Jeff and Bryan talk about and tell stories about Douglas Adams' first novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. During this episode they learn that there are things that can be misinterpreted for forty years.
This has been a Froods for Thought production.
Jeff and Bryan talk about and tell stories about Douglas Adams' first novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. During this episode they learn that there are things that can be misinterpreted for forty years.
This has been a Froods for Thought production.
Hey Brian how are you doing today I'm doing great Jeff how are you well I feel like I have deja vu didn't we just cover this material all over again yeah you know what am I and I can't stop thinking about Rula lenska and Robert Heinlein really how do they go together really well I am sure that Rula lenska never met Robert Heinlein but we didn't really talk about this in the last episode I think but the voices for the lint Ella's yes was read by Rula lenska correct and that was mentioned in the audio and I wonder did you notice that or remember that name or ever hear that name before yes Rula lenska is is a name that I have her dad know about I couldn't tell you anything other than secondary face what she is in but it's in my mind one of the greatest names ever in the history of names well that it is but Rula lenska and the reason that I remember her is everybody knows at least everybody of my age of generation knows like Farrah Fawcett you know on the Farrah Fawcett Hair thing yes okay so that's a little prior to your time I'm sure you had your own version that your age was Farrah Fawcett type actress one of the sex symbol actresses she was and in fact and what I seem to recall and this is what I couldn't get out of my head is a cheetah Dove commercial for VO5 yes I remember those add shampoo and she said hi Rula lenska and I like the 05 and her hair would flip back and forth through the air and shaking your head yes they have no idea what they're missing they're grateful but they have to the right but anyway I find line doesn't show up until oh I don't know I think it's the 19th Chapter although we talked about it in the last I think it was the last podcast you mentioned Robert highlight which I should have linked it in then but at the time it didn't seem that it would come back around so what Robert Heinlein thing are you talking about no it's funny it's just the Robert Heinlein was the inspiration as it turns out for Tribbles about that every episode I just thought it was interesting because he wrote a story and he has a creature known as a flat cat Star Trek people right in the episode about Tribbles they contacted him to get permission to use the concept in their story and his only requirement was that he got an autographed copy of the script which she later learn to regret because he said he could have made a mint actually made him pay for it but anyway what's what was interesting about that story really is that fine line shows up as you say in the concept of the wise old man they meet on that rock is the ruler of the universe the ruler of the universe exact so I think a lot of people would understand that he is a basic source for science fiction material absolutely anyway so do I and I got more as you know I always like to talk about something from the last episode that I thought about beat you to it did not deprive me of fall hold on to something because I had one little simple thing I was going to mention and it got away from me so last time when we were discussing secondary phase and you mentioned the part that had up to 578000 million link silicones yes I tossed out why don't you just say a billion and I thought that you thought I meant you specifically during the podcast but I use it as a general you and was referring more to the author correct of why did he use thousand million instead of billion anyway I started thinking about it and why it was used and I really couldn't figure it out 578000 million sounds funny in the respective it sounding odd In the respective it sounding odd but it's not funny as in humorous or clever or having anything to do with the story I did a little searching on the internet and buy a little I mean a little because what I was Finding was giving me a headache out of it was this back then it may have changed a little bit now but back then and definitely before then the numbers that we call a billion and a trillion in the US are not or necessarily the same numbers in the UK 1000 million in the UK used to be called or is called some Pi some people 1000000 yd as in The Mill Yard gargantuan break thousand million million billion trillion wow so they add something in there that we don't have so they don't match so if he just said 1000000000 those are two different numbers in the US and the UK but it doesn't really make any difference is just a great big number yeah well that's cool all of the research about this happened because I had a stupid joke go through my of which I thought would be hysterically funny and I wish you would have low on you set it up that way you know it's going to be funny yeah well forget about the fact that there's this Millie our thing and if you just imagine that million and billion are the same in the US and the UK instead of 578000 million he said 578000 billion that would have shown he was intentionally avoiding trillion hahaha cuz she got Road out of the story didn't even want to use her as a number oh my goodness that's okay alright well that one little joke about avoiding trillion sent me down the rabbit hole of figuring out why he said thousand million and I've learned there was a reason there you go right brilliant so this is episode 5 and we're finally going to talk about the book which most people probably thought should a Bad episode to a woman but again that's not the way this whole thing comes together no it's not since this is the second time through this material I've already stated many of my favorite jokes there will be many more I'm going to try to