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In memory of the great Douglas Adams, who gave us such great lines as
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear.
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
So everyone share your favourite bits of the 'inaccurately named trilogy of five' Hitchikers books, or Dirk Gently, or just general Adams stuff.
One of my all time favourite writers, I spent so much time around UCSB when my missus was attending I am sad he died so early, we might have had a chat one day.
One of my favourite stories of his was about when he was sat at a table in a train station and some bloke started eating his biscuits?
I shall refrain from typing it out if you have heard it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: No matter, a quick google of douglas adams cookies showed it up.
This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong.I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table.I want you to picture the scene. It's very important that you get this very clear in your mind.
Here's the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There's a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.
It didn't look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.
Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies. You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?
In the end I thought, nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice . . ." I mean, it doesn't really work. We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away.
Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.
The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line!
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/05/25 13:03:11
We are arming Syrian rebels who support ISIS, who is fighting Iran, who is fighting Iraq who we also support against ISIS, while fighting Kurds who we support while they are fighting Syrian rebels.
