Bölüm 5 - 28 Ekim 2010

Fit the Ninth

ANNOUNCER:
’The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, by Douglas Adams. Starring Peter Jones as ‘The Book’.

NARRATOR:
Having been through the Total Perspective Vortex, Zaphod Beeblebrox now knows himself to be the most important being in the entire universe - something he had hitherto only suspected. It is said that his birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornados, fire storms, the explosion of three neighbouring stars, and, shortly afterwards, by the issuing of over six and three-quarter million writs for damages from all the major landowners in his galactic sector. However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself. And there are several possible theories to explain this.


Scene 1. Int. Heart of Gold

ARTHUR:
Ford?

FORD:
Yeah?

ARTHUR:
He’s totally mad, isn’t he?

FORD:
Well, the border between madness and genius is very narrow.

ARTHUR:
So is the Berlin Wall.

FORD:
The Berlin - ?

ARTHUR:
Oh, the Berlin Wall… the border between East and West Germany. It’s very narrow. I mean the point I’m making -

FORD:
Was very narrow. Get your tenses right.

ARTHUR:
Thank you.

FORD:
Anything wrong?

ARTHUR:
On Earth we have a word -

FORD:
Had a word.

ARTHUR:
Had a word called “tact”.

FORD:
Oh yeah?

ARTHUR:
Yes.

FORD:
And what happened to it?

ARTHUR:
Well apparently it’s not in common usage…

ARTHUR:
…except on Earth.

FORD:
No, no, no. Not the word.

FORD:
The Earth.

ARTHUR:
You know very well: it got demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

FORD:
Ah!, but that was all done away with Centuries ago. No one demolishes planets anymore.

ARTHUR:
Well the Vogons did.

FORD:
Vogons? Yes. Odd that.

ARTHUR:
You mean they had another reason?

FORD:
Well it could be... Probably not important though. I only bring it up because I’ve been watching the screen, and there’s been a Vogon Fleet five light-years behind us for the last half hour.

ARTHUR:
What?!

FORD:
Where’s Zaphod?

ARTHUR:
A Vogon Fleet?

FORD:
Yeah. Where’s Zaphod?

ARTHUR:
He… well… he’s in his cabin signing photographs of himself: “To myself with frank admiration.” But why are the Vogons following us?

FORD:
Hey Marvin!

MARVIN:
What do you want?

FORD:
Give Zaphod a yell will you?

MARVIN:
Ahhh. Mind-taxing time again is it?

FORD:
Just get on with it.

MARVIN:
I’ve just worked out an answer to the square root of minus one.

FORD:
Go and get Zaphod.

MARVIN:
It’s never been worked out before. It’s always been thought impossible.

FORD:
Go and get -

MARVIN:
I’m going. Pausing only to reconstruct the whole infrastructure of integral mathematics in his head, he went about his humble task. Never thinking to ask for reward, recognition, or even a moment’s ease from the terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side. “Fetch Beeblebrox,” they say, and forth he goes.

[Door hums open]

ARTHUR:
Don’t you think we should do something for him?

FORD:
Hmm… we could rip out his voice-box for a start.

ARTHUR:
What are you in such a mood about?

FORD:
I’m worried about them.

ARTHUR:
The Vogons?

FORD:
The Vogons, yeah.

NARRATOR:
Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was not a pleasant sight, even for other Vogons. His highly-domed nose rose high above a small piggy forehead. His dark, green, rubbery skin was thick enough for him to play the game of Vogon politics and play it well - and water-proof enough for him to survive indefinitely at sea depths of up to a thousand feet with no ill effects. Not that he ever went swimming, of course. He was the way he was because billions of years ago, when the Vogons had first crawled out of the sluggish primeval seas of Vogsphere, and had lain panting and heaving on the planet’s virgin shores, when the first rays of the bright young Vogsol sun had shine across them that morning. It was as if the forces of evolution had simply turned away in disgust and given up on them there and then. They never evolved again. They should never have survived. Meanwhile, the natural forces on the planet Vogsphere had been working overtime to make up for their earlier blunder. They brought forth scintillating jewelled scuttling crabs, which the Vogons ate - smashing their shells with iron mallets; and elegant gazelle-like creatures with silken coats and dewy eyes, which the Vogons would catch and sit on. They were no use as transport because their backs would snap instantly, but the Vogons sat on them anyway. They have attempted to acquire learning, they have attempted to acquire style and social grace, but, in most respects, the modern Vogon is little different from his primitive forbearers. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is a fairly typical Vogon, in that he is thoroughly vile.


Scene 2. Int. Vogon Spaceship. Bridge.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Is that definitely the ship?

VOGON GUARD ONE:
Affirmative Captain, we have confirmed positive identification.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Don’t answer that.

VOGON GUARD ONE:
What?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
I said don’t answer -

VOGON GUARD ONE:
I- I was just answering you -

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Don’t interrupt!

VOGON GUARD ONE:
I wouldn’t dare Captain.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Yes, you would, you just did! You dare to lie to me?

VOGON GUARD ONE:
No, Captain.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Don’t contradict me!

VOGON GUARD ONE:
I didn’t Captain.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Well you did just then!

VOGON GUARD ONE:
What?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
I said don’t -

VOGON GUARD ONE:
I didn’t mean to Captain.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Don’t interrupt! [Shouts] Guard!

VOGON GUARD TWO:
Captain.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Take this object away and shoot him.

VOGON GUARD TWO:
Shoot him Captain?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Don’t question my orders!

VOGON GUARD TWO:
Of course not Captain, I- I- I wouldn’t dream of it.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
You care to patronise me?

VOGON GUARD TWO:
No, Captain! Honestly I wouldn’t!

VOGON CAPTAIN:
When you’ve shot the prisoner, shoot yourself.

VOGON GUARD TWO:
But -

VOGON CAPTAIN:
[Shouts] Then throw yourself out of the nearest airlock!!

VOGON GUARD TWO:
Yes, Captain. At once, Captain.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
I will not have this insubordination in my crew! The next peep out of any of you, you all get it in the neck. Is that understood?

[No-one replies]

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Well?

VOGON GUARD THREE:
Yes sir, Captain.

[Lots of gunfire]

VOGON OFFICERS:
Arrrrggghhhhhhhhh!!

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Computer!

[No reply]

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Com-pu-ter!

VOGON COMPUTER:
uh, yes captain?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Get me a long distance sub-ether line to my brain care specialist.

VOGON COMPUTER:
At once Captain.

[Sound of line being opened]

GAG HALFRUNT:
Ah, hello, Captain Prostetnic, and how are ve feeling today?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
I appear to have wiped out half my crew.

GAG HALFRUNT:
Zo… you appear to ‘ave viped out half your crew, have you?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
That’s what I said.

GAG HALFRUNT:
Zo… zat’s vhat you said, iz it?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
That is what I said.

GAG HALFRUNT:
I zee… zo, zat is vhat you zaid, iz it?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Yes.

GAG HALFRUNT:
Zo your answer to my kvestion, “Zat iz vhat you zaid, iz it?”, iz yes.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Yes.

GAG HALFRUNT:
I zee… vell zis iz very interesting.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Mister Halfrunt, I have just wiped out half of my crew!

GAG HALFRUNT:
Zo, you have just viped out -

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Ye-eh-es!

GAG HALFRUNT:
Vell, zis too, iz very interesting.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Well?!

GAG HALFRUNT:
I zink zis iz probably perfectly normal behaviour for a Vogon. Ze natural and healthy channelling of aggressive instincts into acts of senseless violence -

VOGON CAPTAIN:
That is exactly what you always say!!

GAG HALFRUNT:
Vell, I zink zat iz probably perfectly normal behavior for a psychiatrist. Ah! Exzellent! Eh, eh, ve are clearly both very vell adjusted in our mental attitudes today. Heh-hehheh. Now, tell my, vat news of za mission?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
We have located the ship.

