On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:58:35 +0100, Bill Pragnell wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> How many times had Lintilla been cloned?
>>> Millions, as I recall, and, typically for Adams, a terribly specific
>>> number.
>> 
>> 578 thousand million times. :-)
> 
> "Don't worry, the others aren't here right now."

"I don't think you CAN dig your way off a planet..."

>>>> What was the ratio of Lintilla clones to lonely business executives
>>>> that was maintained to keep the laws of supply and demand in balance?
>>> Crikey, this merely rings a bell.
>> 
>> It's a bit of a trick question - the cloning machine was making 6
>> copies of Lintilla for a Brantasvogon escort agency while another was
>> making 500 lonely business executives to keep the laws of supply and
>> demand working profitably.  The ratio, therefore, is 6:500. :-)  The
>> "trick" is that most would think of the much larger number (578
>> thousand million)
> 
> Oh yes, I only recently noticed this joke, the first time I listened to
> the series I was a little young to get that one.

One of the reasons I like the series so much - there's a lot of nuanced 
jokes, not to mention social commentary.  For example:

"The President's job - and if someone sufficiently vain and stupid he 
won't realize this - is not to wield power, but to draw attention away 
from it."

>>>> Which escape capsule did Ford and Arthur get into in the Hagunnenon
>>>> ship?
>>> Ah, a fifty-fifty. Very generous! Um, left? My imagination says right
>>> and for some reason my imagination always gets left and right wrong.
>> 
>> They got into the right-hand one.  Ford tells Zaphod "You and the
>> others take the left-hand one". :-)
> 
> Arse. Damn you, brain.

LOL!

Who was Trillian said to be married to after this scene occurred?

>>>> In the end of the first episode, there's a chord played played after
>>>> Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz issues his ultimatum to Ford and Arthur.  What
>>>> is the piece of music that chord comes from, and who was the
>>>> composer?
>>> I thought it was a radiophonic effect. Sounds like an organ, so I'll
>>> say Bach.
>> 
>> Nope, far, far too dissonant for Bach.  Its Lontano, from A Modern Mass
>> for the Dead by Ligeti.
> 
> Well, it was a wild stab in the dark. :)

I'm glad I wasn't in front of the knife.  Not that it was an easy 
question, I had to look up the spelling of the name. :-)  I have to 
admit, though, that in the tertiary-quintessential phases, this is 
something I missed a lot - I liked that DNA used recognisable pieces of 
music for the backdrop; the music behind the "ad" for Milliways, for 
example, is The Engulfed Cathedral by Claude Debussy, but performed by 
Isao Tomita.  I have the album here somewhere, in fact (entitled 
"Snowflakes are Dancing", another Debussy work).

>>>> Listened to that bit on the drive in this morning.  Fit the Twelfth
>>>> finished just as I pulled into my parking spot.
>> 
>> I always like when that happens, and it happens more often than it
>> seems it should by chance.
> Well, with a 45 minute commute and 30 minute episodes it's bound to
> happen half the time, surely? :)

But the episodes aren't 30 minutes; they actually have a running time of 
between 29 and 30 minutes (originally), but the new series' recordings I 
have are extended editions, and a few of them run as long as 40 minutes 
with the added material.

> "Fact: I ache, therefore I am. Or in my case, I am, therefore I ache.
> Oh, look. I appear to be lying at the bottom of a very deep, dark hole.
> That seems a familiar concept. What does it remind me of? Ah, yes. Life.
> Perhaps if I lie here and ignore it it'll go away again. Or perhaps not.
> To be perfectly frank with myself, if it didn't go away as a result of
> my falling thirteen miles through the air and a further mile through
> solid rock, I'm probably stuck with it for good. Why don't I climb out?
> Why don't I just lie here? Why don't I just go zootle wurdle? Does it
> matter? Even if it does matter, does it matter that it matters? Zootle
> wurdle, zootle wurdle..."
> 
> And so on.

"I know."

"Shut up, Marvin, this is *organism* talk."

"It's printed in the earthman's brain wave patterns, but I suppose you'll 
be very interested in knowing that."

"You mean you can see into my mind?"

"Yes"

"And?"

"It amazes me how you manage to live in anything that small."

"Ah.  Abuse!"

"Ah, ignore him, he's only making it up."

"Making it up?  Why should I want to make anything up?  Life's bad enough 
as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."

Jim

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