: 8601404243240: Books Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell ❲DVD❳: Amazon.co.uk: Eddie Marsan, Bertie Carvel, Marc Warren, Charlotte Riley, Alice Englert, Paul Kaye: DVD & Blu-ray

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , and get into some Rs. President Yooden Vranx President Yooden Vranx was Zaphod's predecessor. It was his idea to steal the Heart of Gold. but… was it? Probability The guide says that if you hold a lungful of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds, but the chances of getting picked up by another ship within that timeframe are two to the power of two-hundred-and-sixty-seven-thousand seven-hundred=and-nine to one against. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is the commander of the Vogon Constructor Fleet, who uses the new Guide - equipped with reverse temporal engineering - to find a way of destroying all the Earths in existence along the probability axis. He is a fairly typical Vogon, in that he is thoroughly vile. Qualactin Hypermint Float a measure of Qualactin hypermint extract when mixing a pangalactic gargleblaster, over the back of a silver spoon. It's redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones: subtle, sweet and mystic. R R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental wellbeing and not being more than, say, five minutes late. It is therefore clearly an almost infinitely variable figure according to circumstances, since the first two factors vary not only with speed taken as an absolute, but also with awareness of the third factor. Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda The Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda were a site of battles between the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax and the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug, both of which I think we'll be covering later. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost (20) John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme. Fahrenheit v Celsius - YouTube (13) Gibbs SR Toothpaste - YouTube (20) Armando Iannuci - Getting the amount just right. - YouTube All the president's men: what to make of Trump's bizarre new painting | Hannah Jane Parkinson | Opinion | The Guardian

Join Mark and the Jons as they continue through the R section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Radiophonic Workshop The Radiopohinc Workshop was a BBC department that mae music and noises for BBC programmes, originally for radio and then for TV too. Arguably their most famous contribution is the Doctor Who theme. They were formed in 1958 and carried on for another 40 years until John Birt, the then Director General shut them down as they weren't profitable enough. Random Dent Random Dent is Arthur's daughter, mothered by Trillian from sperm donated by Arthur in order to travel around the Galaxy. She'd been born in a spaceship that had been going from somewhere to somewhere else, and when it had got to somewhere else, somewhere else had only turned out to be another somewhere that you had to get to somewhere else again from, and so on. Ratchet screwdriver fruit Once picked, ratchet screwdriver fruit needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin which crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a sort of hole for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what it is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is presumably working on it. Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal The ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal is a mind-bogglingly stupid animal with a gaping mass of slavering fangs. You can easily fool it by putting your hands over your eyes, because it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you. The Reason One night, a spaceship appeared in the sky of the planet Dalforsas, which had never seen one before. The tribesmen who saw it swore that they'd seen a sign from their gods which meant that they must now arise and slay the evil Princes of the Plains, who likewise had seen the sign and assumed it to be an order to kill the tribesmen. This sort of thing happened a lot, as pretty much eeryone on the planet took everything that happened as some sort of sign. This was mainly a problem for the forest dwellers who lived where the battle would inevitably and repeatedly take place. Whenever the forest dwellers complained and asked why their forest needed to be destroyed yet again, someone from either side would tell them the Reason, in very calm and rational tones. The forest messenger would nod dumbly and walk back to his tribe, where he'd try to explain this very sensible Reason, only to have completely forgotten it. Reg Nullify Reg Nullify leads the Cataclysmic Combo band at Milliways. He can be a little proactive on the drums, if Max Quordlepleen is any judge. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost BBC Radiophonic Workshop - Wikipedia (20) THE TIMELORDS / KLF - Doctorin' The Tardis - YouTube Hal Robson-Kanu - Wikipedia Press Release: Jon Bounds and Jon Hickman first satirists to accept Bitcoin - Paradise Circus: A Birmingham Miscellany 4 Poofs and a Piano - Wikipedia Paul Ableman - Wikipedia The Barron Knights - Wikipedia Shane Richie - Wikipedia The Grumbleweeds - Wikipedia Shirehorses - Wikipedia Stuart Millard is creating words | Patreon

Mark and Jon Hickman welcome Danny back to the Leopard with an episode in which we pull out random letters from the Scrabble bag. Warning: your mother would not approve of you listening to this episode. We discuss feedback from Twitter and email, educate Danny on the Baby Shark phenomenon, learn more about the Mandela effect, and Jon continues to make fun of Mark for liking heavily-detailed Swedish crime-fiction. We also look into staffing and casting a hypothetical Random Dent TV series, Jon reads some spam and Mark talks about being scared by VR.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the R section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Reverse temporal engineering Reverse temporal engineering is a new technology of “unfiltered perception”, which is a marvellous way of making anything you want to have happen, happen, without all that tedious mucking about with probability drives or Italian waiters. Danny, is there a name for the kind of thing you add to a sci-fi or fantasy universe that can just solve any problem? Is it a deus ex machina or is that something else? [I know it's something else, but I'm assuming you know what I mean! I also wanted to not give this one to Jon for a change] Richard Vernon Richard Vernon played Slarti in the radio and TV series. He was born on the same day I was, and if he were still alive, he'd be celebrating his 94th birthday. But he died 21 years ago. River Moth The river Moth is, well, a river. It is, as previously described, slow and heavy, and if you make a raft to sail down it, you can use a towel as a, well, sail. And that's about all we know of the River Moth. Satire The panel discusses the Hitchhiker's Guide 's place in the pantheon of sature. Rob McKenna Rob McKenna is a rain god, with 231 different categorisations of rain documented in his little book. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him. He's played by Bill Paterson in the radio series, and he's a rather dreary chap. Room of Informational Illusions The Room of Informational Illusions is a deck on the Starship Bistromath that basically equates to another version of VR, like the Sense-o-Tapes from the original book. Roosta Roosta rescued Zaphod from Ursa Minor Beta during the bombing of Megadodo Publications. He's played by Alan Ford in the radio series, which probably makes him the galaxy's resident wideboy. He has a towel which contains a number of flavourings, chemicals and other substances that you can ingest by sucking a particular end. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost Wynder K Frog - Green Door Alice Through the Paper-Mill. In Respectful Criticism of the Paper Control and Kindred Matters &c. &c.: Amazon.co.uk: Wragg A.: Books

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the R section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , and make a move on the Ss. Rula Lenska Rula Lenska plays Lintilla and her clones, and the Guide in bird form in the radio series. Russell Russell is Fenchurch's brother. To Arthur's mind, the name Russell always suggested burly men with blond moustaches and blow-dried hair, who would at the slightest provocation start wearing velvet tuxedos and frilly shirtfronts and would then have to be forcibly restrained from commentating on snooker matches. RW6 The RW6 is a sexy and beautiful ship, and the sort of thing you only saw in the sort of magazines that were designed to provoke civil unrest. Jon Bounds, what sort of magazine is that? Rymplon™ Rymplon™ is a new synthetic fabric which was terrific for space travel because it looked its absolute best when it was all creased and sweaty. Sandwiches There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do. “Make 'em dry” is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, “make 'em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing 'em once a week.” Santraginus V Santraginus V is a marble-beached planet where you get seawater for a pangalactic gargleblaster, and where the fish never seem to care whatever the heck kind of direction they swim in. “Oh, that Santraginean seawater” says the Guide. “Oh, those Santraginean fish!” The drummer for Disaster Area went mad and made friends with a rock there. Links Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Review us on Podchaser Find more shows from the Outpost Rula Lenska Cadbury's Wispa - Dennis Waterman and Rula Lenska Little Britain - Dennis Waterman Bob Ferris (Likely Lads) Colin Hunt | The Fast Show Tommy Robinson (activist) Monocle Wallpaper*: design, interiors, architecture, fashion, art Ariel (newspaper) The New Statesman London Review of Books British Rail sandwich

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Saquo-Pilia Hensha King Antwelm made a famous assumption that what everybody wanted, all other things being equal, was to be happy and enjoy themselves and have the best possible time together. On his death he had willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival to remind everyone of this, with lots of good food and dancing and very silly games like Hunt the Wocket. His Assumption had been such a brilliantly good one that he was made into a saint for it. Now, the people of Saquo-Pilia Hensha hold an annual feast of the Assumption of St Antwelm. Sass Sass means “to know, meet, have sex with”. Science “Let's be straight here”, says an earth scientist, at a press conference discussings Rob Mckenna. “If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don't, and I'm afraid we couldn't have that. No, first we have to call it something which says it's ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it's not what you said it is, but something we say it is.” Scrabble Arthur tries to get the indigenous people of Earth to play Scrabble, and then discovers he can pull letters out of his homemade Scrabble bag to find the answer to the Ultimate Question. He pulls out the question “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?” Séance Zaphod, Ford and Arthur hold a séance – you see? – to speak to Zaphod's great-grandfather. One of the great gags you get in the radio series is an actual dial tone followed by a bunch of bleeps as the call connects. Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha is, as its name suggests, a plural zone. It's also where the Earth lives – sometimes – and anyone born here is advised not to travel via hyperspace. It's also the name of a big Hitchhiker's fan club. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost Cat Tries a Ouija Board - Cat's Cabinet of Curiosities