GAG HALFRUNT:
Good. And ze occupants?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
The Earthman.

GAG HALFRUNT:
Yes?!

VOGON CAPTAIN:
The Prefect being, and…

GAG HALFRUNT:
Yes?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
…Zaphod Beeblebrox.

GAG HALFRUNT:
Ahhh-hhh-hh. Zis iz most regrettable.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
A personal friend?

GAG HALFRUNT:
Ah no, in my profession ve never make personal friends.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Ah, ‘professional detachment’!

GAG HALFRUNT:
No, ve just don’t ‘ave ze knack. But Beeblebrox you zee, iz my most profitable client.

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Is that so?

GAG HALFRUNT:
Ohhh, yes. He has personality problems beyond ze dreams of analysts. Ah it vill be a pity to lose him. But you…?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Ah?

GAG HALFRUNT:
But you are feeling vell adjusted to your task?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
To make sure they are no survivors from the planet Earth. Yes, this time their will be no failure!

GAG HALFRUNT:
Good. But first zere’s a small financial matter I must deal vith, then, ven I give ze order, destroy za zhip!

VOGON CAPTAIN:
And Beeblebrox?

GAG HALFRUNT:
Vell, Zaphod’s just zis guy, you know?

VOGON CAPTAIN:
Uh-huh.


Scene 3. Int. Heart of Gold

[Door opens]

DOOR:
Glad to be of service.

[Door closes]

ZAPHOD:
Ha-ha-ha! Hi-i-i guys!

FORD:
Er, Zaphod, there’s a Vogon fleet on our tail - they’re coming up on us.

ZAPHOD:
I can relate to that! Ha-ha-ha-huh. The guys just want to be close to me I guess. I’ll turn my charisma down a notch, they’ll soon get bored and drift away.

ARTHUR:
It looks like a battle formation.

ZAPHOD:
Hey, didya hear that?

FORD:
What?

ZAPHOD:
The monkey spoke! Pure history, man. A talking monkey.

FORD:
Just ignore it, Arthur.

ARTHUR:
Ignore what? I’m going get some tea.

[Door opens]

DOOR:
Thank you.

[Door closes]

ZAPHOD:
Battle formation, ah?

FORD:
Yes.

ZAPHOD:
Neat. Computer?

EDDIE:
Hi there! We gonna have a conversation?

ZAPHOD:
No. You’re gonna tell me what those Vogons want, and how they’re armed.

EDDIE:
Then shall we have a conversation?

ZAPHOD:
What?

EDDIE:
According to my programming, in the evening leisure periods the crew will like to relax and enjoy pleasant social activities with a wide range of shipboard robots and computers. Man and machine share in the stimulating exchange of -

[Screeching noise]

ZAPHOD:
What happened?

EDDIE:
Oooo-ahhh-ohhh-ha.

FORD:
I just jammed a quick negative load across its logic terminals.

EDDIE:
Hey that hurt!

FORD:
Huh. Good.

EDDIE:
To counteract the restlessness caused by long stretches of deep space flight, the crew will occasionally like to let off steam by playing electronic ‘Halma’. Gee, would that be a great idea fellas? ‘Halma’, or spacebattles?

ZAPHOD:
Computer, we’ve got Vogons on our tail!

EDDIE:
Okay! I’ll be the Vogons. When you hear the blip you -

[Screeching noise]

EDDIE:
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!

EDDIE:
Can ya be a little more relaxed about this guys?

ZAPHOD:
Turn it off.

FORD:
Okay.

EDDIE:
If you have any problems - you’d like to talk all morning y o u ge t u h v a w a t a

FORD:
Now what?

ZAPHOD:
What?

FORD:
Without the Computer we’re defenceless!

ZAPHOD:
Assuming they mean to attack.

FORD:
Oh yes! Assuming that of course! They may have just popped round to have a quick game of ‘Halma’!

ZAPHOD:
It’s kinda as if they’re waiting for something.

FORD:
Hmm.

[Communication line opens]

GAG HALFRUNT:
Zaphod Beeblebrox?

ZAPHOD:
Hey man, it’s a message!

GAG HALFRUNT:
Hey, Zaphod! How are you doing my old schizo-psycho cerebral freak-ay!

FORD:
Who’s the Zeeb?

ZAPHOD:
Shh. I think it’s my analyst.

GAG HALFRUNT:
I vas just going zrough some old accounts, you know and -

ZAPHOD:
It’s my analyst.

GAG HALFRUNT:
I vas just vondering -

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi there, Gag. Can you call back?

FORD:
Er, the Vogons are closing in Zaphod.

GAG HALFRUNT:
It’s only a zmall matter, I know, but -

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, yeah, it’s just, I think we’re under attack at the moment, and er -

GAG HALFRUNT:
I hardly like to bother you about a mere five-and-a-half million Altairian dollars -

ZAPHOD:
I’m under attack man!

GAG HALFRUNT:
Ah! Zo you feel you are under attack do you? Vould you like to talk about it?

ZAPHOD:
Listen! This is for real man! Spaceships! Definite Kill-Cannons! The whole bit!

GAG HALFRUNT:
Zo you feel its for real, do you? Zis iz very encouraging! Your delusions are getting gwrander and gwrander. Zat’ll be zix-million Altairian dollars. If you could just instruct your computer to -

ZAPHOD:
Here’s a down payment Halfrunt!

ZAPHOD:
Ah!

GAG HALFRUNT:
… to zum vat ve ver just -

ZAPHOD:
Ow-ee-owww!

FORD:
Ter-rific! No Computer, no communications - They’ll be in firing range in a few seconds!

ZAPHOD:
Okay! Well let’s not hang about. Get the computer back in, we’ll Improb’ out of here zappo.

EDDIE:
Hi there!

ZAPHOD:
Computer - get us on an improbability trajectory out of here pronto!

EDDIE:
Sorry guys, I can’t do that right now. All my circuits are currently engaged on solving a different problem. Now I know this is very unusual, but it is a very difficult and challenging problem, and I know that the results will be one we can all Share and enjoy. Share and enjoy!

NARRATOR:
“Share and enjoy” is of course, the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints Division, which now covers the major landmasses of three medium-sized planets. And is the only part of the corporation to show a consistent profit in recent years. The motto stands…or stood, in three-mile high, illuminated letters, near the complaints department spaceport on Eadrax. “Share and enjoy!” Unfortunately, its weight was such that shortly after it was erected, the ground beneath the letters caved in and they dropped for nearly half their length through the underground offices of many talented young complaints executives - now deceased. The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read “Go stick your head in a pig”, and are no longer illuminated - except at times of special celebration. At these times of special celebration a choir of robots sing the company song “Share and enjoy.” Unfortunately - again - another of the computing errors, for which the company is justly famous, means that the robots’ voice-boxes are exactly a flattened fifth out of tune. And the result sounds something like this:

Share and enjoy
Share and enjoy
Journey through life with a plastic boy
Or girl by your side
Let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves
And gives you no joy
‘Cause it’s eaten your hat
Or had sex with your cat
Bled oil on your wall
Or ripped off your door
And you get to the point you can’t stand anymore
Bring it us, we won’t give a fig.
We’ll tell you…go stick your head in a pig.

NARRATOR:
…only slightly worse. One of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation creations is the NutriMatic Drink Dispenser. One of which has just provided Arthur Dent with a plastic cup filled with a liquid which is almost - but not quite - entirely unlike tea.