not repeat myself and I hope to concentrate more on things either not in or that I did not mention when discussing the audio version OK Google get bit of a challenge but I look forward to it summary part 1 Arthur Dent wakes up to discover his house is about to be knocked down to make way for a bypass he attempts to stop and buy line in front of the bulldozer his friend Ford prefect who is not from Earth is a field reporter for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy he convinces Arthur and the demolition Foreman L Prosser just switch places in the mud so he and Arthur can go to the pub Ford tells Arthur the Earth is about to be destroyed by the Vogons forward and Arthur escape from the Earth by hitchhiking a ride on one of the ships sent to destroy it I want to start with this specific joke the reason I like many of the jokes in this book is because they are not predictable you don't see them coming he's sending you down the road and you kind of have an idea of where it's going and then as soon as he gets to the punchline it's a left turn the man in charge of the bulldozer crew L processor is said to be a male line descendant of Genghis Khan however through all the years and racial mixing the only vestiges of his mighty ancestry that he has is a pronounced stoutness about the Tom and so here as I'm reading of course I have an expectation of reading another physical characteristic that Prosser has that similar to Genghis Khan the last thing I expected for him to have was a pre-election for little fur hats forget about all those other favorite jokes that wasn't his my favorite you know and I do really like that reference but the thing that I can't quite Is there's a number of times or he says that Prosser reaches up and Spins the hat around his head or something something to that effect and I keep thinking of myself if I'm wearing a little fur hat I'm going to take it off in my hands and spin around in my hand not around my head I just that's always been one thing about that particular scene that's flummox me. You know I'm kind of getting a Vibe like The Three Stooges you know spinning the hat around the top of his head it doesn't quite work for me okay that was a very polite yeah moving on right so we're somewhere in the chapter 2 when we start story starts off talking about alcohol and that's where they first mention the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and the effects that alcohol has on some carbon-based life-forms right and I just love the description of how the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is created I love the line at the end where he says and sprinkle them 4 another case of where I think this is a perfect phrase he wants to be as vulgar as he can be without being vulgar he will let the readers do the work for him and make it up themselves and he described the drinking game where the opponent's concentrated their will to pour that old Jenks Spirit into the others glass which they then drank and at which Ford prefect always play too loose track he described the forfeit as obscenely biological very non-specific in detail but very specific in its meaning has exactly well done except that I liked that he introduced is that at moments of great stress beings send a subliminal signal indicating the distance from their birthplace and on Earth it's never more than 16,000 miles but because forward is 600 light years away from his birthplace and under great stress with the V Gods coming to destroy the Earth the barman gets this feeling that he can't understand and has this whole new profound respect for Ford and all the sudden believes and Ford is right that the Earth is going to be destroyed I'm getting written something about that and this is where I this is also the scene where where a Ford says time is an illusion lunchtime doubly so again one of my favorite lines that Readers Digest has a page for people like you who when we reviewed this book I listen to it on audio by the author yes me too and it wasn't until I got to nearly the end of the book and I was working my way through it that I actually decided you know what I do pick up the book and read through it as I'm listening to it there's an interesting dichotomy between the way Douglas Adams reads this book and the way it's actually written at least in the version that I have here in paperback sitting in front of me which I don't have a reference to right here but we will talk about that as we go through yes I do know that there are different versions and some of that again I will talk about I think coming up but they do have different versions which a slightly different phraseology but we also find out this Thursday because that's when he mentioned said it's that it's Thursday and you could never get the hang of it Thursday so in my nose I have come to the end of the Earth anything to say before the Earth ends a bath towel from Marks & Spencer got your note how you wrote your notes well yeah because we've already reviewed the fact that the towels don't show up until after thought in Phase 2 right yes and so it's here in the book where the towel story gets expanded and it's specifically that Ford is carrying 1 from Marks & Spencer guess he is so what I want to say is that I am willing to wager that in all of Science Fiction where a description is written of a planet being destroyed Where a description is written of a planet being destroyed there is none more effective than there was a terrible ghastly silence there was a terrible ghastly noise there was a terrible ghastly silence I thought that was a perfect description for the destruction of a planet oh yes very effective summary part 2 zaphod beeblebrox and trillion are on the planet damn Agron they are attending the launching of the Heart of Gold which they steal the heart of gold is equipped with the new infinite improbability drive and a depressed robot named Marvin on the vogon ship forward and Arthur AR case they are tortured with poetry and thrown off the ship they are picked up automatically