Best thing ever or complete sacrilege?

Eoin Colfer is to write a book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Is it great that Ford Prefect, Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox get another outing or is it the worst thing since cheese in a can? I'm reserving judgement till I read it. The Guardian has this to say:

The book will "make no claims for Eoin being Douglas", according to Prior. "It's not Eoin Colfer writing as Douglas Adams, as was the case with Sebastian Faulks," she said, pointing to Penguin's successful publication of Faulks's new James Bond novel Devil May Care earlier this year. "It's absolutely about him being himself – Eoin the author, but with the cast of Hitchhiker."

Colfer himself is currently grappling with nerves over the quality of his addition to Adams' oeuvre. "I feel more pressure to perform now than I ever have with my own books, and that is why I am bloody determined that this will be the best thing I have ever written," he said. "For the first time in decades I feel the uncertainty that I last felt in my teenage years. There are people out there that really want to like this book."

Douglas Adams was an amazing writer. Who else could come up with lines like

The hotel shop only had two decent books, and I'd written both of them.

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.

Many had seen it as clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

It said: 'The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.
"For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?"

The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

The sign said: Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion. 'It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.'

I could do this for pages. I love the book and the radio series. I think the film missed the point a bit. Go read it. It's worth it. Don't panic or forget your towel!

Happy new year

Been away from Bloglandia but I will return soon with more vitriol and bitching. In the meantime some funny:

"A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." - Blackadder

"My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes." - Ford Prefect

"I smeared my opponents, bribed the press to be on my side, and threatened to torture the electorate if we lost! I fail to see what more a decent politician could have done." - Pitt the even Younger

"So in the name of security, all men entering the premises must have their bottoms fondled by this drooling pervert?" - Blackadder

"If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now." - Zaphod Beeblebrox

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools" - Ford Prefect

"Come on, Ted. Sure it's no more peculiar than all that stuff we learned in the seminary, you know, Heaven and Hell and everlasting life and all that type of thing. You're not meant to take it seriously, Ted!" - Father Dougal

"They were a bit obsessed with the old...S-E-X. God I'm glad I never think of that type of thing Father. That whole sexual world. God, when you think of it it's a dirty, filthy thing, isn't it Father? Can you imagine Father? Can you imagine Father, looking up at your husband, him standing over you with his lad in his hand, wanting you to degrade yourself? God almighty can you imagine that Father? Can you picture it there Father? Oh get a good mental picture of it. Can you see him there? Ready to do the business? - Mrs Doyle

"I'm not a fascist, I'm a priest. Fascists dress in black and go around telling people what to do, whereas...priests..." - Father Ted

Apologies to Monty Python

My phone tripped down the stairs this morning.

It's not pining, it's passed on. This phone is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late phone. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't glued it together, it would be pushing up the daisies. Its mechanical processes are now history! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This is an ex-phone!

I will sacrifice my lunchtime to go shopping for a new lifeline, of the Nokia kind.

Often wrong

Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields.' (Source)

Wrong again Bush. Honestly does no one fact check your speeches? The term "killing fields" was coined in Cambodia, where admittedly the US bombed illegally and heavily. Some even say it contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. It is one thing to fight a war in Vietnam and quite another to violate international borders to make you killed as many North Vietnamese as possible.

And seriously, hire someone to proof and fact check your speeches.

Decline and fall

I am reading Gibbon's Decline and fall of the Roman empire at the moment. It is interesting, intelligently written and full of magnificent quotations. So here are a few on governance...

That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members.

But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy.

Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty

The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

I think these have relevance in today's political climate.