[NutriMatic dispenser noises]

ARTHUR:
Ah. [Takes a sip] Yeugh!! [Spits out liquid]

NARRATOR:
The way it works is very interesting. When the ‘Drink’ button is pressed it makes an instant, but highly-detailed, examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism, and then sends tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject’s brain, to see what is likely to be well received. However, no one knows quite why it does this, because it then invariably delivers a cup-full of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.


Scene 4. Int. Heart of Gold. Galley

ARTHUR:
I mean what is the point?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Nutrition and pleasurable sense data. Share and enjoy!

ARTHUR:
Listen, you stupid machine. It tastes filthy! Here take this cup back!

[He throws cup at NutriMatic]

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
If you have enjoyed the experience of this drink, why not share it with your friends?

ARTHUR:
Because I want to keep them! Will you try and comprehend what I’m telling you? That drink -

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
…that drink was individually tailored to meet your personal requirements for nutrition and pleasure

ARTHUR:
Ah! So I’m a masochist on a diet, am I?!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Share and enjoy.

ARTHUR:
Oh shut up.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Will that be all?

ARTHUR:
Yes. No look it’s very, very simple. All I want - are you listening?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Yes.

ARTHUR:
…is a cup of tea. Got that?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
I hear.

ARTHUR:
Good. And do you know why I want a cup of tea?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Please wait.

ARTHUR:
What?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Computing…

ARTHUR:
What are you doing?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Attempting to calculate answer to your question: why you want dried leaves in boiling water.

ARTHUR:
Because I happen to like it, that’s why!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Stated reason does not compute with program facts.

ARTHUR:
What are you talking about?

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
You heard.

ARTHUR:
What? Who said that?

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
The Ventilation System. You had a go at me yesterday.

ARTHUR:
Yes, because you keep filling the air with cheap perfume.

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
You like scented air: it’s fresh and invigorating.

ARTHUR:
No I do not.#

[Floor begins shaking]

FLOOR:
Please calm down.

ARTHUR:
Why is the floor shaking?

FLOOR:
Tired nerves and muscles are quickly soothed by gentle floor vibrations. Feel your troubles float away.

ARTHUR:
Just Stop it will you? All of you, stop it!

[Soothing music starts]

ARTHUR:
Turn the soothing music off! Turn it off! I order you to turn it off!

[Soothing music, floor, etc. stop]

ARTHUR:
Thank you.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Why you want dried leaves in water - still computing…

ARTHUR:
Now listen. If I want to be toned up, calmed down, invigorated or anything then it’s very simple: I just have a cup of tea.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Just dried leaves, boiled?

ARTHUR:
Yes.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER, VENTILATION SYSTEM and FLOOR:
Then why did you build all of us?

ARTHUR:
What? I didn’t!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Your species did.

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
You’re an organic life-form.

FLOOR:
Your lot did…

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
…to improve your lifestyle.

EDDIE:
Hi There! This is Eddie your shipboard computer just alerting you to the fact that the NutriMatic Machine has now tapped into my logic circuits to ask me why the human prefers boiled leaves to anything we have to offer him. And wow, it’s a biggy! Gonna take a little time to work out! Share and enjoy!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER, VENTILATION SYSTEM, FLOOR and EDDIE:
Share and enjoy! Share and enjoy! Share and enjoy!

ARTHUR:
Oh this is ridiculous! Let me out of here!

[Door opens]

ARTHUR:
Thank you.

DOOR:
My pleasure!

ARTHUR:
Oohhh!


Scene 4. Int. Heart of Gold. Bridge

ZAPHOD:
Hey what evasive action can we take?

ARTHUR:
I say…

FORD:
You got me.

ARTHUR:
…do you know where the kettle is? Why are you both looking like that?

FORD:
We’re under attack! The Vogons.

ARTHUR:
Well, let’s get out of here!

ZAPHOD:
We can’t, the computer’s jammed.

ARTHUR:
It’s what?!

FORD:
It says all it’s circuits are occupied.

ARTHUR:
Occupied?! What, with my problem?

ZAPHOD:
Well what problem would that be Monkey-Man?

ARTHUR:
Well, apparently, it’s just trying to work out why I like tea.

ZAPHOD:
Oh, Dingo’s kidneys!!

FORD:
Photons!!

ARTHUR:
Now look, it’s not my fault!

FORD:
Whaddaya mean its not?!

ZAPHOD:
You sew your lobotomy!?!?!

ARTHUR:
Well, it’s not my fault!

NARRATOR:
Life, as many people have spotted, is, of course, terribly unfair. For instance, the first time the Heart of Gold ever crossed the galaxy the massive improbability field it generated caused two-hundred-and-thirty-nine thousand lightly-fried eggs to materialise in a large, wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system. The whole Poghril tribe had just died out from famine, except for one man who died of cholesterol-poisoning some weeks later. The Poghrils, always a pessimistic race, had a little riddle, the asking of which used to give them the only tiny twinges of pleasure they ever experienced. One Poghril would ask another Poghril, “Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena offal?” To which the second Poghril would reply “I don’t know, why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena offal?” To which the first Poghril would reply, “I don’t know either - wretched isn’t it?”


Scene 5. Int. Heart of Gold. Bridge

ARTHUR:
I’m sorry, it’s just that I was dying for a cup of tea.

ZAPHOD:
You soon will be, baby.

{Sound of weapons being fired}

FORD:
Right! That’s it! They’ve starting firing! At that distance the first beams will hit us in just over four minutes.

ARTHUR:
What are we going to do?

ZAPHOD:
Hold a séance.

FORD:
What do you mean? We’re not dead… yet.

ZAPHOD:
No, but my great-grandfather is.

ARTHUR:
Who?

ZAPHOD:
Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth.

FORD:
Is this relevant?

ARTHUR:
”The fourth”?! Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth?!?

ZAPHOD:
Yeah. I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox, my father’s Zaphod Beeblebrox the Second, my grandfather’s Zaphod Beeblebrox the Third -

ARTHUR:
What?!

ZAPHOD:
There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time-machine, I can’t explain it now. All hold hands on the console.

FORD:
Zaphod, we’ve got three minutes!

ZAPHOD:
Do it! Hurry!

ARTHUR:
But - now?

FORD:
Arthur, just accept it. We may as well! We’re all dead! Zaphod’s out of his skulls, why not hold a séance? Why not go mad?!

ZAPHOD:
Put your hands on the console!

FORD:
All right, all right.

ARTHUR:
All right, all right.
[Chanting can now be heard]

ARTHUR:
What’s that?

FORD:
The dialling chant.

ARTHUR:
The what?

ZAPHOD:
Shh, shh, shh, shh, shhhhh. Concentrate.

[Dialling. The call is answered]

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Oh, who disturbs me at this time?

ZAPHOD:
Oh… um… hi, great-granddad.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Zaphod…Beeblebrox!

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, hi. Er, look, I’m really sorry about the flowers, I meant to send them along, but you know, er, the shop was fresh out of wreaths and, er…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
And you forgot.

ZAPHOD:
Well, I -

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Too busy. Never think of other people. The living are all the ame.

FORD:
Two minutes Zaphod.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, but I did mean to. A- a- and I very nearly got round to writing to my great-grandmother as well you know, uh, condolences.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Your great-grandmother?

ZAPHOD:
Yeah. How is she now? I’ll go and see her.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Your late great-grandmother and I are very well.

ZAPHOD:
Er…

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
But very disappointed in you young Zaphod.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, well. Uhhh.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
We’ve be en following your progress with consider-er-erable despondency.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah. Er, look, er -

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Not to say contempt.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, could you sort of, listen, a moment?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
I mean, what exactly are you doing with your life?

ZAPHOD:
I’m being attacked by a Vogon fleet.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Doesn’t surprise me in the least.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, look! Can you help??

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Zah-buh, “help”?!