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue traversing the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sens-o-Tape Sens-o-Tape is another piece of VR equipment. In the first book, Arthur gets strapped into a machine that shows him how the Magratheans discovered the Ultimate Answer. Sesefras Magna Sesefras Magna is a planet around which Ford is orbiting when he hooks up a ship to the Speaking Clock on Earth, and where Xaxisians dock their battle fleet. Its sun is Zondostina, known to Sesefrasians as Pleiades Zeta. Orbiting the planet are Epum, its small and blue moon, and the space port, Port Sesefron, from which Zaphod once bought a pair of spray-on pants. Share and Enjoy “Share and Enjoy” is the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years. Shoe Event Horizon Many years ago Brontitall – or Frogstar World B, delete as appropriate – was a thriving, happy planet. Except that on the high streets of these cities there were slightly more shoe shops than one might have thought necessary. And slowly the numbers of these shops increased, until it became no longer economically possible to build anything other than shoe shops, resulting collapse, ruin and famine. Shorbut Sweet Shorbut Sweet – AKA Succ-U-Bus – is a robot that dispenses post on the Starship Titanic, played by Douglas Adams, who basically just had to cough into a microphone. Siderial Daily Mentioner Arthur and his friends pick up a journalist from the Siderial Daily Mentioner, who was “half-mad” after witnessing Prak do his “whole truth” bit. One of the Trillians also worked for the Mentioner. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Doug Bradley - IMDb Daily Me - Wikipedia Life Day | Wookieepedia | FANDOM powered by Wikia Find more shows from the Outpost Advance-fee scam - Wikipedia Scambaiting Trambopoline! - YouTube

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they ring in 2019 with a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pub quiz, in which every single round – every single one – is completely and 100% to do with the Douglas Adams sci-fi universe.

Mark and the Jons are back off their Christmas break and ready to continue through the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax The best way to pick a fight with a Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax was just to be born. They didn't like it, they got resentful. And when an Armorfiend got resentful, someone got hurt. They were the first race who ever managed to shock a computer. The computer in question was Hactar, and they commissioned him to build an ultimate weapon, which almost led to the destruction of the galaxy, again. Simon Brett Simon Brett produced the pilot of the radio show, and has produced episodes of other radio classics like I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Just a Minute. He now writes detective fiction and had a book made into a film starring Michael Caine. Simon Jones Simon Jones played Arthur in the radio and TV series, and the Magrathean security hologram in the film. He's appeared in lots of little bits of telly over the years, and was a dear friend of Douglas. Sirius B Max Quordlepleen welcomes a group of young conservatives from Sirius B, to Milliways on the night our heroes turn up. Sirius Cybernetics Corporation The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation were bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came. Slartibartfast Slartibartfast is a planetary architect, who won an award for his wrk on Norway. Played by Richard Vernon in the first two radio series and the TV series, and by Richard Griffiths in the third radio series. On Earth, Ford and Arthur find his signature on a glacier. He picks Ford and Arthur up in his Somebody Else's Problem shielded ship so they can join his mission with the Campaign for Real Time, and he has a name that sounds a bit like a swearword. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts The Salmon of Doubt - Wikipedia Find more shows from the Outpost Out of the Trees (1976) Full Comedy Movie | Graham Chapman Movie - YouTube (21) Out of the Trees (1976) Full Comedy Movie | Graham Chapman Movie - YouTube Ronco - Wikipedia

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue with the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Slim's Throat Emporium Slim's Throat Emporium is a bar Ford and Hotblack Desiato used to crash, pretending to be health inspectors. Slo-Time The planet of Krikkit was to be enclosed for perpetuity in an envelope of Slo-Time, inside which life would continue almost infinitely slowly. All light would be deflected round the envelope so that it would remain invisible and impenetrable. Escape from the envelope would be utterly impossible unless it were locked from the outside. When the rest of the Universe came to its final end and life and matter ceased to exist, then the planet of Krikkit and its sun would emerge from the envelope and continue a solitary existence, such as it craved, in the twilight of the Universal void. Somebody Else's Problem field The Somebody Else's Problem field is simple and effective, and can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural disposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain. If Effrafax the magician had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple SEP field on it instead of trying to make it disappear, then people would have walked past it, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there. Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes Oolon Colluphid's book Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes is the second in his trilogy of heretical works. Southend “When I was young I used to have this nightmare about dying”, says Arthur aboard the starship Heart of Gold. “I used to lie awake at night screaming. All my friends went to either Heaven or Hell and I was sent to Southend!” Sqornshellous Sqornshellous Beta is where cushions come from. Sqornshellous Zeta where matresses cine from. Marvin ends up stranded here after the Disaster Area stunt ship our heroes hijacked smashes into the heart of a sun. There are other planets in the Sqornshellous, but they aren't cannon. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Dominic Littlewood England, England Minder (TV series) Big John's chip shop Pier Review: A Road Trip in Search of the Great British Seaside Find more shows from the Outpost Big Bad John

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We dedicate this episode to Jeremy Hardy, who died last week. The Great Ventilation and Telephone Riots of SrDt 3454 These riots led to three important events, which we'll go through in turn, but it's basically all the fault of a ventilation system called the Breathe-o-Smart, which was absolutely guaranteed to never, ever, ever, go wrong; so much so that the company demanded all customers seal shut all the windows in buildings that used it. So, on that note… Every piece of technology of whatever stripe is required, on SrDt 3454, to carry the following legend, embossed somewhere on its surface, regardless of its size: The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong, is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. The actual riots were caused by three things: a press release from the manufacturers of the Breathe-o-Smart ventilation system suggesting that best results are achieved in temperate climates a particularly hot day on SrDt, and the employees of a telephone company taking to the streets in a demonstration against their corporate overlords (which we'll come to in a bit) Any employee of the aforesaid telephone company, called BS&S, is permitted to say, once an hour, “Use BS&S and die”, after dealing with so many idiotic customers over the phone drove them mad. This was a direct result of the protest they had, which clashed with the office workers using the faulty Breathe-o-Smart. Stagyar-zil-Doggo Stagyar-zil-Doggo is an editor of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Starship Titanic Many speak of the legendary and gigantic Starship Titanic, a majestic and luxurious cruise-liner launched from the great shipbuilding asteroid complexes of Artifactovol some hundreds of years ago now, and with good reason. Very much in keeping with today's episode, this spaceship was built in such a way to ensure that it would be infinitely improbable that anything would go wrong, so unsurprisingly when it attempted its first pre-launch radio transmission, it suffered a spontaneous total existence failure. Terry Jones, as we've discussed before, wrote the Starship Titanic book and played a parrot in the video game by the same name, produced by Adams' Digital Village. Stavro Meuller - Beta Stavro Meuller is a Greek serial entrepreneur with a German father and two clubs – that we know about – to his mixed-heritage name. Both clubs share his name, but it's only the second one – Stavro Meuller: Beta, or Stavromula Beta – that really matters for our purposes. It's where Arthur was supposed to be assasinated, and where he, Ford, Random, Trillian and Tricia meet towards the end of Mostly Harmless , just before the Earth is finally destroyed again. The building number is 42. Stephen Fry Stephen Fry narrated the first audiobook, played the book in the film and cameoed as a journalist in the radio series. He was a friend of Adams and wrote about him in his second memoir. Stephen Moore Played Marvin the sperm whale the man in the shack Gag Halfrunt a vogon guard in the radio series, and Marvin and the whale in the TV series Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost Fairphone Wackaging: do we want our food to talk back? | Food | The Guardian 5 Whys - Wikipedia Bureaucracy (video game) - Wikipedia h2g2 - The Guide to Life, The Universe and Everything Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic: A Novel A Bit of Fry & Laurie Concerning Language - YouTube

