This is the web page dedicated to the story of the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, perhaps the most remarkable, certainly the most successful, book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor - more popular that the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than 53 more things to do with your old pentium II, and more controversial than Oolon Coluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More Of God's Mistakes, and Who is this God Person Anyway?

The HHG is far less stuffy than the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the repository for anything anyone would care to know, and although may contain fewer entries, and many mistakes, it does have the advantage of being slightly cheaper, and has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on the cover

For those of you who have been fortunate to stumble across this brilliant radio series, then I need not explain to much about it, but for those of you who have only just come out of a time warp and have no idea what to do when found in the hold of a Vogon Spaceship, or what minerals travelling through hyperspace uses up, then read on...

THHGTTG came about when Douglas Adams was lying drunk in a field in Innsbrook. He had been reading the various Hitch-hikers guides to.., when he found himself staring up at the stars and though, hey, why doesn't somebody write a guide to the galaxy. The idea sort of rested for a few years and then, wallop, hit him, and the rest of the known universe, with a bang.

Up until this time, radio comedy had been fairly plain, with the amount of special effects minimal, but Douglas wanted to change all of that, and started writing a series that would stretch the BBC to it's limits... But why should I spoil the story when he tells it himself far better on the GUIDE TO THE HITCH-HIKERS GUIDE. This double cassette from the BBC Radio Collection, released a year or so ago contains the special 20th Anniversary show, 20 Years of the Hitch-hikers Guide, plus a previously un-broadcast, un-heard interview with the late Douglas Adams.

There are also a couple of videos available from Auntie. The complete TV series has been issued either as two single videos, or as a double video (shown to the left) and there is also a companion video, The Making of. The complete volume costs aound £17 (or it did when I bought it!) and the making of £12.99, and although little pricey, the latter has all sorts of outtakes and bloopers, plus other not seen before stuff, and is worth it to a true fan!

But enough of these gratuitous plugs for the BBC. The series starts on Earth, with Arthur Dent, and Ford Prefect. Arthur is about to have his house knocked down by council workmen, and is not to happy about this when Ford, a friend and researcher for THHG from the planet Betelgeuse, tells him he better follow him to the pub for a drink, as this will be the best way to break the news that the Earth is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace express route through the Earths star system.

Instead of finding himself vapourised with the destruction of the Earth, it turns out that Ford has hitched a ride on the Vogon ship, that which has just demolished the Earth, for both of them. They are subsequently discovered by the Vogons, who are not reknown for their hospitality, nor their poetry, and eventually chucked into space in the Sector ZZ9 plural Z alpha . To prevent a whole load of BBC money being wasted at this moment in time, the pair are picked up by improbable odds, by Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox, who is just this guy who it happens, has stolen the Infinite Improbability Drive, a wonderful new way of crossing interstellar distances in a few second.

Ford knows Zaphod, Arthur knows Trillian, and they are all about to know Slartibartfast, who makes Fjords for a living, or at least did until he was given Africa to do for the second Earth (which was required as the first was destoryed before the mice could get the results from their experiment!). Have I lost you yet???? To be honest, there is little point in continuing, as without actually hearing the series, there is no way I could do it justice. Of course, if you prefer to just read, then you could always go out and buy the five books in the trilogy (and actually get the whole story as they continue on from where the series left off, or you could track down the BBC video of the TV series of the same name (but be prepared for a slightly different story line!). Whatever you decide, if you haven't sampled the delights of THHGTTG yet, then do one of them!