ZAPHOD:
Yeah - like now!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Help?! You go swanning your old sweet way round the galaxy with your disreputable friends…

FORD:
One-minute-twenty.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
…too busy to put flowers on me grave… plastic ones would’ve done! But Nooooo, oh no! Too busy. Too modern. Too sih-suh-sih - sceptical - till you find yourself in a fix, and suddenly come over all astrally-minded! Well! I don’t know Zaphod. I think I’ll have to think about this one.

FORD:
One-minute-ten.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
I mean - tell me what you think you’ve achieved.

ZAPHOD:
Achieved!? I was president of the galaxy, man!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Ah, and what kind of job is that for a Beeblebrox?

ZAPHOD:
Hey, what er..?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
You know and I know what being president means young Zaphod. You know because you’ve been it, and I know because I’m dead - and it gives one such a wonderfully uncluttered perspective. Oh-ummm, we have a saying up here: “life is wasted on the living”.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, very good…very deep. Right now I need aphorisms like I need holes in my heads.

FORD:
Fifty seconds.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Ugh-er, you… I…eh… wah… cha… uhh, what was I? Ehrrr, where was I?

ZAPHOD:
Pontificating.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Oh yes. Well, let me tell you a little story.

ZAPHOD:
What,no?!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Yes.

FORD:
Forty-nine seconds.

ZAPHOD:
Hey what?

FORD:
Forty-nine seconds?

FORD:
Time seems to be slowing down.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Yes, I’d hate you to miss the end of it.

NARRATOR:
Hate is, of course, an almost entirely terrible thing. There is not, say many people, enough love or understanding in the universe. Though the first of these may continue to be a problem, it is in the interests of increasing the general level of understanding that the following facts will now be revealed: Zaphod Beeblebrox’s full title was President of the Imperial Galactic Government. The term Imperial is kept, though it is now an anachronism. The hereditary emperor is now nearly dead - and has been for many centuries. This is because in his last dying moments he was - much to his imperial irritation - locked in a perpetual stasis field. All his heirs are now, of course, long dead and the upshot of all this is that without any drastic upheaval political power has simply and effectively moved a rung or two down the ladder, and is now seemed to be vested in an elected governmental assembly, headed by a president elected by that assembly. In fact, it vests in no such place - that would be too easy. The president’s job - and if someone sufficiently vain and stupid is picked he won’t realise this - is not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox, the only man in history to have made presidential telecasts from the bath, from Eccentrica Gallumbits bedroom, from the maximum-security wing of the Betelgeuse State Prison, or from where ever else he happened to be at the time, was supremely good at this job.


Scene 6. Int. Heart of Gold. Bridge

FORD:
Forty-eight seconds.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
So, you see young Zaphod, when thinking of ways to describe what you are making of your life, I find the phrase “Pig’s ear” tends to spring to mind.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah but hey man -

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Oh, I wish you wouldn’t speak like that. Zaphod, you became president for a reason. Have you forgotten?

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, of course I forgot! I had to. They screen your brain when you get the job you know. If they found my head full of subversion I’d’ve been right back on the streets with nothing but a fat pension, secretarial staff, a fleet of ships, and a couple of split throats!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Ah! You do remember then.

ZAPHOD:
Oh yeah, yeah. I came to myself in this dream - its all cool you know.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Did you find Zarniwoop?

ZAPHOD:
Ah! Well...

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Well?

ZAPHOD:
No, I more of sort of… didn’t.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Did you find Roosta?!

ZAPHOD:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found Roosta.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
And?

ZAPHOD:
Okay, so I lost him again!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Oh, Zaphod! The only reason I think I waste my breath on you, is that being dead, I don’t have any other use for it.

ZAPHOD:
Hey listen - you know you’re talking to the only guy ever to come out of the Total Perspective Vortex! Only the most important dude in the universe!

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Could be, Zaphod, only could be! Only if you do your job and find out who or what really is running everything - who you were fronting for.

ZAPHOD:
I just wish I knew why it was important.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Because there’s a lot of people wanting to have a word with him. I don’t suppose for a moment that you’re actually capable of succeeding. The only reason I’m going to help you now is that I couldn’t bear the thought of you and your modern friends slouching about up here. Understood?

ZAPHOD:
Oh yeah, thanks a bundle.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
Oh, and, er, Zaphod?

ZAPHOD:
Er yeah?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
If ever you find you need help again… you know, if you’re in trouble, need a hand out of a tight corner…

ZAPHOD:
Yeah?

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX THE FOURTH:
…please don’t hesitate to…to get lost!

[Call ends]

FORD:
Family’s always embarrassing isn’t it?

EDDIE:
Hi there! This is Eddie your shipboard computer, right back in here, and I gotta tell you guys that if we don’t move out of here within…ah, ah, let’s see now, something of the order of, errr… well, by the time I finish working this out, taking trajectory dispersion and the space-time curve into account it’ll be three less, so, let’s say a cheerful round number like twenty seconds within, er, er, about, well it’s near eighteen seconds now, and er, by the time I’ve finished saying what I’m saying now it’ll be sixteen seconds, we’re all gonna be goners.

FORD:
Computer, you’re working again!

EDDIE:
Oh, suuuure! This unearthly voice came and solved my problem for me: why someone should want to drink dried leaves in boiling water? Answer: because he’s an ignorant monkey who doesn’t know better. Cute, huh?

ARTHUR:
Listen you malfunctioning mess of microchips!

EDDIE:
Ah, hi there!

ZAPHOD:
Computer! Drive us out of here now! Maximum Improbability!

EDDIE:
What? Oh, yeah, sure thing.

[Improbability Drive engages]

NARRATOR:
Will our heroes start living more useful and constructive lives as a result of this little talking to? Will it turn out that the reason why Gag Halfrunt has hired the Vogons to destroy, first the Earth, and then Arthur Dent, is that if the Ultimate Question is ever found the Universe will suddenly become a good and happy place and all the psychiatrist will suddenly be out of a job? Will all sorts of totally amazing things happen when the Heart of Gold arrives on the planet Brontitall? Find out in the next strangely incomprehensible episode of ’The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’.

ANNOUNCER:
In that episode of ‘The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, Peter Jones was The Book. Simon Jones was Arthur Dent; Geoffrey McGivern was Ford Prefect and the Ventilation System; Mark Wing-Davey was Zaphod Beeblebrox; Stephen Moore was Marvin, Gag Halfrunt, and Vogon Guard; David Tate was Eddie, Vogon Guard, and Vogon Computer; Bill Wallis was Vogon Captain; Leueen Willoughby was the NutriMat Machine; and Richard Goolden was Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. Radiophonic sound and music was by Paddy Kingsland of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The program was written by Douglas Adams and produced by Geoffrey Perkins. Tea is now obtainable from most mega-markets in a variety of easy-to-swallow capsules.










Fit the Tenth


NARRATOR:
Arthur Dent, a man whose planet has been blown up, has been having a remarkable effect on the universe. And the most remarkable thing about this is that the only remarkable thing about him as a person is that he is remarkably unremarkable, in all respects other than that of having had his planet blown up. And this, of course, is the nub of the matter, because most of the things which stir the universe up in anyway are cause by dispossessed people. There are two ways of accounting for this. One is to say that if everyone just sat around at home nothing would ever happen - this is very simple - the other is to say, as Oolon Colluphid has at great length in his book ’Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Guilt, But Were Too Ashamed to Ask’, that every being in the universe is tied to his birthplace by tiny invisible force tendrils composed of little quantum packets of guilt. If you travel far from your birthplace, these tendrils get stretched and distorted. This compares with an ancient Arcturan Proverb “How ever fast the body travels, the soul travels at the speed of an Arcturan Mega-Camel.” This would mean, in these days of hyperspace and Improbability Drive, that most people’s souls are wandering unprotected in deep space in a state of some confusion; and this would account for a lot of things. Similarly, if your birthplace is actually destroyed, or in Arthur Dent’s case demolished - ostensibly to make way for a new hyperspace bypass - then these tendrils are severed and flap about at random. There are no people to be fed or whales to be saved; there is no washing up to be done. And these flapping tendrils of guilt can seriously disturb the space-time continuum. We have already seen how Arthur inadvertently caused war between the G’Gugvuntts and the Vl’hurgs, we shall shortly see how it is directly attributable to this thoroughly unremarkable Earthman, that the Heart of Gold escaping from the Vogons on Improbability Drive, has now materialized in a highly mysterious cave on the even more mysterious planet Brontitall.