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Strag A strag is a non-hitchhiker. Given that we've discussed the idea of the hitchhiker as a class of person, Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak The Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak are mortal enemies of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax. Strateej-o-Mat The Strateej-o-Mat is a strategy aparatus on the Grebulon ship, that will only follow the commnads of the Chief Strategic Officer. Strenuous Garfighters of Stug The Strenuous Garfighters of Stug are mortal enemies of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax. Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron A Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron is a marvellous device for counteracting the effects of the Infinite Improbability Drive. Sub-Etha Net The Sub-Etha Net is basically the galactic Internet. Given that the sub-eta radio band existed first, I think this is a pretty good name, considering ethernet is already a thing. Sub-Etha News-Matics The Sub-Etha News-Matic is a kind of space Twitter. Sub-Etha Sens-o-Matic The Sub-Etha Sens-o-Matic is a device that scans for signals from spacecraft. On prehistoric Earth, Ford detects eddies in the spacetime continuum and with Arthur, catches a lift through time on a Chesterfield sofa. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the [letter] section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sun dive Hotblack Deseato's band has a completely black stunt ship that dives into the sun on Kakrafoon, as part of the climax of a gig. Susan Sheridan Susan Sheridan played Trillian in the radio series. She died in 2015, but had a good career as a voice actor with credits including Budgie the Little Helecopter and Jimbo (a personal favourite). We're going to talk about Trillian in a few weeks, but for now, consider our caps doffed. Swut Swut is a swear word. Tea Tea is a substance that can be used to power a Finite Imrobability Generator, or for confusing a machine into giving you a substance that's almost – but not quite – indistinguishable from it. It is now available in most megamarkets, in easy-to-swallow capsules. Teasers A teaser is usually a rich kid with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets which haven't made interstellar contact yet and “buzz” them, which involves strutting back and forth with silly antenni on their heads and making “beep beep” noises. Tempophone The Tempophone is – presumably – a telephone that can make calls across various times. Ford advises Arthur never to call himself up from the future. Terry Jones Terry Jones played a parrot in the Starship Titanic video game, and wrote a book called Starship Titanic , based on a video game, but apparently in a different universe from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Seems like something we should address, really. Anyhow, he plays a parrot because Adams had discussed with Jones that most of the characters he played in Monty Python sketches and films sounded like parrots. Links Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost An essay about a liquid almost, but not quite, entirely like the best cup of tea ever, by Jon Bounds Tea on h2g2.com Journalists must fight for facts – and ignore Boris Johnson's tea party A Really Hot Cup of Tea. by Douglas Adams A Nice Cup of Tea, by George Orwell Americans don't have kettles and people are losing it Clipper Tea Grant Shapps' Brexit mug tweet ISO 3103: the tea standard Sir Bedevere 12'' action figure

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the T section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Tea and Douglas What JB said about kettles isn't entirely inaccurate, according to an American friend of Mark's, who also has a lovely story to tell about Douglas Adams. Thor Thor is a thunder god. Arthur picks a fight with him over Trillian at an airborne party. Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother, but is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. Total Perspective Vortex When you are put into the Total Perspective Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says “You are here.” The man who invented it did so basically in order to annoy his wife who used to complain about him not having enough perspective. Towels You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal; you can wave it in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. Towel day events If you're in the Cambridge on the 25th May, you can go on a Douglas Adams walk hear a talk by the two remaining members of Adams' sketh cgroup See some Towel Day standup Find more info at towelday.org. Transtellar Cruise Lines Transtellar Cruise Lines ran a liner that kept a ship in stasis for 900 years while awaiting a compliment of lemon-soaked paper napkins. Fact-fans – or pedants, as they're more commonly known – wil know that an alternative version of the company name is Trans-Stellar Space Lines. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost A Plan for the Improvement of Spelling in the English Language

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they clear the T section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Tri-D Tri-D is Adams' allusion to some sort of 3D TV, and is distinct from Five-D, the sub-etha, the Sense-o-Tape, the Hall of Informational Illusions and whatever other technology he created to show things to characters. Triganic Pu The Triganic Pu is a form of galactic currency. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles across each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. Trillian Trillian is a beautiful astrophysicist, with the real name Tricia McMillan. She's played by Susan Sheridan in the radio series, and by Zooey Deschanel in the film. She manages to convince the masters of Krikkit not to destroy the universe, and she learned how to maneuver around Hyde Park Corner on a moped. On an Earth that was never destroyed by the Vogons, Tricia McMillan attempts to get a job with the NBS network in New York, as an anchor on the US/AM breakfast show. She regrets going back for her bag when first meeting Zaphod at that famous party in Islington. She failed the screen test for the network because she decided not to go back for her bag, thus not bringing her contact lenses which she needed to read the script and autocue. When taken to the planet Rupert by the Grebulons, she films the encounter and figures she must have faked it as part of an elabourate nervous breakdown or halicination. Trin Tragula “Have some sense of proportion” Trin Tragula's wife would often say, so he built the Total Perspective Vortex, just to show her. And in one end he plugged the whole of reality, as extrapolated from a fairy cake, and in the other end he plugged his wife, where the shock annihilated her brain. Turlingdrome Turlingdrome. It's a swear word. We don't have a definition but it appears to be a derogatory term for a person, possibly a stupid person. There's a creative design firm in Cincinnati who've chosen Turlingdrome as their name, which sounds like it might be a bit like calling your company Shithead. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost 15 of the Worst Business Names in History

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the V section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , with a quick final stop-off at U. Uncertain Areas “Wild horses thundered through the sky taking fresh supplies of reinforced railings to the Uncertain Areas”. That's a line from the popular book The Hitchhiker's Guide to teh Galaxy , and it describes a thing that happens aboard the starship Heart of Gold, when Ford andn Arthur are brought on-board. Ursa Minor Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in the known Universe. Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of won derfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words “When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life”, the suicide rate quadrupled overnight. The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word ‘Fuck' in a Serious Screenplay is an award you can win at the Ursa Minor Alpha Recreational Illusions Institute Awards. The trophy is the silver bail from the Wikkit Key. Vann Harl Vann Harl is the Guide editor that took over from Stagyar-zil-Doggo, and a canonical nightmare. In the Quintessential Phase of the radio series, Vann Harl and Zarniwhoop – who we'll cover later – are the same person, but to my recollection that was not the case in Quintessential Phase , the book the series was based on. Veet Voojagig Veet Voojagig was a quiet young student at the University of Maximegalon, who pursued a brilliant academic career studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception, and then, after a night of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, became increasingly obsessed with the problem of what had happened to all the biros he'd bought over the past few years. Vegan Rhino Cutlets of vegan rhino meat are served by the mice to the humans, on Magrathea. Viltvodle VI The Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. In the film, we meet Humma Kavula, who appoints himself a priest of the Jatravartid religion. Viv Viv is a planet with vicious sea creatures. It appears in Mostly Harmless and that's all we have to go on. Vl'hurgs The Vl'hurgs are mortal enemies of the G'Gugvuntts. Vod Vod is presumably the planet where Judiciary Pag is from. It has three suns, and I say “presumaby” because we see him relax in his chambers on Vod, but don't actually know if that's his home planet. Links Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang - Wikipedia thiscatdoesnotexist.com (256×256) Find more shows from the Outpost This Person Does Not Exist

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the V section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Vogon constructor fleets Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy – not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters. The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Vogon poetry Vogon poetry is the third worst poetry in the universe. Vogsphere Many, many light years from earth lies the grim and long abandoned planet, Vogsphere. Somewhere on a fetid, fog-bound mud bank on this planet there stands, surrounded by the dirty, broken and empty carapaces of the last few jeweled scuttling crabs, a small stone monument which marks the place, where it is thought, the species Vogon Vogonblurtus first arose. On the monument there is carved an arrow which points away into the fog, under which are inscribed in plain, simple letters the words “The buck stops there.” Volluing For the meaning of the word “vollue”, buy a copy of Squornshellous Swamptalk at any remaindered bookshop, or alternatively buy The Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary, as the University will be very glad to get it off their hands and regain some valuable parking lots. Vroomfondel Vroomfondel is a philosopher from Cruxwan University. In the radio series he was played by Jim Broadbent. Walkmen For some reason, Ford throws a bunch of Walkmens out to the crowds thronging around the ship that lands on Earth, in Mostly Harmless. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost Will Self U and non-U English Charles Pooter The Diary of a Nobody Quote by the Dalai Lama The Vogsphere slapping sticks Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the W section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wave harmonic theory of historical perception Reason not withstanding, the universe continues unabated. Its history is terribly long and awfully difficult to understand, even in its simpler moments which are, roughly speaking, the beginning and the end. The wave harmonic theory of historical perception, in its simplest form, states that history is an illusion caused by the passage of time, and that time is an illusion caused by the passage of history. It also states that one's perception of these illusions is conditioned by three important factors: who you are; where you are; and when you last had lunch with Zaphod Beeblebrox. Whales A short-lived sperm whale was brought about by the Improbability Drive on one of its first hops along the probability access. /Where God Went Wrong/ and /Who is this God Person Anyway?/ Where God Went Wrong is, presumably, Oolon Colluphid's first blockbuster heretical hit, and part of a trilogy that comprises this, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes – which you can hear about us talk in season 4, episode 2 – and Who is this God Person Anyway?. William Franklyn William Franklyn played the Guide in the remaining three radio series, after the death of the original voice, Peter Jones. Wise Old Bird The Wise Old Bird was pllayed by John le Mesurier in the second radio series. Arthur meets him on Brontital where he explains the history of the bird people, who fled the shoe event horizon, shunning their shoes and taking to the skies, vowing never to set foot on the ground again. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost Lawrence Lessig Our D&D alignment chart

