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Publication Day!

42/42 The answer to the Great Question of 'Life, The Universe and Everything' was '42' - from where this book gets its title. The number had been percolating through Douglas' mind well before he used it in #Hitchhikers, so we dispel old myths and examine the written evidence.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #poetry

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41/42 - Douglas emigrated to California in 1999, ostensibly to work on the movie script for 'The Hitchhiker's Guide' but died aged 49 from a heart attack in May 2001. His former book editor Sue Freestone reflected on the man she knew, in an obituary originally published in 'The Bookseller'.

PUBLICATION DAY (UK) TOMORROW!

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #poetry

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40/42 Douglas dreamed big and it wouldn’t have come much larger than the millennium-spanning epic #SciFi TV series 'Secret Empire', an idea detailed in previously unseen late-90s documents. A similar proposal was for a factual series covering centuries of *real* human endeavour.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #poetry

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39/42 Douglas co-created early Infocom #games #Hitchhikers & 'Bureaucracy' - and we have his contemporary notes. In the late '90s at his multimedia company The Digital Village, they developed website h2g2.com and the sumptuous-looking CD-Rom game @StarshipTitanic.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #poetry #Starship Titanic #h2g2.com #The Digital Village #bureaucracy #computer games

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38/42 Douglas’ fascination with evolution, cutting-edge #science & #tech, made him a guru at international conferences. We cover his prescient thoughts on #cellphones, the #Internet, #interconnectivity - and #eBooks, which he predicted in #Hitchhikers, but did not live to see.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #poetry

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#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #poetry #savetherhinos #rhinoceros

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https://unbound.com/books/douglasadams/

#douglasadams #thehitchhikersguidetothegalaxy #42 #42thewildlyimprobableideasofdouglasadams #lifetheuniverseandeverything #dirkgently #dirkgentlysholisticdetectiveagency #sciencefiction #scifi #writing #books #publishing #authors #themeaningofliff #h2g2 #satire #writersblock

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #satire #writers block #authors #scifi #writing #life the universe and everything #dirk gentlys holistic detective agency #science fiction

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35/42 Among notes for #DirkGently, Douglas had drafted additional verses for the Samuel Taylor Coleridge #poem, which began: ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.' The new stanzas were alluded to, but never seen in the text of the published novel - until now!

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #poetry

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34/42 Douglas' first experiments with personal #computers began in late 1983 with rudimentary word processors and we have his scrawled notes from those frustrating times, when he was first re-writing #Hitchhikers as a #movie. We also cover his famous obsession with @Apple Macs.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who

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32/42 Snippets from Douglas' personal diaries, journals and notebooks include: his first broadcast sketch, a sober reflection upon leaving Uni, doodles for @bbcdoctorwho whilst on holiday, and a simple note for a ‘science fiction story’ suggesting the basic plot of #Hitchhikers.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who

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33/42 Another unique find is an 8-page faded fax, a portion of a script by Adams and Lloyd, adapting #TheMeaningofLiff for television. It would have been a funny monologue from a temperamental lecturer, delivered by the star of @MrBean and #Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who

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Lucy… *sigh*

Xena: Warrior Princess (1995 - 2001) ⤷ Fave Episodes: S2 EP15 "A Day in the Life"

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31/42 Kids’ stuff - Together with John Lloyd, Douglas drafted storylines for the 'Doctor Snuggles' #cartoon series. This book also reveals their outline for what eventually became the award-winning #animated short 'Rupert And The Frog Song', for Douglas' hero @PaulMcCartney.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #rupertthebear #DrSnuggles

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Sat 12th Aug

30/42 Douglas flew in everything from rusty light aircraft to the British Airways Concorde. Observations of the latter in one of his '80s notebooks detail the already fading glamour, shabby decor, chaos in the galley, and the look & demeanour of wealthy American passengers.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who #concorde

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29/42 Douglas wrote to a @TimeOutLondon critic to introduce his first @BBCRadio4 series. Alan Coren, then of Punch magazine, had given young Douglas some witty professional advice, whilst his colleague Miles Kington praised Douglas' first novel and invited him to work for them!

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who

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28/42 We found the earliest, oddly-addressed fan letter, its envelope marked by the @RoyalMail: ‘Try #BBC’, plus Douglas’ amusing response. Other #HitchhikersGuide fans kindly provided their treasured signed letters of reply too, plus #FanArt & @ZZ9official club correspondence.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who

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27/42 There's a chapter on love and some of the women in Douglas' life, from student letters and poetry, to writing a 'jittery' sex scene whilst reeling from a doomed affair. Years later, there's a note to his eventual wife ‘Darling Janey’, with whom he had a daughter, Polly.

#42 #42 the wildly improbable ideas of douglas adams #books & libraries #dirk gently #douglas adams #publishing #zz9 plural z alpha #the meaning of liff #doctor who