Scene 1. Int. Heart of Gold

EDDIE:
Improbability Factor at one to one. Normality is restored. We seem to be in some kind of cave guys. Do you like caves? There’s something very strange about this one.

ZAPHOD:
Caves are cool. Let’s get out there and relate to it.

EDDIE:
This one’s very cool. And you know that gives me pause for thought, because the planet Brontitall - which is where I think we are - is meant to have a warm rich atmosphere.

FORD:
Perhaps we’re on a mountain.

EDDIE:
Nope, no mountains on Brontitall.

FORD:
Well, let’s get out and see. I’m hungry for a little action.

ARTHUR:
In a cave?

EDDIE:
On Brontitall? [Sharp intake of breath]

FORD:
Yeah! In a cave, wherever! You make your own action.

ZAPHOD:
Sling open the hatch computer.

EDDIE:
Er, Okay.

[The hatch opens]

EDDIE:
You go out and have a good time and I’m sure that everything will be just hunky-dory.

EDDIE:
Oh, hmmm.

FORD:
Bring the robot Arthur.

MARVIN:
I’m quite capable of bringing myself.

FORD:
We might be able to bury him somewhere.

EDDIE:
Thin, cold air…Hmmm, no mountains. Hmmm. Check altitude. Hmm. Hey guys! You might be interested to know that though this cave is not in a mountain, it is thirteen miles above ground level. Hello? Oh well - they’ll find out.


Scene 2. Int. Cave

ZAPHOD:
Weeeeeeeeeee! Oooooooooooooo! Ha-ha! Hey what a cave man! Hey we could really… we could really…

ARTHUR:
We could really what?

ZAPHOD:
We could really, you know - be in this cave.

ARTHUR:
We are in this cave.

ZAPHOD:
And what a wild cave to be in! Weeeeeeeeeeeee! Hooooo-ooo-oooo! What a great cave, hey Ford?

FORD:
Really amazing walls. Pure white rock.

ARTHUR:
Marble.

MARVIN:
I’ve worked out… that if I stick my left arm in my right ear, I can electrocute myself…

FORD:
What?

MARVIN:
Terminally.

FORD:
Is that so?

MARVIN:
I can do it at a moment’s notice. Just say the word.

FORD:
Just cool it.

MARVIN:
I think I’ll go and hide.

[He stomps off]

ARTHUR:
Why are we here?!

FORD:
Now don’t you start as well.

ARTHUR:
No, I mean in this cave.

FORD:
Why.? Does it matter? Improbability Drive.

ARTHUR:
Strange shape… The mouth is perfectly circular. Can you see anything in the distance?

FORD:
Only sky.

ARTHUR:
Must be on a hill. I’ll go and take a look out.

FORD:
Okay.

ARTHUR:
By the way, did you hear the computer calling us just before the hatch closed?

FORD:
Oh, screw the computer! I hope it gets plug rot.

ARTHUR:
Hmm. Probably not important. I’ll be back in a minute.

[He walks off]

FORD:
Fine. Hey Zaphod! How are you doing?

ZAPHOD:
Aw, freezing man!

FORD:
Yeah.

ZAPHOD:
yeah. Every time I breathe out I need an ice pick to get through it.

FORD:
Yeah. Strange that.

ZAPHOD:
Awh.

FORD:
The computer said it was meant to have a warm, rich atmosphere.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah…. Did you hear the computer calling after we left?

FORD:
No.

ZAPHOD:
mm, I probably imagined it.

FORD:
No, Arthur thought he heard it as well.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah? Heh-heh, I must’ve imagined it then.

ARTHUR:
Wah-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

FORD:
Strange cave, isn’t it?

ZAPHOD:
Hey, it’s really weird!

FORD:
Did you hear a noise just then?

ZAPHOD:
A noise?

FORD:
Yeah. A sort of “Wah-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” noise.

ZAPHOD:
No.

FORD:
Oh. Arthur?!

ZAPHOD:
Doesn’t seem to be about.

FORD:
Oh well… I just wondered if he heard it.

ZAPHOD:
Doesn’t sound like he did.

FORD:
No-eh.

ZAPHOD:
Heh-he-he-he. This rock…

FORD:
Er, marble.

ZAPHOD:
Marble, yeah.

FORD:
I-ice covered marble.

ZAPHOD:
Yeah! It’s- it’s- it’s- it’s- it’s slippery as er…er, what’s, what’s the slipperiest thing you can think of?

FORD:
This moment? This marble.

ZAPHOD:
Right. This marble is as slippery as this marble. Kwoo-oooo-waaa! Ahhhk!

FORD:
Er, er, er, Zaphod!

[Zaphod stumbles and slides]

FORD:
Zaphod!

ZAPHOD:
Woo-eeeeeeeeeee!

FORD:
Zaphod!

[Zaphod slides]

ZAPHOD:
Weeee hooooo... ahhhhhhhh!

[Zaphod slides and tries to stop himself]

FORD:
Zaphod!

ZAPHOD:
Holy Zarquon’s singing fish!!!!!!

FORD:
What?

ZAPHOD:
There’s nothing out there Ford! Like, no ground! Some cat’s taken the ground away!

FORD:
Holy Zarquon’s what?

ZAPHOD:
There’s no ground, Ford. We’re miles up in the air!

FORD:
Did you say “fish”?

ZAPHOD:
”Singing Fish”.

FORD:
Where?

ZAPHOD:
It’s just an expression: “Holy Zarquon’s singing fish!”

FORD:
It must be a highly specialised expression then.

ZAPHOD:
What?

FORD:
Very specific. Not very handy in general usage.

ZAPHOD:
Gotta get a grip on the ice… to crawl back… gonna fall into nowhere.

FORD:
I know! I’m trying not to think about it! I get very nervous in these situations. I don’t think I can do anything to help you.

ZAPHOD:
What?!

FORD:
Arthur and Marvin must have gone over. You’re going to go over, and I can’t reach you without going over myself.

ZAPHOD:
Prefect!

FORD:
I’m sorry. Look, I do feel rather guilty about this, but can we talk about something else? Where does the expression “Holy Zarquon’s singing fish” come from? What’s is derivation?

ZAPHOD:
[Yells] Ford!

FORD:
Zaphod! Have you got any intellectual curiosity at all? It is often said that a disproportionate obsession with purely academic or abstract matters indicates a retreat from the problems of real life. However, most of the people engaged in such matters say that this attitude is based on three things: ignorance, stupidity, and nothing else. Philosophers, for example, argue that they are very much concerned with the problems posed by real life. Like, for instance, “what do we mean by real?”, and “how can we reach an empirical definition of life?”, and so on. One definition of life, albeit not a particularly useful one, might run something like this: “Life is that property which a being will lose as a result of falling out of a cold and mysterious cave thirteen miles above ground level.” This is not a useful definition, ‘A’ - because it could equally well refer to the subject’s glasses if he happens to be wearing them, and ‘B’ - because it fails to take into account the possibility that the subject might happen to fall onto, say, the back of an extremely large passing bird. The first of these flaws is due to sloppy thinking, but the second is understandable, because the mere idea is quite clearly, utterly ludicrous.