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they saunter into the Z section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wormhole Disco The place Zaphod and Roosta transport themselves to is the Wormhole Disco, which might as well have been called the Placeholder Club. In this disco there are nozels on the wall that spray the smell of hot sweat over everything, and the place is packed with dancing robots. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was – indeed, is – one of the Universe's very small number of immortal beings. He'd had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying. He was played by Toby Longworth in the radio series, and he's made it his mission to insult every little being in the universe, just for something to do. Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilised Zenon Emitters The Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilised Zenon Emitter is just one of those throwaway lines Adams tossed in to a conversation between two robots. But if you put that combination of words into the Internet, you get this interesting question, which I'm going to pose to Danny: If there was a drone in the sky directing some type of microwave energy into your house, would you report it to the officials or not? Ysllodins Ysllodins is the star around which most of the Galaxy's major insurance underwriters live, or rather lived. As far as I can tell, this one isn't real. Zamphuor Zamphuor is an unknown ingredient to add when mixing a pangalactic gargleblaster. Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne The Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne is a party that dines at Miliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe. Links Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost Who Runs the World? - Cat's Cabinet of Curiosities

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the last of the Zs in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Zaphod Beeblebrox Zaphod Beeblebrox is – or was – President of the Imperial Galactic Government. His favourite mother is Alice Beeblebrox, of 108 Astral Cresent, Zoofroozelchester, Betelgeuse V. Zaphod's great grandfather is Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. He grew an extra arm for Trillian, which took him six months. Zarniwoop Hidden away in a pocket universe, and played by Jonathan Price, Zarniwoop is the guy who concocted the plan, with Zaphod, to steel the Heart of Gold , in order to find out who really rules the universe. Zarquon The second coming of the great prophet Zarquon is highly anticipated, and finally happens at Milliways, just before the universe goes down the plug hole. “Holy Zarquon's singing fish!” is an expression of surprise and alarm Zaphod uses when he falls out of the giant cup on Brontitall. Zentalquabula On Zentalquabula are found ancient alabastrum quarries. An elegant terrace on one of the planets that was home to the Guide, was carved from this stone. Links Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Instagram Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they attempt to solve the world's problems and make it a good and happy place. Jon Hickman turns to pop culture, Danny says it's all about kindness, Jon Bounds has a 19th century German philosopher to thank, and Mark's solution, unsurprisingly, involves a lot of talking. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost You Don't Look Like a Runner — Jon Hickman's running podcast Thread — Mark and Jon Hickman's other podcast Danny's writing on Paradise Circus Pier Review: Danny and Jon Bounds' book 15 Minutes to Save the World — Mark's new podcast

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they recap what they've been up to since our last full episode, say goodbye to a fellow Hitchhiker and Adamsify a piece of existing pop culture. How we picked up Hitchhikers We Apologise for the Inconvenience, by Mark Griffiths Stephen Moore on IMDb Marvin the Paranoid Android Podcast Day: the text adventure game Mark on Podcast Radio Hour

Mark and Jon Bounds are joined by Danny Smith to continue pawing through the J section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Juju-flop When in a national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista said that the economy had now arrived at “one whole juju-flop situation”, everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it, that they quite failed to notice that their five-thousand-year-old civilisation had just collapsed overnight. Jynnan tonnyx It is a curious fact that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx. The drinks themselves are not the same and in fact the one common factor between all of them is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds. Kakrafoon Kakrafoon is a desert world above which the stars are very visible, and where Disaster Area had a good gig, upon returning from Milliways. The Kakrafoonians were highly enlightened, accomplished and quiet, and so as punishment for this, they were given telepathy, and were subjected to shouting inane small-talk to prevent broadcasting their thoughts to anyone within a five-mile radius. Kill-o-Zap The Kill-o-Zap pistol is a gun of some sort. Actually it's an energy bolt gun, on which the designer had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with. Kirp Kirp is a Lamuellan who once caught a fish with a head at both ends. So, well done to Kirp. And now... Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog belonged to Will Smithers, an Earth advertising friend of Arthur's. The dog was named because the way its hair stood up on its head reminded people of the President of the United States.

Mark and Danny Smith are joined by Jon Hickman to finish up the K section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and tackle a couple of important Ls. Krikkit Of all the races on the Galaxy, only the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horrific wars ever to sunder the Universe and transform it into what is generally regarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game. L Prosser Mr L Prosser is 40, fat and shabby. He works for the local council, and is distantly related to Genghis Khan. Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton is the woman who christens the new Cottington Bypass by breaking a bottle of "very splendid and worthwhile" champagne over the "noble prow" of a "very splendid and worthwhile yellow bulldozer". She was played by the comedic actor Jo Kendal, and was completely annoying. Lallafa Lallafa wrote what are widely regarded throughout the Galaxy as being the finest poems in existence, the Songs of the Long Land. Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over, and shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words on that effect. He never got around to writing the poems, so the correcting fluid people got him to copy them out of a book they'd taken from the version of the past where he did write the poems. Lamuella Lamuella is a planet, not unlike Earth, but where the days are 25 hours long, which plays havoc with a mechanical watch. According to Old Thrashbarg, the planet had been found fully-formed in the navel of a giant earwig at 4:30 one Vroonday afternoon. In Mostly Harmless, Arthur becomes the Sandwich Maker and makes Lamuella his home, and sandwiches (that sentence makes sense... read that back and you'll get it).

Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to work through some more of the L section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Danny joins Mark and Jon Bounds to discuss crisps, Sundays and Zeno's paradox. It's all in the L section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Join Danny, Jon and Mark as they barrel through the M section of the Guide.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the M section of the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*.

Join Mark, Jon and Jon as they traverse the M section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Mice Trillian - remember her? - kept some pet mice, who turned out to be the most intelligent beings on earth. We still don't know what species they are when they're not projecting themselves as little furry cratures with a cheese fixation. Milliard Gargantubrain The Milliard Gargantubrain is a super-computer from Maximegalon which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond. Milliways Milliways is the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was either built on the remains of Magrathea, or Frogstar World B, whichever you prefer. A Bastablonian ad agency came up with the tagline "If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways". Mind zoo Marvin was once the star exhibit of a mind zoo. He had to sit on a box and tell his story whilst people told him to cheer up and think positive. Missing matter of the universe For a long period of time there was much speculation and controversy about where the so-called “missing matter” of the Universe had got to. All over the Galaxy the science departments of all the major universities were acquiring more and more elaborate equipment to probe and search the hearts of distant galaxies, and then the very centre and the very edges of the whole Universe, but when eventually it was tracked down it turned out in fact to be all the stuff which the equipment had been packed in. Multicorticoid Perspicutron Titan Muller The Multi-corticoid Perspi-cutron Titan Muller is a super-computer of unspecified parameters and focus. Deep Thought calls it a cybernetic simpleton in comparison to itself. Murray Bost Henson Murray Bost Henson is a journalist Arthur knows, with odd turns of phrase like “Arthur, my old soup spoon, my old silver turreen”.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the M section of the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*.

Join Mark, Danny and Jon Bounds as they play through the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ text adventure game, recorded live for Towel Day

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, and take a sneaky pitstop at O.

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*.