by the Heart of Gold infinite improbability Drive the Heart of Gold orbits the legendary planet of magrathea and is attacked by an automated defense system with the computer disabled in desperation Arthur activate the infinite improbability Drive the missiles turn into a bowl of Petunias and a surprise looking well they fight and trillion are introduced earlier in the book than they are in the radio Series so we meet them here on dama grin at the launching of the Heart of Gold which he steals what I like the most about this part is that zaphod is nervous he's got anxiety about this whole thing in anything we've ever seen previous he just seems like he's this Carefree not a worry in the world just do what I want no consequences the book says that his outside appearance is overly relaxed but inside his nerves saying shriller than a dog whistle and later that at any moment he might scream so it was nice seeing that they 5 actually is is affected by everything that's going on and everything that he's doing cuz that does not come across at all in the radio series no you're right that doesn't know it's not really part of what they talked about or that it's his 200th birthday coincidentally and he here they also mentioned that he had the third arm attached to improve his ski boxing yes yeah rather than especially 4 trillion as was said in the right primary face easier to relate to him with this extra bit of understanding it is another one of the jokes at many people will mention as their favorite joke and it is way up there on my list is something that I did not see coming right after they were picked up by the Gin trasi and they were on the folk on ship-board was warning Arthur about the jump into hyperspace as being unpleasantly like being drunk and of course Arthur asks what's unpleasant about that and forward said ask a glass of water and to me that was one of those jokes as makes me stop reading for a bit and then like oh wow yep I love that line there's a lot of that where you just have to stop and kind of absorb what you just read cuz it doesn't register right whoever he know oh I also wanted to point out just as a aside here really we talked a little bit about this I think when they talk about zaphod visiting Earth they do mention that in this chapter and they say that he went Incognito and I've always wondered I think we've had discussions about I don't know whether we've had this on our podcast or not but we've had discussions about how is it that he isn't extremely obvious with three arms and two heads I mean eventually going to get into a TV show and even though I think the movie shows his second head is like retractable in the movie and then the TV show it's It's oddly weird it's like a paper mache he disguised himself in some form is really the only point that I wanted to make about that well because if he did have 3 walking around for some reason another little bit that I really latched onto as a favorite is when it talk about space Really big it says after they settle down there's a part about the beautiful Planet of the Apes element that you were so worried about the cumulative erosion from over 10 billion visitors a year that any imbalance between the amount you 8 and the amount you excreted was surgically removed from your body and if that wasn't bad enough they say so every time you went to the bathroom it was vitally important to get a receipt that whole concept is just absolutely floors me right so in this area we're also talking about the Vogons and their dedication to the Galactic Civil Service and one of the things that they also talked about here is they talk about Ford's name and what's interesting to me about that is this is where I know we had a conversation about they make a comment in the phase 2 when Marvin arrives at The Hitchhiker's Guide Lobby and says they say that he's been unable to adequately explain how he got there right well that's a reference to Ford and Ford's father wear during the collapsing her wrong but she escaped from Beetlejuice 5 I believe it was he's never been adequately or satisfactorily able to explain what a hurricane was and why I chose to collapse that that reference became a little part of Marvin story in the radio show right I didn't know it was out there somewhere and I still think it's funny that all the kids called the for ticks when he was a child because that X translates as boy who is unable to explain what's wrong is normal white collapsed on Beetlejuice set was it like at the 2 or 3 word name and it be a longest sentence yep I've given this book to many or at least asked many people to seek it out and read it afterwards I would normally ask them how they liked it obviously I got varying responses pretty much no matter what the response was but definitely if the response was just it was okay I would ask if there was anything in the book that they did like in stock out to them as you know I have many favorite jokes in the book and usually they're answer would be one of the jokes from that list I have my mom read the book okay and she said it was okay you know it's just still there it's not for me but you know what I know something you probably said something along the line of being childish so I asked you the question about a fact about a favorite part and she said there was one and I was like what was it and I will just like ready for 1 the standard answers and that's not what I got so I will I will read the excerpt of the joke that my mom said was her favorite part when the infinite improbability Drive was activated For the First Time by Zay 5 in trillion that ended up rescuing forward and Arthur all sorts of other crazy things were happening all over the universe due to its activation one specifically was that 239000 lightly fried eggs materialized in a large wobbly Heap on the famine struck land of POG role in the pants cell system the whole toggle tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some Weeks Later deep cut that's the one that resonated with her that she was a nurse makes sense