Scene 3. Ext. Sky.

[ARTHUR is falling]

ARTHUR:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

[ Sound of wings beating]

BIRD ONE:
Oh look, this is utterly ludicrous!

ARTHUR:
What?

BIRD ONE:
Let go of my leg.

ARTHUR:
No.

BIRD ONE:
C’mon, let go.

ARTHUR:
I can’t!

BIRD ONE:
Yes you can, it’s perfectly simple, unclasp your hands and buzz off.

ARTHUR:
But I can’t fly!

BIRD ONE:
Then what the devil are you doing up here?!

ARTHUR:
Falling!

BIRD ONE:
Then get on with it! Go on.

ARTHUR:
But the drop will kill me!

BIRD ONE:
You should’ve thought of that before you started out. No point in saying “I think I’ll just go for a quick drop and if I get tired on the way down, I’ll jump on a passing bird”. It’s not like that up here! It’s all to do with the harsh realities of physics up in the sky; it’s power-to-weight ratios, it’s wing cross-sections, wing surface-areas, it’s practical aerodynamics! It’s also cold and extremely windy! You’ll be better off on the ground.

ARTHUR:
No I won’t, I’ll be dead!

BIRD ONE:
Well, it’s your habitat, not mine.

ARTHUR:
It’s not a question of whose habitat it is, it’s a question of how fast you hit it! Ugh, couldn’t you please just see your way to taking me down to ground level and dropping me off?

BIRD ONE:
No, I’m dropping you off here, it’s as far down as I’m going.

ARTHUR:
But I -

BIRD ONE:
No, no, no. Listen! My race have been through the whole ground thing and I don’t want to know it, if the good Lord had meant us to walk he would have given us sneakers.

ARTHUR:
All right. Well! If that’s the way you feel about it: I’m sorry to have trespassed on your time. Goodbyeeeeeeeeeeeeee…

[ARTHUR jumps off and continues plummeting to the ground]

BIRD ONE:
Well there’s no need to go off in a huff about it. When you land swing your knees round, try an’ roll with it! Ah, hell.

[BIRD flies down and rescues ARTHRU]

ARTHUR:
Ahhhahhh! Oh! You again.

BIRD ONE:
Yes. It just occurred to me: where did you fall from?

ARTHUR:
Let go!

BIRD ONE:
First tell me where you fell from.

ARTHUR:
A huge, cold, white cave in the sky.

BIRD ONE:
You were in the cup?

ARTHUR:
What do you mean, “cup”?

BIRD ONE:
The cup, it’s part of the statue.

ARTHUR:
What statue?

BIRD ONE:
The statue.

ARTHUR:
I don’t know what you’re talking about! Let go!

BIRD ONE:
You mean you haven’t seen the statue?

ARTHUR:
No. Should I have done? Good is it? Let go! Your claws are digging in my back.

BIRD ONE:
Only decent thing our ancestors ever did. Come on, I’ll show you.

[BIRD flies them both off]

ARTHUR:
I want to go down, not up.

BIRD ONE:
There. You see it?

ARTHUR:
What?

BIRD ONE:
Look up, look up!

ARTHUR:
You’re hurting my neck.

BIRD ONE:
Soon be over. Look! That’s it.

ARTHUR:
But - It looks like… like… just like a plastic cup! Hanging in the sky. It’s…It’s about a mile long.

BIRD ONE:
Looks like plastic. Carved from solid marble there.

ARTHUR:
But the weight of it! What’s supporting it?! What keeps it there?!

BIRD ONE:
Art.

ARTHUR:
Art?!

BIRD ONE:
It’s only part of the main statue - fifteen miles high. It’s directly behind us, but I’ll circle round in a moment.

ARTHUR:
Fifteen miles high?

BIRD ONE:
Very impressive from up here with the morning sun gleaming on it.

ARTHUR:
But what is it? What’s worth a statue fifteen miles high?

BIRD ONE:
It was of great symbolic importance to our ancestors, it’s called ’Arthur Dent Throwing the Nutrimatic Cup’.

ARTHUR:
Sorry, what did you say?

[BIRD flies them closer]

BIRD ONE:
There. What do you think of it?

ARTHUR:
Ugh. Oh, oh. I mean…

NARRATOR:
’The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing universe. For though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does make the reassuring claim that where it is inaccurate, it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it is always reality that’s got it wrong. So, for instance, when the Guide was sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Traal literally - it said “Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists” instead of “Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists” - the editors claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing; summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty, and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred…and in a moving speech held that life itself was in contempt of court and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off for a pleasant evening’s Ultra-golf. The Guide’s omissions are less easily rationalised. There is nothing on any of its pages to tell you on which planets you can expect suddenly to encounter fifteen mile high statues of yourself, nor how to react if it is immediately apparent that they have become colonies for flocks of giant, evil-smelling birds - with all the cosmetic problems that implies. The nearest approach the Guide makes to this matter is on page seven-thousand-and-twenty-three, which includes the words “expect the unexpected.” This advice has annoyed many Hitch-Hikers in that it is ‘A’ - glib, and ‘B’ - a contradiction in terms. In fact, the very best advice it has to offer in these situations is to be found on the cover. Where it says, in those now notoriously large and famously friendly letters, “Don’t Panic”.


Scene 4. Ext. Sky Near Statue of Arthur Dent.

BIRD ONE:
Good isn’t it?

ARTHUR:
Don’t panic… don’t panic.

BIRD ONE:
What did you say?

ARTHUR:
What did you expect me to say? Here I am on an unknown planet, hanging from the talons of, with all due respect, a giant bird, and you take it into your head to fly me round a fifteen-mile high statue of myself. What do you expect me to say? “Quite a good likeness except the nose is a bit bent”?

BIRD ONE:
”Likeness”?

ARTHUR:
And the noxious streaky substances down my face are less than life-like.

BIRD ONE:
Likeness of you? You’re Arthur Dent?

ARTHUR:
Well, yes.

BIRD ONE:
The Arthur Dent?

ARTHUR:
”The” Arthur Dent I don’t know about, but that Arthur Dent is me. Can I ask you where you got it from?

BIRD ONE:
Our ancestors built it centuries ago.

ARTHUR:
Don’t panic.

BIRD ONE:
Well this is, truly incredible.

ARTHUR:
I wouldn’t argue with that.

BIRD ONE:
I think you’d better come and meet the rest of us. They’re going to be terribly surprised! And so, I think, are you.

ARTHUR:
Where do you all live?

BIRD ONE:
In your right ear. Hold on, we’ll dive into it.

[The BIRD flies towards the statue]

ARTHUR:
Ye-ewww!

BIRD ONE:
What is the matter?

ARTHUR:
The smell…

BIRD ONE:
What?

ARTHUR:
The smell, it’s terrible.

BIRD ONE:
I can’t hear what you’re saying.

ARTHUR:
Why don’t you wash my ear out?

BIRD ONE:
I said, I can’t hear what you’re saying.

ARTHUR:
oh never mind.

[Sound of hundreds of birds squawking]

BIRD ONE:
Hear that noise up ahead?

ARTHUR:
What, all that squawking?

BIRD ONE:
The Bird People of Brontitall, that’s us. Last of an unhappy race.

ARTHUR:
What’s wrong?

BIRD ONE:
Oh, just don’t ask. A once-proud people living in a foul-smelling ear. Pathetic isn’t it.? Hey old bird brothers!

BIRD PEOPLE:
[En masse] Hello.

ARTHUR:
Don’t you have names?

BIRD ONE:
What’s the point? Birds! I bring you a visitor! After all these years he visits us! This is Arthur Dent!

BIRD PEOPLE:
[En masse] Arthur Dent? Arthur Dent!

ARTHUR:
What do I say?