Join Mark, Danny and Jon Bounds as they play through as much of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game as they could. Spoiler: it's still not much. This was recorded live on Friday 25th May 2018, for Towel Day.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue traversing the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Philip Pope Philip Pope recorded a character voice in the Starship Titanic video game, wrote the Krikkit song and voiced one of the masters of Krikkit in the radio series. He's also partly-responsible - along with Richard Curtis - for a pitch-perfect BeeGees parody. Photon-ajuitar The photon-ajuitar is a musical instrument, with a keyboard. Pikka birds Pikka birds live on Lamuella, and they're very distracting to Perfectly Normal Beasts. Pintleton Alpha On Pintleton Alpha can be found the Resettlement Advice Centre, which Arthur visits in Mostly Harmless to try and find a home that's a bit like Earth. Pizpot Gargravarr Pizpot Gargravarr is the custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex. Or at least, his mind is. His body is probably off having a far better time of it, going to parties and that sort of thing. Playbeing Playbeing is a magazine, devoted in roughly equal parts to galactic politics, rock music, and gynaecology. Poghril Poghril is an impoverished planet in the Pansel system, whose entire population got wiped out through food poisoning, apart from one man who ate the 239,000 fried eggs that had appeared thanks to a trip with the Improbability Drive. He later died of cholesterol poisoning. They were already a pretty pesimistic race to begin with, having a popular riddle that goes "Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena-offal?" to which the other would reply "I don't know either; wretched, isn't it?"

Jon Bounds, Jon Hickman, Danny Smith and Mark Steadman meetup in real life to discuss their favourite characters, put the Guide on shuffle mode and drink a homemade pangalactic gargleblaster.

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they tackle the fiddly social issues that arise from living through a global pandemic. Each panelist – including Mark – was tasked with writing an entry for an updated version of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Jon Hickman wrote his on virtual meetings, Bounder went Marxist, Danny tackled isolation and Mark wrote about panic. The team also share their tips for surviving the apocalypse, whether or not you happen to know where your towel is. Stay safe, stay indoors, listen to podcasts. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Join Mark, Jon, Jon and Danny as they play Podcast Day , the text adventure game written by Mark. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost Play Podcast Day

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to sport, with contributions on politics and PE, and a host of alien sporting activities sure to become major hits on Earth. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@ editorialgirl ) for being the voice of the Guide. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Mark, Danny, and the Jons present their Hitchhiker's Guide entries on a return to school, including the long dark teatime of the soul, robot school, so-called non-subjects, and homework. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to music. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@ editorialgirl ) for being the voice of the Guide. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to Christmas and the new year. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@ editorialgirl ) for being the voice of the Guide. Also in this episode, the panel show us their baubles, and try and find something to hope for in 2021. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to getting on in years. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@ editorialgirl ) for being the voice of the Guide. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

To commemorate Towel Day 2021, Mark, Danny, and the Jons present the worst bits of Beware of the Leopard. These are all the bits that are normally cut from the main body of the episode and shoved to the back, to sit in shame and think about what they did. Now we're bringing them out into the light for you to judge, share, and hopefully on some level, enjoy. New episode coming in the next couple of weeks, promise.

To commemorate Towel Day 2021, Mark, Danny, and the Jons present the worst bits of Beware of the Leopard. These are all the bits that are normally cut from the main body of the episode and shoved to the back, to sit in shame and think about what they did. Now we're bringing them out into the light for you to judge, share, and hopefully on some level, enjoy. New episode coming in the next couple of weeks, promise.

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to getting a good night's rest. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@editorialgirl) for being the voice of the Guide. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to getting a good night's rest. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@ editorialgirl (https://twitter.com/editorialgirl) ) for being the voice of the Guide. Links Follow Danny on Twitter (https://twitter.com/probablydrunk) Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter (https://twitter.com/bounder) Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jonhickman) Follow Mark on Twitter (https://twitter.com/amarksteadman/) Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/beware-of-the-leopard/id1260191839) Find more shows from the Outpost (http://theoutpost.fm/)

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to getting it all done. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@editorialgirl) for being the voice of the Guide. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to getting it all done.In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@editorialgirl) for being the voice of the Guide. Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Find more shows from the Outpost

One of the many major problems with producing podcasts is that of who you get to do it, or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarise: it is a well-known and much limited fact that those people who most want to produce podcasts are ipso facto those lists duty to do it. To summarise the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made a podcast producer should a no account be allowed to do the job. To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. And so this is the situation we find: a succession of podcast producers who so much enjoy the fun and palavra of being in power that they never really noticed that they're not. And somewhere in the shadows behind them, who? Who can possibly rule, if no one who wants to can be allowed to?

This episode is brought to you by  Birmingham: It's Not Shit: 50 Things That Delight About Brum , out now in paperback.One of the many major problems with producing podcasts is that of who you get to do it, or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarise: it is a well-known and much limited fact that those people who most want to produce podcasts are ipso facto those lists duty to do it. To summarise the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made a podcast producer should a no account be allowed to do the job. To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem.And so this is the situation we find: a succession of podcast producers who so much enjoy the fun and palavra of being in power that they never really noticed that they're not. And somewhere in the shadows behind them, who? Who can possibly rule, if no one who wants to can be allowed to?Don't forget to pick up your copy of Birmingham: It's Not Shit: 50 Things That Delight About Brum, by Jon Bounds, Jon Hickman, Danny Smith, and not Mark Steadman for some reason.

Summer flings on Bethselamin, camping holidays in pissing Southport, the Holiday Theory of Relativity, and the inevitable books that followed on from Veet Voojagig's classic about Biros. All of this, plus the question: Zaphod Beeblebrox – sexist bully or scoundrel of his time? Listener Gemma's podcasts What's in the tea? A Dollhouse re-watch Sleep Minute — Dreams & The Science of Sleep Links Subscribe to our newsletter Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter The notorious Emma Wright Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts

Summer flings on Bethselamin, camping holidays in pissing Southport, the Holiday Theory of Relativity, and the inevitable books that followed on from Veet Voojagig's classic about Biros. All of this, plus the question: Zaphod Beeblebrox – sexist bully or scoundrel of his time?Listener Gemma's podcasts What's in the tea? A Dollhouse re-watch Sleep Minute — Dreams & The Science of Sleep Links Subscribe to our newsletter Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts

Children's books, Vogon poetry, dictionaries, ghost-writing, and choose-your-own adventures. All this, plus Jack the Ripper, sitcom reimaginings, David Williams, some news of our own, and the derivation of the term “Dirty Bristow”. Links Subscribe to our newsletter Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter The notorious Emma Wright Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts

Children's books, Vogon poetry, dictionaries, ghost-writing, and choose-your-own adventures. All this, plus Jack the Ripper, sitcom reimaginings, David Williams, some news of our own, and the derivation of the term "Dirty Bristow".Links Subscribe to our newsletter Follow Danny on Twitter Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter The notorious Emma Wright Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Politics The Jons explain why David Icke is like a British Rail sandwich, and that lizards eat babies. Pondermatic The Pondermatic is another computer not as smart as Deep Thought, who in fact called it a "cybernetic simpleton". Poodoo Poodoo is an executive from the company that built the cloning machines that created the hundreds of millions of Lintilla clones we meet on Brontitall, in the second radio series. He draws up agreements to cease to be, which are disguised as marriage licenses. Two of the three Allitnils - clones designed to be irresistibly attractive to Lintilla and her clones - "marry" two of the Lintilla clones, and thus the Lintillas are destroyed. Population It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, but not every one of them is inhabited. So there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination. Practical Parenting in a Fractally Demented Universe > We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, “Oh, hi Ed! Nice tan. How’s Carol?” involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble. So give your kid a break, OK?" Prak Prak is a little man with scraggly hair, given too much of a truth drug, after the Krikkit robots stole the Argabuthon Sceptre of Justice and jogged the surgeon's arm while the drug was being administered. When asked to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", he begins to tell the court the entire history and present of the universe. Pralite monks Ford learns how to skin animals on Earth from an ex-Pralite monk. The galaxy is littered with them apparently, all on the make, because the mental control techniques the Order have evolved as a form of devotional discipline are, frankly, sensational - and extraordinary numbers of monks leave the Order just after they have finished their devotional training and just before they take their final vows to stay locked in small metal boxes for the rest of their lives.

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the P section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and get into some Rs. President Yooden Vranx President Yooden Vranx was Zaphod's predecessor. It was his idea to steal the Heart of Gold. but... was it? Probability The guide says that if you hold a lungful of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds, but the chances of getting picked up by another ship within that timeframe are two to the power of two-hundred-and-sixty-seven-thousand seven-hundred=and-nine to one against. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is the commander of the Vogon Constructor Fleet, who uses the new Guide - equipped with reverse temporal engineering - to find a way of destroying all the Earths in existence along the probability axis. He is a fairly typical Vogon, in that he is thoroughly vile. Qualactin Hypermint Float a measure of Qualactin hypermint extract when mixing a pangalactic gargleblaster, over the back of a silver spoon. It's redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones: subtle, sweet and mystic. R R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental wellbeing and not being more than, say, five minutes late. It is therefore clearly an almost infinitely variable figure according to circumstances, since the first two factors vary not only with speed taken as an absolute, but also with awareness of the third factor. Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda The Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda were a site of battles between the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax and the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug, both of which I think we'll be covering later.