to being a nurse if it makes sense help cholesterol poisoning is funny oh my gosh that's fantastic I was in some kind of false stunned silence for a moment after she told me it's not that I didn't think the part was funny but like I said it's what I would consider a deep cut not the average person's First Choice so it is now officially on my favorites list okay let's see now that's Favorites 1 I also love it when they say here and I know I think it's Guardian touchscreens to motion sensitivity right so you have to hold really still make sure you don't change stations right which was funny to me in just they can be on touch screens to motion sensitivity and touch screens are horrendously sensitive right if you've ever tried to hand your phone to somebody and say here look at this when they get the phone it's gone just that whatever little it's the side of the screen totally wiped out everything that you had up on the screen so I can only imagine what it would be if it was just in air motion sensitivity manual you can really get a feeling for what is where it's going if you've ever put on one of those VR headsets I don't know if you have the opportunity have you somebody to invent an app that will take your cell phone and no matter what's on the screen divided up into two so you can read email with the screen and the reason okay and not that I want to read email and I'll even give you my purpose so for those tech people out there who want to invent something here's a need my wife Denise does dark horse riding lessons remotely she gives them and she also gets them so she teaches a woman in Washington state and she takes lessons from a woman in California she's got to just sit there and stare at her screen when she's doing these lessons nobody needs to see her there so there's no camera has to be on her right she just needs to be able to see better this person who's riding a horse that sometimes a great distance away from the camera and I was hoping that we could take like Google meet like we're on here and click a button that would turn it into the VR set so she could put the VR set right on her head and watch a zoom meeting or a Google meet meeting full screen like right there not the little computer screen in front of her but just right there in her face and as she turned her head she could see side to side because it would it's only a square on the phone but it's actually going to have more to the left in the right but because Google meet or Zoom believe that you need the camera on you so everybody can participate there are uses for these services that don't need you to be seen you're just doing a remote lesson so even for teachers to see their student if they got 50 students they just need to have if the students could all put on this thing and read all the notes that would be great but I am not a tech guy I can't write an app I don't know how the video process is on a phone but I to know that you can make multiple windows that's right reality kind of where they could see through the images and they could see the images that they're looking at and that that's on its way I mean I put on a headset this Christmas 1 coming with one of the my guess is my nephew came over and I was amazed at how far those of come and the kind of interaction that they give you you pick up the hand controllers and you can see your hand and it's it's amazing you know they almost mimics the exact motion of your hands in front of you and it's quite in-depth quite interactive I mean right there inside whatever image that they've created for you so anyway if you go that far then like you said we're talking about radio stations in the emotions emotions and the waving and all that kind of thing all of those things are effects that they take advantage of with VR and he's talking about it yeah I like it we'll talk about the radio thing and that's that's where that line comes in for all of your other intelligent beings remember folks bang the Rocks together and there were talking about this particular scene in this is where they fought as another line that I really enjoy and he says after she throws the pencil and disrupt his news report he says to her if there's anything more important around here than my ego I wanted shot and it's it's actually during this part of the Is the idea that telephone numbers have a lot to do with this improbability drive right by telephone numbers correct right lovely another thing that I liked the way he does is his I guess I call it environmental humor it's not a joke it's just something that is happening in the background that the whole concept is funny and an example of what I mean is when the heart of gold is under attack by the McCarthy and missiles they need to use the manual controls right and it wasn't just enough to have the manual controls appear but since the ship was brand-new the equivalent of bubble wrap and packing peanuts Spilled Out of the controls that was a nice little touch it's around it's actually a little bit before this that I noticed the first little difference between the way that Adam refers to our reads the book To Us compared to what the book as actually call Dad are you noticed and seems very text to talk about by rows and the difference between a by row and a ballpoint pen to where it in English or British or UK Edition it was a by row exactly so what day were going to go onto the planet Athea and Eddie's matronly personality was stalling them in preventing them from opening the door and zaphod threatened to reprogram the computer with an ax it was said to be the worst threat there could be like seeing blood blood blood add to a person really that's the worst thing he could think of to say at the beginning of the book Arthur says I'll have you hung drawn and quartered with and boiled until you've had enough and then I will do it again it when I finished I'll take a little bit and I will jump on them if I had a guy singing that in front of me or a guy singing blood bud bud I'd be more worried about the guy out of his mind who's