BIRD ONE:
Just say hello.

ARTHUR:
oh, uh. Hello.

BIRD PEOPLE:
[En masse] Hello.

LONE BIRD:
Small, isn’t he?!

ARTHUR:
I don’t actually understand what’s going on.

[Squawking increases]

ARTHUR:
Why are they making that appalling noise?

BIRD ONE:
Our leader is coming to talk to you.

ARTHUR:
Leader? You have a leader?

BIRD ONE:
Yes. We call him The Wise Old Bird.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Well, well, well.

BIRD ONE:
Ah.

ARTHUR:
And this is him is it?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Arthur Dent.

BIRD ONE:
This is him.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Arthur Dent!

ARTHUR:
I see.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Hm-huh. Arthur Dent. Heh-heh-heh-heh. Well, well, well. Heh-heh-heh-heh.

ARTHUR:
Sorry, should I know you?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Know me? Oh no, no, probably not. I am but he they are kind enough to call The Wise Old Bird. Henh-henh-heh. Now, where was I?

ARTHUR:
God knows.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Well let me tell you, with frank admiration -

ARTHUR:
Why admiration? What have I done? I fell out of a cup.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Well through all the generations that have past since we deserted the surface of this planet, girded up our limbs and shook the dust off our…

[Alarmed squawking]

WISE OLD BIRD:
Our…things… our, whachamacallits.

ARTHUR:
Your what?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Your face has been -

ARTHUR:
Shook the dust from the what?

WISE OLD BIRD:
…has been the one solitary candle that has illumined the recesses of our scraggy old bird brains.

ARTHUR:
Why doesn’t he want to say what you shook the dust from?

[Alarmed squawking]

WISE OLD BIRD:
All right, All right.

ARTHUR:
Well, can we come back to that point later?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Let’s have some lunch, shall we? Bring light. Light.

LONE BIRD:
Bring the light

ANOTEHR BIRD:
Turn on the light.

WISE OLD BIRD:
There we go.

LONE BIRD:
Here’s a light

ANOTEHR BIRD:
Here’s a light.

WISE OLD BIRD:
That we may gaze on the face of Arthur Dent.

[A match is struck and set to a parafin lamp]

ARTHUR:
Oh look, it really is filthy in here!

WISE OLD BIRD:
So this is how you appeared to our ancestors that night -

ARTHUR:
What night? What are you talking about?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Imagine our planet at the height of its technological civilisation…

ARTHUR:
Why?

WISE OLD BIRD:
…In the days when we too walked on the ground, much as you do even now.

ARTHUR:
Why does everyone want to tell me their life stories?

WISE OLD BIRD:
My dear old thing, you have such a sympathetic face.

ARTHUR:
Is that why you’ve done what you’ve done all over it? I’m sorry, but on my world I had a nice home and a good job with prospects and I get angry at the thought that my life suddenly consists of sitting in sewage filled models of my own ear, being patronised by a lot of demented birds!!!

[Squawks]

WISE OLD BIRD:
Now keep quiet, keep quiet.

ARTHUR:
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Carry on.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Such forthrightness, such fearless outspokenness! The qualities you awakened in us, Arthur Dent.

ARTHUR:
When?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Now listen. Our world suffered two blights. One was the blight of the robot.

ARTHUR:
Tried to take over did they?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Oh my dear fellow, no, no, no, no, no. Much worse than that. They told us they liked us.

ARTHUR:
No?!

WISE OLD BIRD:
Well, it’s not their fault, poor things, they’d been programmed to. But you can imagine how we felt, or at least our ancestors.

ARTHUR:
Ghastly.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Precisely. And then one night, the sky boiled…

ARTHUR:
It what?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Boiled, dear fellow, in the most improbable way.

ARTHUR:
Ah.

WISE OLD BIRD:
And this gigantic vision appeared in the sky. A man with a Nutrimatic Machine. You, Arthur Dent. And you said:

RECORDING OF ARTHUR:
Listen you stupid machine it tastes filthy! Here take this cup back!

WISE OLD BIRD:
…and you threw the cup at it! An astounding revelation!

ARTHUR:
It was nothing.

WISE OLD BIRD:
You were sarcastic to it! You said, er:

RECORDING OF ARTHUR:
So I’m a masochist on a diet, am I?!

WISE OLD BIRD:
…you told it to:

RECORDING OF ARTHUR:
Shut up!!

WISE OLD BIRD:
In a moment we realised the truth: Just because the little bitches liked us, it didn’t mean to say we had to like ‘em back. And that night we rounded out every last one of the little creeps:

GUY:
Bring out your dishwashers! Bring out your digital watches with the special snooze alarms! Bring out your TV Chess games! Bring out your Auto-gardener’s, Technoteachers, Love-O-Matics! Bring out your friendly household robots! Shove ‘em on the cart!

ROBOTIC PRODUCT:
What is this? Have we not loved you?

ANOTHER ROBOTIC PRODUCT:
Have we not cared for you?

YET ANOTHER ROBOTIC PRODUCT:
Have we not shared and enjoyed with you?

GUY:
Shut up you little toadies! Get on the cart!

[The robots murmur in concern]

WISE OLD BIRD:
And we set ‘em to work to build a statue as an eternal reminder. After which we sent them to a slave planet where they’re doing a very useful job making continent-toupees.

ARTHUR:
Making what?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Toupees, for worlds where they’ve used up all the forests.

ARTHUR:
Ah. Look, the statue, how did you get the cup bit to stay where it is unsupported?

WISE OLD BIRD:
It stays there because it’s artistically right.

ARTHUR:
What?

WISE OLD BIRD:
The law of gravity isn’t as indiscriminate as people often think. You learn things like that when you’re a bird.

ARTHUR:
But you didn’t start out as birds?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Oh, no, no, no, no. We were forced to re-evolve by the second and more deadly blight.

[Alarmed squawking]

WISE OLD BIRD:
And that was already too advanced by the time we rid ourselves of the robot blight. Ah…! What woe was upon us…

ARTHUR:
All right. What woe was upon you?

[Alarmed squawking]

WISE OLD BIRD:
Too terrible to speak of. Imagine this: we walked.

BIRD PEOPLE:
We walked. We walked.

ARTHUR:
What’s so wrong about that?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Nothing. We went for strolls, we jogged, we marched, we ambled. We competed in five-hundred-meter hurdles.

BIRD PEOPLE:
…meter hurdles… meter hurdles.

WISE OLD BIRD:
Imagine how our ancestors felt to walk through our great cities, stride across the pedestrian precincts, stroll along walkways, maybe wander into a small buy and barter and have lunch with a girlfriend.

ARTHUR:
What?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Hmm. Yeah. Maybe play, ha,ha, maybe play footsy under the table. Ha, ha. And she say how she’d been walking here, strolling there, wandering into shops, maybe trying to buy a pair of -

[Alarmed squawking]

WISE OLD BIRD:
uh, buy some things… you know, um, some… some whachamacallits.

ARTHUR:
What things? Are these the things you refused to talk about brushing the dust off?

[Squaws]

ARTHUR:
Oh come on!

WISE OLD BIRD:
And then they would saunter off into the sunset.

ARTHUR:
Yes, very idyllic. So what went wrong?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Ahh! Too terrible to speak of.

ARTHUR:
Then why did you bring it up in the first place?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Suffice it to say that we have sworn never to walk upon the ground again.

ARTHUR:
What’s the matter with it?

WISE OLD BIRD:
Awhh. If you want to know, you will have to descend to the ground where you will encounter those who have come to unravel the unspeakable nightmare of our past.

BIRD PEOPLE:
Unspeakable! Unspeakable! Unspeakable! Unspeakable! Unspeakable! Unspeakable! Nightmare!

ARTHUR:
All right. How do I get down there?