Join Mark and the Jons as they continue through the R section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Radiophonic Workshop The Radiopohinc Workshop was a BBC department that mae music and noises for BBC programmes, originally for radio and then for TV too. Arguably their most famous contribution is the Doctor Who theme. They were formed in 1958 and carried on for another 40 years until John Birt, the then Director General shut them down as they weren't profitable enough. Random Dent Random Dent is Arthur's daughter, mothered by Trillian from sperm donated by Arthur in order to travel around the Galaxy. She’d been born in a spaceship that had been going from somewhere to somewhere else, and when it had got to somewhere else, somewhere else had only turned out to be another somewhere that you had to get to somewhere else again from, and so on. Ratchet screwdriver fruit Once picked, ratchet screwdriver fruit needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin which crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a sort of hole for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what it is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is presumably working on it. Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal The ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal is a mind-bogglingly stupid animal with a gaping mass of slavering fangs. You can easily fool it by putting your hands over your eyes, because it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you. The Reason One night, a spaceship appeared in the sky of the planet Dalforsas, which had never seen one before. The tribesmen who saw it swore that they'd seen a sign from their gods which meant that they must now arise and slay the evil Princes of the Plains, who likewise had seen the sign and assumed it to be an order to kill the tribesmen. This sort of thing happened a lot, as pretty much eeryone on the planet took everything that happened as some sort of sign. This was mainly a problem for the forest dwellers who lived where the battle would inevitably and repeatedly take place. Whenever the forest dwellers complained and asked why their forest needed to be destroyed yet again, someone from either side would tell them the Reason, in very calm and rational tones. The forest messenger would nod dumbly and walk back to his tribe, where he'd try to explain this very sensible Reason, only to have completely forgotten it. Reg Nullify Reg Nullify leads the Cataclysmic Combo band at Milliways. He can be a little proactive on the drums, if Max Quordlepleen is any judge.

Mark and Jon Hickman welcome Danny back to the Leopard with an episode in which we pull out random letters from the Scrabble bag. Warning: your mother would not approve of you listening to this episode. We discuss feedback from Twitter and email, educate Danny on the Baby Shark phenomenon, learn more about the Mandela effect, and Jon continues to make fun of Mark for liking heavily-detailed Swedish crime-fiction. We also look into staffing and casting a hypothetical Random Dent TV series, Jon reads some spam and Mark talks about being scared by VR.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the R section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Reverse temporal engineering Reverse temporal engineering is a new technology of "unfiltered perception", which is a marvellous way of making anything you want to have happen, happen, without all that tedious mucking about with probability drives or Italian waiters. Danny, is there a name for the kind of thing you add to a sci-fi or fantasy universe that can just solve any problem? Is it a deus ex machina or is that something else? [I know it's something else, but I'm assuming you know what I mean! I also wanted to not give this one to Jon for a change] Richard Vernon Richard Vernon played Slarti in the radio and TV series. He was born on the same day I was, and if he were still alive, he'd be celebrating his 94th birthday. But he died 21 years ago. River Moth The river Moth is, well, a river. It is, as previously described, slow and heavy, and if you make a raft to sail down it, you can use a towel as a, well, sail. And that's about all we know of the River Moth. Satire The panel discusses the Hitchhiker's Guide's place in the pantheon of sature. Rob McKenna Rob McKenna is a rain god, with 231 different categorisations of rain documented in his little book. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him. He's played by Bill Paterson in the radio series, and he's a rather dreary chap. Room of Informational Illusions The Room of Informational Illusions is a deck on the Starship Bistromath that basically equates to another version of VR, like the Sense-o-Tapes from the original book. Roosta Roosta rescued Zaphod from Ursa Minor Beta during the bombing of Megadodo Publications. He's played by Alan Ford in the radio series, which probably makes him the galaxy's resident wideboy. He has a towel which contains a number of flavourings, chemicals and other substances that you can ingest by sucking a particular end.

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the R section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and make a move on the Ss. Rula Lenska Rula Lenska plays Lintilla and her clones, and the Guide in bird form in the radio series. Russell Russell is Fenchurch's brother. To Arthur's mind, the name Russell always suggested burly men with blond moustaches and blow-dried hair, who would at the slightest provocation start wearing velvet tuxedos and frilly shirtfronts and would then have to be forcibly restrained from commentating on snooker matches. RW6 The RW6 is a sexy and beautiful ship, and the sort of thing you only saw in the sort of magazines that were designed to provoke civil unrest. Jon Bounds, what sort of magazine is that? Rymplon™ Rymplon™ is a new synthetic fabric which was terrific for space travel because it looked its absolute best when it was all creased and sweaty. Sandwiches There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do. “Make ’em dry” is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, “make ’em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing ’em once a week.” Santraginus V Santraginus V is a marble-beached planet where you get seawater for a pangalactic gargleblaster, and where the fish never seem to care whatever the heck kind of direction they swim in. "Oh, that Santraginean seawater" says the Guide. "Oh, those Santraginean fish!" The drummer for Disaster Area went mad and made friends with a rock there.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Saquo-Pilia Hensha King Antwelm made a famous assumption that what everybody wanted, all other things being equal, was to be happy and enjoy themselves and have the best possible time together. On his death he had willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival to remind everyone of this, with lots of good food and dancing and very silly games like Hunt the Wocket. His Assumption had been such a brilliantly good one that he was made into a saint for it. Now, the people of Saquo-Pilia Hensha hold an annual feast of the Assumption of St Antwelm. Sass Sass means "to know, meet, have sex with". Science “Let’s be straight here", says an earth scientist, at a press conference discussings Rob Mckenna. "If we find something we can’t understand we like to call it something you can’t understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don’t, and I’m afraid we couldn’t have that. No, first we have to call it something which says it’s ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it’s not what you said it is, but something we say it is." Scrabble Arthur tries to get the indigenous people of Earth to play Scrabble, and then discovers he can pull letters out of his homemade Scrabble bag to find the answer to the Ultimate Question. He pulls out the question "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" Séance Zaphod, Ford and Arthur hold a séance -- you see? -- to speak to Zaphod's great-grandfather. One of the great gags you get in the radio series is an actual dial tone followed by a bunch of bleeps as the call connects. Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha is, as its name suggests, a plural zone. It's also where the Earth lives -- sometimes -- and anyone born here is advised not to travel via hyperspace. It's also the name of a big Hitchhiker's fan club.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue traversing the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sens-o-Tape Sens-o-Tape is another piece of VR equipment. In the first book, Arthur gets strapped into a machine that shows him how the Magratheans discovered the Ultimate Answer. Sesefras Magna Sesefras Magna is a planet around which Ford is orbiting when he hooks up a ship to the Speaking Clock on Earth, and where Xaxisians dock their battle fleet. Its sun is Zondostina, known to Sesefrasians as Pleiades Zeta. Orbiting the planet are Epum, its small and blue moon, and the space port, Port Sesefron, from which Zaphod once bought a pair of spray-on pants. Share and Enjoy “Share and Enjoy” is the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years. Shoe Event Horizon Many years ago Brontitall -- or Frogstar World B, delete as appropriate -- was a thriving, happy planet. Except that on the high streets of these cities there were slightly more shoe shops than one might have thought necessary. And slowly the numbers of these shops increased, until it became no longer economically possible to build anything other than shoe shops, resulting collapse, ruin and famine. Shorbut Sweet Shorbut Sweet -- AKA Succ-U-Bus -- is a robot that dispenses post on the Starship Titanic, played by Douglas Adams, who basically just had to cough into a microphone. Siderial Daily Mentioner Arthur and his friends pick up a journalist from the Siderial Daily Mentioner, who was "half-mad" after witnessing Prak do his "whole truth" bit. One of the Trillians also worked for the Mentioner.

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they ring in 2019 with a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pub quiz, in which every single round -- every single one -- is completely and 100% to do with the Douglas Adams sci-fi universe.