going to chop me into little bits and jump on them yep there you go summary part 3 on the planet surface the group splits up Arthur meets slartibartfast a coastline designer and learns that magrathea Bill's Custom planets he also learns that a race of hyper-intelligent pan dimensional beings who eventually take the form of mice built a computer called deep thought deep thought the second most powerful computer of all space and time with program to come up with the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything Deep Thoughts said the answer is 42 the problem is the actual question is not known deep thought designed an even more powerful computer to come up with the question the computer would be the size of a planet and organic life-forms would be part of its computer Matrix the computer would be called the Earth and was destroyed 5 minutes before the program ended all we haven't talked a lot about Marvin this episode so far but here they use him as a Ruble cleaner so when the whale hit and created the crater it didn't fully open up the passageway they had to clear out some debris site and they use Marvin to clean up the debris and he did it very efficiently from what well at least more efficiently than they pawed at more of his prose that I really like and after I read things like this I try and dissected my head and figure out why he wrote things the way he did or why he put in things that he did so it says Arthur was traveling in the car are car with slartibartfast and they come to the portal to the factory floor it is a disc of irritating light that play tricks on the eyes and Arthur guest wrongly didn't like the ultraviolet it would have been enough just to describe the disk of light he had to say that Arthur guesses wrong about it it keeps you off balance its wings in to see if you're paying attention and it never says what it was working, we're going to tell you that Describe the disc of light he had to say that Arthur guesses wrong about it it keeps you off balance its wings in to see if you're paying attention and it never says what it was tell you that Arthur's guessed it was ultraviolet and that he was wrong about it but we're not going to tell you what it was yeah that scene has plagued me a little bit and you talk about the geographic references cuz he mentions at one point and I didn't take a note but that the factory floor is I think it was 12 light second okay a part from wall to wall beside the globe's the side of the globe and they're also talking about the speed of the air car at that time and he says that the aircar is going at three times the speed of sound it would take a long freaking time for slime me to Cross across that 12 light seconds of time to get from one side of that Globe to the other side of the globe so there's definitely a disconnect there in my mind that I can't quite get over but later on they talk about the velocity of the air car being what what are 16 or something entirely too fast so you know I'll give him some slack on that right of the are as in like relatively safe or something like that if the conditions it was enough how fast is going in relation to how fast it should be going another concept that I liked how he said was that the sphere that was 12 light seconds across or whatever gave the impression of infinity better than infinity exactly I do like that quite a bit I will start by saying that I've always really liked slartibartfast yes and I'd also guess that he's a favorite of many readers so how do you feel about him oh I really I really enjoy the conversations that he has and just the whole concept of lardi B is a good one not then it's hard to imagine the story without some foil like that I went to a percent examples of his behavior in this book that paint a different picture of him okay when he first meets Arthur and Arthur tells him that the missiles were shot at him slartibartfast looks at the carcass of the whale in the crater Chuckles slightly and brushes the whole thing off just take the bishop missiles and if it wasn't for the infinite improbability it's not like the missiles always miss if it wasn't for the infinite improbability Drive they'd be done he could care less that wasn't bad enough in his study which was a total mess he explained to Arthur right that due to a malfunction of life support the cleaning staff all died 30000 years ago and the only thing that concerned him about that was who was going to clear away the bodies because they were the cleaning staff and I can't clean anymore and of course he's helping down fugitives so he isn't as good guy but he did threaten you knew he was dangerous right he was going to make him late but then again I got to apply add Adams here because he put that in there as a direct reference I think in my opinion to the the go go friendship means you know I mean who else died in the go go friendship is but the all of this the telephone sanitizer so until they were affected by the things that happen in their real life they don't care too much about those in the right before Arthur gets together with his group of people that's true and forward and they fought their stuck in what they're calling the catalog which is a catalog for a VR simulation of all the different types of Worlds and such that can be built by the magazines VR simulation of all the different types of worlds in such that can be built by the Magazine's there's a previous reference to dolphins being what were they of the second most intelligent beings on Earth but at one point there all of 3 of them are standing in a big huge pile of fish and they say some people like the oddest things I can't stop thinking about well if I were a dolphin that seem like heading strikes it's really kind of interesting they also bring up in the book an area that they really don't discuss in any other place that I'm aware of is that's where is zaphod talks about his experience with you didn't Frank the prior president and he says that they are in fact semi cousins and they discussed at some length or he discussed