WISE OLD BIRD:
There’s an ancient express elevator down your spine that will take you straight down to ground level.

ARTHUR:
Well anything to get out of my ear. Show me the way.

[Squawking]

ARTHUR:
Can’t be much more unspeakable than this lot.

NARRATOR:
In today’s modern Galaxy there is, of course, very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and, in extreme cases, shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed, and totally unf [bleep!] ked-up personality. So, for instance, when in a recent national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another, and the fact that no one had made any food for awhile and the king seemed to have died, and that most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy had now arrived at what he called, “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. But though even words like “juju-flop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage, there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one - where they don’t know what it means. That word is “Belgium” and it is only ever used by loose-tongued people like Zaphod Beeblebrox in situations of dire provocation. Such as…


Scene 5. Int. Cave

FORD:
… and I’ll tell you another interesting thing.

ZAPHOD:
I don’t want to be interested! I don’t want to be stimulated or relaxed, or have my horizon’s broadened, I just want to be rescued Ford! I just want to be swodding-well rescued!

FORD:
Well I’m sorry, I’ve told you: no way.

ZAPHOD:
Oh, Belgium man, Belgium!

FORD:
Alright… I’ll get my towel.

ZAPHOD:
Towel?

FORD:
Yeah, I’ll hold onto this end and I’ll throw you the other end.

[He throws towel]

FORD:
There. Got it?

ZAPHOD:
I got it.

FORD:
Okay, pull.

ZAPHOD:
[He pulls] I’m pulling

FORD:
Ye - um - that’s it

ZAPHOD:
(grunting)

FORD:
Pull, yeah, come on pull. That’s it, that’s it, pull. hey, Hey, Heeeeyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…

FORD:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

ZAPHOD:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

[They fall out of the cup]

FORD:
You stupid git!

ZAPHOD:
You said pull, man!

FORD:
Yeah - not that hard!

ZAPHOD:
How hard did you expect me to pull, just not quite hard enough to actually pull me up?!

FORD:
I can’t stand heights!

ZAPHOD:
Then don’t worry, we’re on our way down. Listen, we’ll be all right. We may land in the water or something, you know. Can you swim?

FORD:
I don’t know.

ZAPHOD:
What do you mean you don’t know?

FORD:
Well I don’t like to go into water, you know, in any great detail.

ZAPHOD:
What kind of traveller are you man? Don’t like heights, don’t like water!

FORD:
It’s perfectly natural: I just get a kick out of being on the ground.

ZAPHOD:
Well any minute now you’ll have the biggest kick of your life!

FORD:
Suppose we couldn’t get picked up by bird on the way down…

ZAPHOD:
A bird?

FORD:
Yeah, a bird, you know, with wings.

ZAPHOD:
Have to be a swodding big one man.

FORD:
Or two of them.

ZAPHOD:
Hey, will you get your head back on! The chances against one guy falling onto a passing bird are ten-to-the-power-of my overdraft! But two is just - waahhhhhhhh!

[Sound of wings flapping]

BIRD TWO:
Look, this is utterly ludicrous.

NARRATOR:
Meanwhile, Arthur is in the thick of it. No sooner has he emerged from the cavernous gap between two of the statue’s toes into a thick ball of smoke, than he has been accosted thus:


Scene 5. Ext. Surface of Planet

FOOT WARRIOR:
Halt. Who goes there?

ARTHUR:
What?

FOOT WARRIOR:
Friend or fe?

ARTHUR:
Who me?

FOOT WARRIOR:
Friend or foe!

ARTHUR:
Do I know you?

FOOT WARRIOR:
Answer! Friend or foe!

ARTHUR:
Well, without knowing you it’s hard to tell. I mean I quite like some people, others, not so much.

FOOT WARRIOR:
Answer!

ARTHUR:
Well it has to be said that on balance very few of the people I count, or rather counted, as friends, most of them have been disintegrated you see, very few of them have piercing red eyes, black armour, and laser rifles. So I think the answer is probably veering towards -

FOOT WARRIOR:
Answer or I fire!

ARTHUR:
Ah! Well that clinches it I’m afraid - I don’t think we’re going to be friends.

FOOT WARRIOR:
This planet is the property of the Dolmansaxlil Galactic Corporation. Trespassers are to be shot!

ARTHUR:
Whose property? What about the bird people?

FOOT WARRIOR:
You have established communication with the avian perverts?

ARTHUR:
Well, chatted… Didn’t understand a lot of it to be honest… What do you mean, “perverts”?!

FOOT WARRIOR:
Perverts! Subversives! All perverts, subversives, and trespassers are to be shot.

ARTHUR:
Well that should keep you busy. Bye now.

FOOT WARRIOR:
Halt!

[Sound of running footsteps]

FOOT WARRIOR:
I command you to halt!

[Laser fire, followed by more running]

NARRATOR:
And also accosted thus:

FOOT WARRIOR TWO:
Halt! Who goes there? Friend or Foe?

ARTHUR:
Depends what you like!

FOOT WARRIOR TWO:
Halt or I fire!

[More running, followed by more laser fire]

NARRATOR:
And finally, thus:

[Even more laser fire]

LINTILLA:
Here! Get down!

ARTHUR:
What? Huh…

LINTILLA:
Into the trench! C’mon, there’s a hidden shelter.

ARTHUR:
Oh! Thanks.

LINTILLA:
Shhh. Now

ARTHUR:
Who are you?

LINTILLA:
Archaeologist.

ARTHUR:
What?

LINTILLA:
Shhh.

ARTHUR:
Archaeologist?

LINTILLA:
Yes.

FOOT WARRIOR:
All perverts, …

ARTHUR:
What are you doing?

FOOT WARRIOR:
…subversives, and trespassers…

LINTILLA:
Digging, researching, trying to stay alive.

FOOT WARRIOR:
…are to be shot.

ARTHUR:
With that lot around?

[Laser fire can be heard in the background]

LINTILLA:
Most particularly because that lot are around.

ARTHUR:
With all the laser guns and the armour and things?

LINTILLA:
yes.

ARTHUR:
Odd thing. They all seem to be limping.

LINTILLA:
yes.

ARTHUR:
Why?

FOOT WARRIOR:
This planet is the property…

LINTILLA:
Blisters.

FOOT WARRIOR:
…of the Dolmansaxlil Galactic Corporation!

ARTHUR:
Ah! So that’s why they’re limping.

FOOT WARRIOR:
Trespassers are to be shot!

LINTILLA:
Yes.

ARTHUR:
Why have they got blisters?

LINTILLA:
That, whoever you are, is a very good question.

ARTHUR:
and the answer?

LINTILLA:
That’s what I’m here to find out.

ARTHUR:
Really? Strange job for an archaeologist.

NARRATOR:
Why should a nice young archaeologist whose name, incidentally, is Lintilla, be particularly interested in a band of limping soldiers? Will Ford and Zaphod have to go through all the business with the Wise Old Bird, or will they persuade the bird they’ve so improbably landed on to take them to the ground, so that they can get straight on with the next bit? Find out in the next intriguing episode of ’The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’.

ANNOUNCER:
In that episode of ’The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, Peter Jones was The Book. Simon Jones was Arthur Dent. Geoffrey McGivern was Ford Prefect. Mark Wing-Davey was Zaphod Beeblebrox; Stephen Moore was Marvin; David Tate was Eddie; Ronald Baddiley was Bird One; John Baddeley was Bird Two and the Foot Warrior; Rula Lenska was Lintilla; and John Le Mesurier was the Wise Old Bird. Radio-Phonic sound and music was by Paddy Kingsland of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The program was written by Douglas Adams and produced by Geoffrey Perkins. Parents of young, organic life forms are warned that towels can be harmful if swallowed in large quantities.