Mark and the Jons are back off their Christmas break and ready to continue through the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax The best way to pick a fight with a Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax was just to be born. They didn’t like it, they got resentful. And when an Armorfiend got resentful, someone got hurt. They were the first race who ever managed to shock a computer. The computer in question was Hactar, and they commissioned him to build an ultimate weapon, which almost led to the destruction of the galaxy, again. Simon Brett Simon Brett produced the pilot of the radio show, and has produced episodes of other radio classics like I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Just a Minute. He now writes detective fiction and had a book made into a film starring Michael Caine. Simon Jones Simon Jones played Arthur in the radio and TV series, and the Magrathean security hologram in the film. He's appeared in lots of little bits of telly over the years, and was a dear friend of Douglas. Sirius B Max Quordlepleen welcomes a group of young conservatives from Sirius B, to Milliways on the night our heroes turn up. Sirius Cybernetics Corporation The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation were bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came. Slartibartfast Slartibartfast is a planetary architect, who won an award for his wrk on Norway. Played by Richard Vernon in the first two radio series and the TV series, and by Richard Griffiths in the third radio series. On Earth, Ford and Arthur find his signature on a glacier. He picks Ford and Arthur up in his Somebody Else's Problem shielded ship so they can join his mission with the Campaign for Real Time, and he has a name that sounds a bit like a swearword.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they continue with the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Slim’s Throat Emporium Slim’s Throat Emporium is a bar Ford and Hotblack Desiato used to crash, pretending to be health inspectors. Slo-Time The planet of Krikkit was to be enclosed for perpetuity in an envelope of Slo-Time, inside which life would continue almost infinitely slowly. All light would be deflected round the envelope so that it would remain invisible and impenetrable. Escape from the envelope would be utterly impossible unless it were locked from the outside. When the rest of the Universe came to its final end and life and matter ceased to exist, then the planet of Krikkit and its sun would emerge from the envelope and continue a solitary existence, such as it craved, in the twilight of the Universal void. Somebody Else's Problem field The Somebody Else’s Problem field is simple and effective, and can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people’s natural disposition not to see anything they don’t want to, weren’t expecting, or can’t explain. If Effrafax the magician had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple SEP field on it instead of trying to make it disappear, then people would have walked past it, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there. Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes Oolon Colluphid's book Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes is the second in his trilogy of heretical works. Southend "When I was young I used to have this nightmare about dying", says Arthur aboard the starship Heart of Gold. "I used to lie awake at night screaming. All my friends went to either Heaven or Hell and I was sent to Southend!" Sqornshellous Sqornshellous Beta is where cushions come from. Sqornshellous Zeta where matresses cine from. Marvin ends up stranded here after the Disaster Area stunt ship our heroes hijacked smashes into the heart of a sun. There are other planets in the Sqornshellous, but they aren't cannon.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We dedicate this episode to Jeremy Hardy, who died last week. The Great Ventilation and Telephone Riots of SrDt 3454 These riots led to three important events, which we’ll go through in turn, but it’s basically all the fault of a ventilation system called the Breathe-o-Smart, which was absolutely guaranteed to never, ever, ever, go wrong; so much so that the company demanded all customers seal shut all the windows in buildings that used it. So, on that note… Every piece of technology of whatever stripe is required, on SrDt 3454, to carry the following legend, embossed somewhere on its surface, regardless of its size: > The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong, is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. The actual riots were caused by three things: a press release from the manufacturers of the Breathe-o-Smart ventilation system suggesting that best results are achieved in temperate climates a particularly hot day on SrDt, and the employees of a telephone company taking to the streets in a demonstration against their corporate overlords (which we’ll come to in a bit) Any employee of the aforesaid telephone company, called BS&S, is permitted to say, once an hour, “Use BS&S and die”, after dealing with so many idiotic customers over the phone drove them mad. This was a direct result of the protest they had, which clashed with the office workers using the faulty Breathe-o-Smart. Stagyar-zil-Doggo Stagyar-zil-Doggo is an editor of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Starship Titanic Many speak of the legendary and gigantic Starship Titanic, a majestic and luxurious cruise-liner launched from the great shipbuilding asteroid complexes of Artifactovol some hundreds of years ago now, and with good reason. Very much in keeping with today's episode, this spaceship was built in such a way to ensure that it would be infinitely improbable that anything would go wrong, so unsurprisingly when it attempted its first pre-launch radio transmission, it suffered a spontaneous total existence failure. Terry Jones, as we’ve discussed before, wrote the Starship Titanic book and played a parrot in the video game by the same name, produced by Adams’ Digital Village. Stavro Meuller - Beta Stavro Meuller is a Greek serial entrepreneur with a German father and two clubs -- that we know about -- to his mixed-heritage name. Both clubs share his name, but it's only the second one -- Stavro Meuller: Beta, or Stavromula Beta -- that really matters for our purposes. It's where Arthur was supposed to be assasinated, and where he, Ford, Random, Trillian and Tricia meet towards the end of Mostly Harmless, just before the Earth is finally destroyed again. The building number is 42. Stephen Fry Stephen Fry narrated the first audiobook, played the book in the film and cameoed as a journalist in the radio series. He was a friend of Adams and wrote about him in his second memoir. Stephen Moore Played - Marvin - the sperm whale - the man in the shack - Gag Halfrunt - a vogon guard in the radio series, and Marvin and the whale in the TV series

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the S section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Strag A strag is a non-hitchhiker. Given that we've discussed the idea of the hitchhiker as a class of person, Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak The Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak are mortal enemies of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax. Strateej-o-Mat The Strateej-o-Mat is a strategy aparatus on the Grebulon ship, that will only follow the commnads of the Chief Strategic Officer. Strenuous Garfighters of Stug The Strenuous Garfighters of Stug are mortal enemies of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax. Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron A Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron is a marvellous device for counteracting the effects of the Infinite Improbability Drive. Sub-Etha Net The Sub-Etha Net is basically the galactic Internet. Given that the sub-eta radio band existed first, I think this is a pretty good name, considering ethernet is already a thing. Sub-Etha News-Matics The Sub-Etha News-Matic is a kind of space Twitter. Sub-Etha Sens-o-Matic The Sub-Etha Sens-o-Matic is a device that scans for signals from spacecraft. On prehistoric Earth, Ford detects eddies in the spacetime continuum and with Arthur, catches a lift through time on a Chesterfield sofa.

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the [letter] section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sun dive Hotblack Deseato's band has a completely black stunt ship that dives into the sun on Kakrafoon, as part of the climax of a gig. Susan Sheridan Susan Sheridan played Trillian in the radio series. She died in 2015, but had a good career as a voice actor with credits including Budgie the Little Helecopter and Jimbo (a personal favourite). We're going to talk about Trillian in a few weeks, but for now, consider our caps doffed. Swut Swut is a swear word. Tea Tea is a substance that can be used to power a Finite Imrobability Generator, or for confusing a machine into giving you a substance that's almost -- but not quite -- indistinguishable from it. It is now available in most megamarkets, in easy-to-swallow capsules. Teasers A teaser is usually a rich kid with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets which haven’t made interstellar contact yet and "buzz" them, which involves strutting back and forth with silly antenni on their heads and making "beep beep" noises. Tempophone The Tempophone is -- presumably -- a telephone that can make calls across various times. Ford advises Arthur never to call himself up from the future. Terry Jones Terry Jones played a parrot in the Starship Titanic video game, and wrote a book called Starship Titanic, based on a video game, but apparently in a different universe from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Seems like something we should address, really. Anyhow, he plays a parrot because Adams had discussed with Jones that most of the characters he played in Monty Python sketches and films sounded like parrots.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the T section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Tea and Douglas What JB said about kettles isn't entirely inaccurate, according to an American friend of Mark's, who also has a lovely story to tell about Douglas Adams. Thor Thor is a thunder god. Arthur picks a fight with him over Trillian at an airborne party. Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother, but is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. Total Perspective Vortex When you are put into the Total Perspective Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says “You are here.” The man who invented it did so basically in order to annoy his wife who used to complain about him not having enough perspective. Towels You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal; you can wave it in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. Towel day events If you're in the Cambridge on the 25th May, you can go on a Douglas Adams walk hear a talk by the two remaining members of Adams' sketh cgroup See some Towel Day standup Find more info at http://towelday.org. Transtellar Cruise Lines Transtellar Cruise Lines ran a liner that kept a ship in stasis for 900 years while awaiting a compliment of lemon-soaked paper napkins. Fact-fans -- or pedants, as they're more commonly known -- wil know that an alternative version of the company name is Trans-Stellar Space Lines.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they clear the T section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Tri-D Tri-D is Adams' allusion to some sort of 3D TV, and is distinct from Five-D, the sub-etha, the Sense-o-Tape, the Hall of Informational Illusions and whatever other technology he created to show things to characters. Triganic Pu The Triganic Pu is a form of galactic currency. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles across each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. Trillian Trillian is a beautiful astrophysicist, with the real name Tricia McMillan. She's played by Susan Sheridan in the radio series, and by Zooey Deschanel in the film. She manages to convince the masters of Krikkit not to destroy the universe, and she learned how to maneuver around Hyde Park Corner on a moped. On an Earth that was never destroyed by the Vogons, Tricia McMillan attempts to get a job with the NBS network in New York, as an anchor on the US/AM breakfast show. She regrets going back for her bag when first meeting Zaphod at that famous party in Islington. She failed the screen test for the network because she decided not to go back for her bag, thus not bringing her contact lenses which she needed to read the script and autocue. When taken to the planet Rupert by the Grebulons, she films the encounter and figures she must have faked it as part of an elabourate nervous breakdown or halicination. Trin Tragula “Have some sense of proportion” Trin Tragula's wife would often say, so he built the Total Perspective Vortex, just to show her. And in one end he plugged the whole of reality, as extrapolated from a fairy cake, and in the other end he plugged his wife, where the shock annihilated her brain. Turlingdrome Turlingdrome. It's a swear word. We don't have a definition but it appears to be a derogatory term for a person, possibly a stupid person. There's a creative design firm in Cincinnati who've chosen Turlingdrome as their name, which sounds like it might be a bit like calling your company Shithead.