this at some length of what caused his disconnect between what he is actually doing what she doesn't understand and the results that he's getting what she doesn't it is just it interesting that there is a tie in there while they're all standing around watching all these odd types of planets being projected through them and on and on to this area where there are being held captive who did ranks was a like a freighter captain or something and in Ford broke into it to with 4 to steal candy Heaven they got beamed into prison or something yes exactly and that's that's that's a very interesting story and it's only here in this book that part of the story is actually laid out summary part 4 Arthur was on earth right up until it was destroyed the mice believe the question is in his brain wave patterns they want to buy his brain Arthur refuses all of a sudden The Intergalactic police catch up with see also the mattress and security forces are trying to apprehend Arthur for the mice smart Ebert staff hopes the group Escape From The Madras the insecurities and Marvin help them Escape From The Intergalactic police they all fly away on the heart of gold and zaphod realizes that he is hungry all right I have a park here that I want to talk about and I'm not sure how to to set it up because it's a it's an armchair quarterback or a hindsight is 20-20 type of thing here's where I noticed a missed opportunity is is brilliant and and in no way shape or form am I going to say that I could do a better job cuz he absolutely after my 20th time reading the book I saw something that I was like oh he he missed this he could have put in something that would have closed the loop in the book that he closed in the radio series in the radio series episode where the missiles turn into a whale and petunias do to the you know Stress and Anxiety they had to reveal that somebody bruises their upper arm like here in the book they also did the same thing if you listened all the way through to the post-credits it is said that Arthur bruised his upper right in the radio series they reveal the fact who bruised her arm the book never reveals it the book never never says it's right however there's this part after the mice and after everything when all the alarm bells are going Arthur has to climb selling his brain to the mice and he and the group were trying to escape and the mice rows in their glass transports and swooped in at Arthur right Arthur was transfixed by the Airborne mice and he was frozen in place it is said that trillion grabbed him by the arm and tried to drag him to a door that's a fight in Ford were trying to open right how perfect would it have been if Arthur yelled owl my bruise There's an opportunity to throw in who bruised their arm if you were paying attention and it was missed Left him out of his being transfixed by the mice in their transports and then they could have escaped so that's my there it's my thing that I saw it on my call to make it better there you go I do actually think that there's two other things in this particular part of the book that I thought were interesting is when room fondle and Magic thighs are discussing why they want the computer shut off they say for one thing if it goes about proving that God exists and then gives you God's phone number I don't know if you picked up on that one another phone number yet list phone number cuz I thought it was another episode where are not in another aspect where the phone number in probability would fall into an I thought that was an interesting little add on I think it's only there in the book that they say that because I believe they say address in the radio show calls but I do know I heard it in the boy and the other thing that I think is interesting was in that we talked about this 2 and we talked about the radio show is that in the book party Bart fast explains the first part of the story himself at the end of the chapter it says that that's basically how he summarized it or something like that to say that he explained it and then in the next chapter chapter 27 that's when Arthur is hooked up to the Cento tape where he experiences the second part surround VR part of the see yeah but I think it's hysterical that he basically grabs to naked wires but anyway that tickle me quite a bit it's during this part of the story where Benji and Frankie are talking about what they might do in and how they might come up with an answer that's going to work where they mentioned that it was by merest Lucky chance that they were off the planet on vacation when it was destroyed and that they then were the tools used to get to magrathea they say that magrathea is a gateway back to their own Dimension so they needed to return the Magus Thea in order to return to their Dimension is the way they managed to get themselves out of trouble has to do with the awards that are around the office and write the spoken version they prefer they refer to them as perspex blocks and of course us Americans would know that is plexiglass and that's the way it's written in which I think is interesting the other thing this is way back since but since you're talking about the difference between the English versions of the UK and the US versions there are some additions not very many but some and this is always confused me as a kid and I never understood it and it was only later as an adult that I finally figured it out and it's actually visually less funny to me than he who is in reality than what I had in my mind but there's that whole after guy disappears in a puff of logic he decided to prove black was white desk and got killed at the next zebra crossing right which is a pedestrian Crossing so there are us version sets a pedestrian Crossing rather than zebra Crossing and as a kid listening to zebra Crossing I didn't understand that in the UK The Pedestrian Crossings with the white lines they actually call zebra Crossings see you know I had no idea I just learned something I literally thought they got killed by a herd of me too because they're all kinds