Join Mark and the Jons as they traverse the V section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with a quick final stop-off at U. Uncertain Areas "Wild horses thundered through the sky taking fresh supplies of reinforced railings to the Uncertain Areas". That's a line from the popular book The Hitchhiker's Guide to teh Galaxy, and it describes a thing that happens aboard the starship Heart of Gold, when Ford andn Arthur are brought on-board. Ursa Minor Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in the known Universe. Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of won derfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words “When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life”, the suicide rate quadrupled overnight. The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word ‘Fuck’ in a Serious Screenplay is an award you can win at the Ursa Minor Alpha Recreational Illusions Institute Awards. The trophy is the silver bail from the Wikkit Key. Vann Harl Vann Harl is the Guide editor that took over from Stagyar-zil-Doggo, and a canonical nightmare. In the Quintessential Phase of the radio series, Vann Harl and Zarniwhoop -- who we'll cover later -- are the same person, but to my recollection that was not the case in Quintessential Phase, the book the series was based on. Veet Voojagig Veet Voojagig was a quiet young student at the University of Maximegalon, who pursued a brilliant academic career studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception, and then, after a night of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, became increasingly obsessed with the problem of what had happened to all the biros he’d bought over the past few years. Vegan Rhino Cutlets of vegan rhino meat are served by the mice to the humans, on Magrathea. Viltvodle VI The Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. In the film, we meet Humma Kavula, who appoints himself a priest of the Jatravartid religion. Viv Viv is a planet with vicious sea creatures. It appears in Mostly Harmless and that's all we have to go on. Vl’hurgs The Vl’hurgs are mortal enemies of the G’Gugvuntts. Vod Vod is presumably the planet where Judiciary Pag is from. It has three suns, and I say "presumaby" because we see him relax in his chambers on Vod, but don't actually know if that's his home planet.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the V section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Vogon constructor fleets Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy – not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters. The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Vogon poetry Vogon poetry is the third worst poetry in the universe. Vogsphere Many, many light years from earth lies the grim and long abandoned planet, Vogsphere. Somewhere on a fetid, fog-bound mud bank on this planet there stands, surrounded by the dirty, broken and empty carapaces of the last few jeweled scuttling crabs, a small stone monument which marks the place, where it is thought, the species Vogon Vogonblurtus first arose. On the monument there is carved an arrow which points away into the fog, under which are inscribed in plain, simple letters the words “The buck stops there.” Volluing For the meaning of the word “vollue”, buy a copy of Squornshellous Swamptalk at any remaindered bookshop, or alternatively buy The Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary, as the University will be very glad to get it off their hands and regain some valuable parking lots. Vroomfondel Vroomfondel is a philosopher from Cruxwan University. In the radio series he was played by Jim Broadbent. Walkmen For some reason, Ford throws a bunch of Walkmens out to the crowds thronging around the ship that lands on Earth, in Mostly Harmless.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they traverse the W section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wave harmonic theory of historical perception Reason not withstanding, the universe continues unabated. Its history is terribly long and awfully difficult to understand, even in its simpler moments which are, roughly speaking, the beginning and the end. The wave harmonic theory of historical perception, in its simplest form, states that history is an illusion caused by the passage of time, and that time is an illusion caused by the passage of history. It also states that one’s perception of these illusions is conditioned by three important factors: who you are; where you are; and when you last had lunch with Zaphod Beeblebrox. Whales A short-lived sperm whale was brought about by the Improbability Drive on one of its first hops along the probability access. Where God Went Wrong and Who is this God Person Anyway? Where God Went Wrong is, presumably, Oolon Colluphid's first blockbuster heretical hit, and part of a trilogy that comprises this, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes -- which you can hear about us talk in season 4, episode 2 -- and Who is this God Person Anyway?. William Franklyn William Franklyn played the Guide in the remaining three radio series, after the death of the original voice, Peter Jones. Wise Old Bird The Wise Old Bird was pllayed by John le Mesurier in the second radio series. Arthur meets him on Brontital where he explains the history of the bird people, who fled the shoe event horizon, shunning their shoes and taking to the skies, vowing never to set foot on the ground again.

Join Mark, Jon and Danny as they saunter into the Z section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wormhole Disco The place Zaphod and Roosta transport themselves to is the Wormhole Disco, which might as well have been called the Placeholder Club. In this disco there are nozels on the wall that spray the smell of hot sweat over everything, and the place is packed with dancing robots. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was -- indeed, is -- one of the Universe’s very small number of immortal beings. He'd had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying. He was played by Toby Longworth in the radio series, and he's made it his mission to insult every little being in the universe, just for something to do. Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilised Zenon Emitters The Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilised Zenon Emitter is just one of those throwaway lines Adams tossed in to a conversation between two robots. But if you put that combination of words into the Internet, you get this interesting question, which I'm going to pose to Danny: > If there was a drone in the sky directing some type of microwave energy into your house, would you report it to the officials or not? Ysllodins Ysllodins is the star around which most of the Galaxy’s major insurance underwriters live, or rather lived. As far as I can tell, this one isn't real. Zamphuor Zamphuor is an unknown ingredient to add when mixing a pangalactic gargleblaster. Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne The Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne is a party that dines at Miliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Join Mark and the Jons as they finish up the last of the Zs in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Zaphod Beeblebrox Zaphod Beeblebrox is -- or was -- President of the Imperial Galactic Government. His favourite mother is Alice Beeblebrox, of 108 Astral Cresent, Zoofroozelchester, Betelgeuse V. Zaphod's great grandfather is Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. He grew an extra arm for Trillian, which took him six months. Zarniwoop Hidden away in a pocket universe, and played by Jonathan Price, Zarniwoop is the guy who concocted the plan, with Zaphod, to steel the Heart of Gold, in order to find out who really rules the universe. Zarquon The second coming of the great prophet Zarquon is highly anticipated, and finally happens at Milliways, just before the universe goes down the plug hole. "Holy Zarquon’s singing fish!" is an expression of surprise and alarm Zaphod uses when he falls out of the giant cup on Brontitall. Zentalquabula On Zentalquabula are found ancient alabastrum quarries. An elegant terrace on one of the planets that was home to the Guide, was carved from this stone.

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they attempt to solve the world's problems and make it a good and happy place.

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they recap what they've been up to since our last full episode, say goodbye to a fellow Hitchhiker and Adamsify a piece of existing pop culture.

Join Mark, Danny and the Jons as they tackle the fiddly social issues that arise from living through a global pandemic.

Join Mark, Jon, Jon and Danny as they play the text adventure game Mark wrote.

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to sport, with contributions on politics and PE, and a host of alien sporting activities sure to become major hits on Earth. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@editorialgirl) for being the voice of the Guide.

Mark, Danny, and the Jons present their Hitchhiker's Guide entries on a return to school.

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to music.

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the *Hitchhiker's Guide* to Christmas and the new year.

Mark, Danny and the Jons present the Hitchhiker's Guide to getting on in years. In our new format, each panelist writes a short essay on the given topic, in the style of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book with the large friendly letters on the cover. Our thanks to Emma Wright (@editorialgirl) for being the voice of the Guide.