of deer crossing signs and I just thought it was a zebra crossing sign but a zebra crossing crossing in the UK so that is another one of those cultural differences that you find out way long after you've established in your mind what it means oh my gosh I never I didn't know that I really did and I always assumed it was a bunch of zebras Ram even though I know I still visualize acai berry it's funnier No means of pedestrian Crossing I still visualize a guy getting run over by a herd of zebra which goes better with this book right right that's interesting is much different than the radio Series in one of the footnotes in the book of the original radio scripts I read that he ended the first season like there was not going to be a season 2 and so that's why he had to do all of this you got Lucky's to find that second season and figure out some way to bring the characters back the second season ended like there was going to be a third season but there wasn't back then since they have a hidden one but he didn't get one back in the 80s so I guess he figured he should end the book leaving an easier opportunity to continue which was they've split up the group in the heart of gold is off with Arthur and trillion and they fight and Ford are stuck back on the asteroid with the person who rules the universe and this is where we learned Marvin's true usefulness to the group yes this is where he does a little of the subtle joke telling with a purpose that I admire so much so when he is describing the police vehicle next to the Heart of Gold he mentions the stencil lettering of various sizes right he said it informed anyone who read it where it was from and what section of the police it belong to and all of that makes perfect sense for police vehicle and we habitually read it on every police vehicle that we see right event Frozen there's lettering where the power feeds are connected right because even though on a vehicle like that there would be power feeds and there would be small lettering telling you with the fees work you wouldn't mention it as part of telling somebody what was written on a police vehicle unless it was very important to the plot and Marvin was going to save the day by talking the police vehicle to death literally right exactly so the police vehicle commits suicide after speaking with him and they were keeping the cops alive who could not breathe the atmosphere at magrathea that's how they were able to get away from the cops and everybody is gay and of course the Security force was taken out by slartibartfast with the perspex perspex blocks Award right end of it again they refer to the device at the cops are using to speak to the group as a Haylor and in the book it's referred to as a bull horn again another American English reading I didn't do the read along with the audio book but I've not seen Halo versus bullhorn yep that's that's in there the right at the end of the books so this is one of the other interesting things that I found out during this part of the episode and we talked about this before a little bit about the passage of time and in the book here earlier in the book they clearly all go to sleep right one. Everybody I think one of them stays up all night that's 100% correct right there is actually the only one who falls cording to what goes on there because they both get up early in and zaphod are working on calculations and forward is wandering around the ship or something I'm not sure exactly what but it's when they wake up or actually when Arthur wakes up is when trillion makes the comment that it's Dawn or it's about to be Dawn on Magothy exit and I know we've had the discussion about that and that's just a reference to time having passed so in my mind that means it's Friday when they get to magrathea but least I learn the Earth Friday we're not sure how many days are are in the Universal calendar how far how long they are and that's what comes up here right at the end I don't know if you caught this or not but as they are leaving the planet we are told that sun the Sun is setting again cuz it was setting I don't know I'm sorry no no no no no no I said that wrong that we are told that it is morning that the sun is rising right but it was setting when slartibartfast met Arthur and brought him into the planet and they did everything with the mice and then they came out and when they came out they mention that the sudden that it was the this morning that the sun was Rising on the plants book ends very abruptly with a throwaway line of safe I just going let's all have dinner at the restaurant at the end of the universe just out of the blue with no context and it's very disjointed it is jarring is deadline that he was they sent an assistant or somebody to his house to stand over his shoulder and on a particular day at a particular time he was going to take the manuscript for publication guardless of where he was found about right so he had to end it so that's why it just seems to be going on and on and then and then and then there's this throw away line that doesn't really mean anything it sets up the name of the sequel of the it does but it certainly doesn't doesn't start where it ended correct all right look at this we have come to the end of the principal or absolutely next podcast will be about the 1980s infocom text Adventure game and if you want to check it out and play it for yourself in advance there is a 30th Anniversary Edition available on the BBC website so say goodbye Bryan all right Jeff I'll just say goodbye by hey Brian how you doing today I'm doing great Jeff how are you well I feel like I have deja vu didn't we just covered this material all over again yeah you know what and I and I can't stop thinking about Rula lenska and Robert Heinlein really how do they go together really well I am sure that Rula lenska never met Robert Heinlein but we didn't really talk about this in the last episode I think but the voices for the lintel has yes was read by Rula lenska correct and that was mentioned in the audio and I wonder did you